BBC Music's Scores
- Music
For 1,831 reviews, this publication has graded:
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68% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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28% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: | Live in Detroit 1986 | |
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Lowest review score: | If Not Now, When? |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,531 out of 1831
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Mixed: 293 out of 1831
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Negative: 7 out of 1831
1831
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 30, 2013
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Quadrophenia is one of the few albums of its time that sounds as good today as it must have done then. For once, the term 'masterpiece' is not sold on the cheap.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 30, 2011
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Seventy-four years on, he has recorded what is surely the blues album of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 29, 2010
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Listening to it today, marvelling at his seemingly effortless way with a tune, it's understandable why it remains a classic of its era.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 27, 2011
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Fourteen years later, this reissue reveals a record so unique and ahead-of-its-time that nothing else has sounded like it since.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 21, 2012
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- BBC Music
- Posted May 17, 2012
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Should you be keen to pick your way through the evolutionary process of one of rock's greatest ever long-players, hearing every fuzzy demo and work-in-progress chorus, now you've the chance like never before.- BBC Music
- Posted Sep 28, 2011
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A fans-pleasing eighth album from Britain's most consistently brilliant band.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 18, 2011
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In any form, What's Going On is an album that everyone should have in their collection; no matter how many times you play it, there is always something else to discover.- BBC Music
- Posted Aug 2, 2011
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They are, right now, the most inspirational, intriguing, effortlessly enrapturing band at work on these shores. And Smother might well prove to be the album of 2011.- BBC Music
- Posted May 9, 2011
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Only behind such a distracting smokescreen could Damon Albarn get away with conducting a project as sprawling, daring, innovative, surprising, muddled and magnificent as Plastic Beach: not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole.- BBC Music
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- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 6, 2013
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The set is a masterclass in how to respectfully update and enhance classic music, and proves how vital and relevant 30-year-old music remains today.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 20, 2010
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With its harder edge, its hindsight-laden sense of imminent loss and its sheer dirtiness, L.A. Woman comprises a brilliant bridge between the floral madness of the 1960s and the tougher decade to come.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 17, 2012
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It's come late, but Basic Instinct is one of the best RnB albums of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 10, 2010
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- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 9, 2012
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- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 2, 2012
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It's not merely a rehash of the original, but a cohesive, considered masterpiece in its own right.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 18, 2011
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21 is simply stunning. After only a handful of plays, it feels like you've always known it.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 27, 2011
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Even on a cursory listen, a water-testing foray into its 16 tracks, it's immediately apparent that this is an album unlike either that came before it.- BBC Music
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The result is a remarkable display of creative unity and a stellar masterpiece sitting alongside the group's best work.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 1, 2011
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Almost 15 years on it remains a stereo regular, and loved like the day it was delivered, awkwardly and self-consciously, into a world that didn't know what to do with it. And, largely, still doesn't. So give it a home, won't you; it could be your album of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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Innovative, dark, bold and creative, it’s an album only David Bowie could make.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 26, 2013
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The Promise is as compelling an advert for the Boss's beautiful, blue-collar soul as you're likely to find outside of the hits; an indispensible portrait of an artist at the top of his game. File this one under American Greats.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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There's no fault to be found with Skying--truly, every song here hits its mark, and while The Horrors are evidently a band happy to change its spots from record to record (and steal a few licks, too), only the most ungracious of observers could deny that they've now crafted two of the finest British albums of recent years.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 6, 2011
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Monkeytown is the sound of two men working in harmony, perfectly in control of their machines. And it may just be one of the albums of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Oct 7, 2011
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Purity Ring have pulled off the feat of producing one of the year's most arresting debuts – a Grimm Tales for the 2010s, shrouded in the illusory threads of contemporary club music – while sounding like no-one else but themselves.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 25, 2012
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Until the Quiet Comes further catapults Ellison into the cosmos and away from all things terrestrial. He's the king of his domain, and there is no runner-up.- BBC Music
- Posted Sep 28, 2012
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Please enjoy someone actually putting a bit of effort and imagination back into pop, and keep the sneering and lazy comparisons in check. Not that they can take anything away from what is, simply, a marvellous record.- BBC Music
- Posted May 19, 2011
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In fact, every track on this superb album is a winner--and, draped in the quiet glamour, fun and stateliness of bygone radio pop-rock, evidence that Ariel has emerged from his bedroom to exact his revenge on Hollywood's Hills.- BBC Music
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The quality of Georgia Peaches is expectedly sketchy – but such is the energy conveyed that it's tough indeed to not become caught up in the crackly cacophony.- BBC Music
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Aphrodite is pure Kylie magic. Everything that made you fall in love with her all over again before is present and correct here.- BBC Music
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The Seer might not be the album you spend most time with this year--it's too emotionally demanding for heavy rotation – but it's one you'll be listening to for years to come.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 28, 2012
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The result is a dizzying fusion, marked by its lofty ambition and stunning central performance.- BBC Music
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The end-of-year lists for 2012 are barely gone from recent memory, but you can expect to read about Vertikal again in 11 months' time.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 25, 2013
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The exceptional musicianship and impeccable vocals may not be to everyone's taste, but for 40 very happy minutes, you can revel in SJDK's very discrete world.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 14, 2011
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Their 11th studio album is 40 minutes of gorgeous nothings, full of intricate curlicues of sparkling Colin Newman guitar and synth given beef by the surging rhythms of Robert Grey aka Gotobed and Graham Lewis- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 7, 2011
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Harnessing those tropes to dexterous finger-picking and chiming Gamelan, along with the often jaw-dropping vocal delivery of Alan Bishop (his bravura performance on The Imam is right up there with his blood-curdling incantatory work on Master Musicians of Bukkake's People of the Drifting Houses) has resulted in Sun City Girls' most accessible and consistent album (a far cry from their puzzling and profligate series of Carnival Folklore Resurrection volumes).- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 18, 2010
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Rather than adhering to type, Black Mountain now have a catalogue of songs that respect and rival their influences.- BBC Music
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So while an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognize it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.- BBC Music
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In terms of conceptual realisation, Liquid Swords is a blueprint for the perfect Wu record.- BBC Music
- Posted Sep 7, 2012
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This is electronic psychedelic-groove, flush with drama. Neither space rock nor alt-dance but flickering somewhere on the cusp of both, it should win back deserters while glamouring new converts.- BBC Music
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- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 1, 2011
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Love Me Back is worth so much more than the future classic tag it's been lumped with--it's an instant and self-assured blast of a record, its maker a new star to love- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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Prepare to be smitten all over again, as the NYC outfit release a brilliant fourth album.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 16, 2011
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Ten is incredible. It's up there with Gold, Substance and Discography in terms of greatest-hits sets.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 2, 2013
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Origin:Orphan finds them finally able to out-wow the full spectacle of their magnificent shows, proving they are a serious and sophisticated musical force to be reckoned with as well as a mind-blowingly good gigging proposition.- BBC Music
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Overall, Rage Against the Machine has aged extremely well.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 29, 2012
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It might only be February, but you wouldn't look foolish calling this one of the albums of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 29, 2012
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Meir is an album that will be regarded with such reverence that it’ll be a marker for other acts’ work to be compared to in the future.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 26, 2013
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Full-tilt, power-pop catharsis and ecstatic blaze-of-glory euphoria – catchier than H1N1.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 14, 2011
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If you're not quite there by the time six-and-a-half minute opus Eyesore encapsulates everything that's been wonderful about the preceding 36 before slowly fading out, turn it over and start again. It's worth it, because Public Strain is one of 2010's finest LPs.- BBC Music
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To listen to the pioneering Tago Mago in 2011 is to hear the blueprint for much of the leftfield music of the past 40 years, and this reissue will hopefully inspire further invention for decades to come.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 1, 2011
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- BBC Music
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- BBC Music
- Posted Jun 17, 2011
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Soundgarden, Seattle natives at the epicentre of the early 1990s' plaid-and-flannel rock scene, already have one best-of to their name, 1997's A-Sides. But Telephantasm goes further, spreading itself across 24 tracks and two discs, including excellent live performances alongside commercially released singles.- BBC Music
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The initial surprise on this follow-up is discovering that Grant’s songs work as well--if not even better--when paired with a synth-pop backing rooted more in the 1980s than the preceding decade.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 7, 2013
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This nearly flawless collection is simply the next step in the Baroness saga, and it's a beautiful one.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 13, 2012
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Despite the spare instrumentation, there's no sense of repetition or lack of variety, and these emotive, excellent songs stay with you. A late contender for album of the year.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 26, 2012
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It's a pure, you're-only-as-old-as-you-feel joy to hear British hip hop's most original and inspiring voice hitting his peak as he approaches his 40th year.- BBC Music
- Posted Sep 23, 2011
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Godspeed have once again created a challenging, intense, evocative work, worthy of their canon.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 15, 2012
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- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 12, 2012
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Some have decried the use of clicks and fuzz, but they're surely half the point in this exquisite album-length disquisition on memory and desire, love and loss.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 28, 2011
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- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 13, 2012
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With Route One or Die they have managed to destroy not only their previous releases, but potentially anything else released in 2011.- BBC Music
- Posted Aug 16, 2011
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The Deserters, given a chance, will completely negate any such journalistic silliness with just one listen, because it is a jolt of psychedelic, oozing instrumental wonder and songwriting magnificence.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 6, 2013
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Released in the summer of 1986, the grammatically challenged Lifes Rich Pageant was their fourth long-player and, with hindsight, a watershed album residing on the cusp between the group's initial chiming-but-oblique garage-rock signature and the stadium-tailored sound of the albums with which they would seduce the world later in the decade.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 15, 2011
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There are around 20,000 records like this released every year by female troubadours. But there's something just very right, and really quite splendid, about Get Well Soon. It could well prove to be a timeless little wonder.- BBC Music
- Posted May 11, 2011
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Clearly neither advancing age nor years of unabated success have deprived Plant of either his constant appetite for challenge or his ability to deliver in a cogent, credible and thoroughly convincing fashion.- BBC Music
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- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 28, 2011
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While it won't please those expecting a selection of aggressive dubstep workouts, Severant is a stunning debut that gives up more secrets with every listen.- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 14, 2011
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Although less varied and dynamic than Rated R, Queens of the Stone Age simply crackles with energy. At its best, it's just as electrifying, even if it doesn't maintain the dizzying momentum which rolled its follow-up to instant glory.- BBC Music
- Posted Apr 14, 2011
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It's when the ceaseless forward momentum of old hijacks Pop Negro's new structural nous that the most rewarding moments arrive here, the aforementioned Soca Del Eclipse, Ghetto Facil and Muerte Midi highlights of an album that's among the year's best, and that, while immediately enchanting, will take years to unravel.- BBC Music
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- BBC Music
- Posted Nov 23, 2011
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- BBC Music
- Posted Apr 19, 2011
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Flash, brash and brimming with an irrepressible anarchic vigour, more than anything, Bring Your Own is a thing of unfettered joy.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 18, 2011
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This is a glorious summation of Blur's career, placing them firmly amongst the very best bands of all time.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 23, 2012
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This album, Mark Ronson's "imaginary follow up to Rio that never was", is their best for 18 years.- BBC Music
- Posted Mar 18, 2011
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In a world overflowing with female singer-songwriters, Anna Calvi's exceptional guitar playing and raw, elemental style certainly mark her out as different from the herd.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 10, 2011
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A brief, brilliant record that leaves you panting, Body Talk, Part 2 is the latest evidence that Robyn is probably the best, most versatile pop star currently at work.- BBC Music
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Rarely does a British debut album forge such a fully formed, genuinely unique direction that attempts to slot it into established scenes prove almost entirely fruitless. But Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam, the full-length bow of late-20s wisdom dispenser/producer Obaro 'Ghostpoet' Ejimiwe, achieves such a feat.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 18, 2011
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What can't be denied, however, is that the album easily deserves its place in the hearts of those who admire fellow fuzzy-edged slackers Superchunk, Pavement and Guided by Voices as much as those new to the game, who'll find echoes of the band's sound fizzling through modern-day collegiate grungesters like Milk Music or Gun Outfit.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 6, 2011
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There is so much personality, poetry, vulnerability and resilience here that most other records sound like dry runs by comparison.- BBC Music
- Posted Jun 1, 2012
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- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 8, 2011
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With its high-minded lyrical concerns, its family-sized choruses and its authors' buoyant pursuit of what, in lesser hands, could be a restrictive musical form, True North is a superior addition to Bad Religion's already towering body of work.- BBC Music
- Posted Jan 18, 2013
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An LP as weighty, compelling and brilliant as The Bad Seeds have ever produced.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 11, 2013
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Twenty years on, Achtung (German for "Attention") Baby still sounds zestful and compelling, with some of U2's all-time highs.- BBC Music
- Posted Oct 31, 2011
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There is no doubt in this mind that Narrows have created one of the hardcore albums of 2012. There is a strange kind of beauty in unbridled monstrosity, and Painted is a stunning behemoth of an album.- BBC Music
- Posted Sep 5, 2012
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Referring to Quakers as a collective is a touch disingenuous.... But, fresh and subtle spins on hip hop are sufficiently widespread throughout this set that it's just about the only complaint worth making.- BBC Music
- Posted Apr 3, 2012
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The criticisms are minor--a couple of tracks slide back into familiar Americana, but even then there's no sense of the band coasting.- BBC Music
- Posted Jul 10, 2012
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In fact, this record's only flaw is that its scale is so awe-inspiring it tends to paper over any weaker cracks.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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It's far ahead enough of that competition, intellectually and inspirationally, to exist on another plane of appreciation altogether.- BBC Music
- Posted May 29, 2012
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Fortunately, the remainder of the album is a powerful, intimate, sumptuous delight in which the orchestra enhances the innate grandeur of Antony's music.- BBC Music
- Posted Dec 14, 2012
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Shaking the Habitual is something else, but it’s hard not to find that profoundly exhilarating.- BBC Music
- Posted Apr 1, 2013
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- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 15, 2011
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Whether as the fanfare arrival of a unique new voice or the peculiar indulgence of a future cult classic, this is an album that has to be heard to be believed.- BBC Music
- Posted Apr 29, 2013
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Senior makes a strong claim to be 2010's best electronic album. It's a record to lie back and drown in.- BBC Music
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Overall, Black Radio surpasses the excellence of Double Booked, which is a brilliant album in its own right.- BBC Music
- Posted Feb 28, 2012
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ECM may have its detractors, but they've given us an unexpected gem here and maybe one of the jazz records of the year so far.- BBC Music
- Posted May 15, 2012
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That OutKast comeback will surely be killer, but for now respect is due the way of this splendid solo adventure.- BBC Music
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