New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

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For 6,004 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 to hell with it [Mixtape]
Lowest review score: 0 Maroon
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,226 out of 6004
  2. Mixed: 1,625 out of 6004
  3. Negative: 153 out of 6004
6004 music reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nothing Important
    Namechecks for Peter Beardsley and Peperami show eccentricity, but once you get used to his atonal delivery, Dawson emerges as a talented chronicler of the tiniest, realest details.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wash the Sins Not Only the Face
    Call it highbrow, call it highfalutin, but with Wash The Sins, Esben are carving hulking tablets of stone boasting that intellect is nothing to be scared of.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wig Out at Jagbags
    Here he tightens the screws a bit to make 12 purposeful, concise tracks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Something
    The '80s revival taken to its spangliest, synthiest, chino-flappiest extreme.... Our flashback to a dead decade has thrown up both guilty pleasures and glistening horrors.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    AGE
    Mournful, moving and minor key, Age suggests The Hidden Cameras’ defiant sexual politics are still vital.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Whip It On
    Imagine a two-piece BRMC if they'd grown up in a sub-zero landscape in Denmark where the only cultural sign-posts are trashy sado-pulp novels, distorted Velvets bootlegs and endless re-runs of Marlon Brando in classic biker-flick 'The Wild One'.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Space Project
    The results are standard indie on top of a few croaky far-off bleeps, but the vibe is brilliantly consistent: dubby, cracked, and less dense than the surface of Saturn (very un-dense).
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    One Life Stand
    Two years since the last album, five members with wildly varying tastes and talents, enough ammo to blast out two solo albums on the side, and they still can’t quite make 10 essential tracks in a row.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Re-Mit
    Far from being terrifying, it sounds like Smith is actually having fun.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Never Hungover Again
    It’s not much more than the sum of its influences, but when its influences are this strong, it really doesn’t matter.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pe'ahi
    If Pe’ahi is a tribute to Sune’s father, it’s a warts-and-all portrayal of a turbulent relationship, but one delivered with a tenderness and intensity that propels the very concept of the retro garage duo into a fresh sonic stratosphere. Drop in, it’s an exhilarating descent.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heart On
    Ocasionally, the shtick does wear a little thin and they lope off towards water-treading mid-pace. The line between parody and genius is always going to be fine.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    'Em Are I
    Jeffrey Lewis has stepped in to chronicle the detritus of the human condition for his amicable fifth full-length album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Futures
    Another fine fusion of volcanic arena-rock and cherry-poppin' slow burners. [9 Oct 2004, p.56]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Year Of Meteors
    Sounds like a collection of songs poised to steal the heart of anyone with a bruised soul. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    City Forgiveness
    ‘The Yellow Roses’ typifies the lull in the album’s mid-section, and is all the more annoying when you realise how special this record could have been with a little more quality control.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son
    Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son bills itself as a concept album, a road movie with no end, but the songs are tight, the meaning incidental and any big ideas play second fiddle to bewitching tunes and delicate harmonies.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New Love
    Sure enough Freddy Ruppert's second album as Former Ghosts is as warm, life-affirming and snuggly as a coatless night on the Siberian steppes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Regions of Light and Sound of God
    Fans alienated by My Morning Jacket’s more recent material will find plenty of comfort here.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light on Everything
    It’s a moving record. The only catch is, when they turn down the intensity on ‘What We Loved Was Not Enough’ they sound like Arcade Fire at their most mawkish.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sports
    Shame it's slightly spoiled by the morbid fixations of those same lyrics--which are the only shit thing about this LP, really.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ghost Stories
    Ghost Stories is a feeling more than a collection of songs, and takes a willing reception for granted. That feeling's not rancorous, it's bloodless and resigned, but touching as well.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rock Steady
    About half of 'Rock Steady' is just great, a career salvage job to compare with Madonna 's 'Ray Of Light'.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    About Farewell
    Elegant is the way the record confines Diane’s sadness to the past. It doesn’t wallow, it reassesses.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Want My Soul
    They Want My Soul is a cult record in the making from the quintessential cult group. Normal service has been resumed.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wise Up Ghost and Other Songs
    Its only disappointment is the absence of Roots rapper Black Thought to joust with him.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love And Other Planets
    Adem mirrors the ambitious approach of Sufjan Stevens. [13 May 2006, p.41]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Maths + English
    His straightest record yet, delving into crunk, rock, drum'n'bass and pop with varying results.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Long.Live.A$AP
    Criticism aside, Rocky's debut is full of superb moments and offers a rich tasting menu of unique sounds.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rave Tapes
    Rave Tapes doesn’t stray far from the Mogwai comfort zone, but nor is it the sound of a band clapped out. Nineteen years in, there are still crescendos left to climb.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Only By The Night
    Like their last, Only By The Night is front-loaded with world-beaters but then gradually ebbs back to more interchangeable moments. More than ever its strengths, when it succeeds, later become its weaknesses. It tries a mite too hard.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Havilah
    What Havilah does is jump up and down on the rotting carcasses of The Vines and Jet, stabbing them again and again with a flag that says “Miles. Better. Than. You. Ever. Were. Mate.”
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Enter the Slasher House
    This is one house of horrors that’s worth the ride.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    There Is a Way
    Produced by metal guru Ross Robinson, There Is A Way is a slicker beast than the Danan of yore, yet that rickety collision of a million ideas remains.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lateralus
    They're the metal Radiohead. Though it's definitely a million times more metal than anything the Oxford miserablists have recorded, 'Lateralus' still easily contains the same amount of misery and self-obsessed navel-gazing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hal
    The results are undeniably lush, yet slightly lacking in soul. [16 Apr 2005, p.50]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A River Ain't Too Much To Love
    Typically minimal and monochrome but beyond the dirge-like pace of tracks like 'Say Valley Maker' lies an unlikely optimism. [28 May 2005, p.64]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
    Both Marr and MM mainman Isaac Brock have a weakness for bombast that can make them sound like Snow Patrol playing Gogol Bordello, but the album heaves with vim and variety.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sensuous
    It's often as befuddling as it is brilliant.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Do You Like Rock Music?
    Do You Like Rock Music? might be fashionably rough around all the right edges, but there's definitely still enough lyrical wit and musical beauty contained herein to warrant your attention.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let It All In
    With this, their follow-up, they're in familiar miserably poetic folk-song territory. For some reason, every song evokes the pub.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transgender Dysphoria Blues
    It’s Grace’s own personal journey with gender dysphoria in ‘True Trans Soul Rebel’, ‘Paralytic States’ and ‘Drinking With The Jocks’ that has the most impact, though, the latter being the sort of raging polemic that proves the hardcore spirit of Black Flag is still alive and kicking.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Lady Killer
    It's all flawless in a string-laden soul way, but too clean an effort from a man who, in the past, has been so much more exciting by letting the grit remain.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Which Bitch?
    aside from the throaty rasp of singer Kyle Falconer on lead-off single ‘5Rebbeccas’, the mushy ‘Temptation Dice’ and Paolo Nutini-featuring ‘Covers’ – there’s little here that’ll appeal to the hundreds of thousands of people who bought "Hats Off To The Buskers." Yet it’s a good record regardless.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful
    It's an intense record that lingers in the memory long after it’s finished.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Modeselektor Proudly Presents Modeselektion, Vol. 2
    Modeselektor bridge the gap between manual-memorising electronics and brick-subtle, MDMA-peppered bouncy abandon.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hot Fuss
    The Killers have made half of the album of the year. Lucky that now we've got Napster, you only need to buy half. [5 Jun 2004, p.55]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Record Collection
    And so paranoia produces, if not a great album, a respectable transition from love-him-or-hate-him brass-toting berk into a genuine, bonafide pop maverick.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Souljacker
    'Souljacker''s songs rock harder than most of E's nu-metal enemies.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chrissybaby Forever
    Owens remains a naturally intuitive pop songwriter, and ultimately Chrissybaby Forever is a fresh slice of Californian good vibrations that arrives just in time for summer.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Excuses for Travelers
    The difference this time is small but significant, in the overall high quality threshold - from the silken slo-mo waltz of 'In Love With A View' to the listless Dylan-lite stumble of 'She Broke You So Softly', there's not a bum note here. Which is not necessarily a recommendation. Because if you stand too close to these tunes they can seem suspiciously perfect, like a newly painted Wild West movie set.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rewind the Film
    The Manics’ 11th album is a subtle, satisfying record that showcases their continuing ability to soar, albeit without digging anywhere near as deep as their politico-punk-pop totems, 1992’s ‘Generation Terrorists’ and 1996’s ‘Everything Must Go’.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nocturne
    So while Nocturne is gorgeous, it's a little too predictable to become truly exciting.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cursing the Sea
    Caoimhe Derwin and Jessie Ward’s guitars have perfected that Jesus And Mary Chain kettle-whistle sound, lending a haunted air to otherwise energetic stomps like ‘Heartbeats’ and ‘Talking.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My ______ Is Pink
    Their head-fuckable tunes warp and distort everything into a kaleidoscopic pulp.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shake The Sheets
    Firecracker mod-punk and allegorical political cut-and-thrust. [5 Mar 2005, p.51]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Storytone
    He’s crafted a tender and often forlorn eco-treatise.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Arcadia
    Lo-fi electronica ('Getaway Ride') and ambient pop ('Dominic') create the spine of a charmingly off-kilter record, while 'I Love Our World' is essentially a field recording.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's Frightening
    Twin drummers Matthew Clark and Jamie Levinson are oustanding, but it’s Patterson who’s the real star – an all-American frontman whose honey-coated voice is practically begging for adoration.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Born Under Saturn
    It definitely ain’t perfect, then, but in concocting a scrubbed-up, carefully wrought maturation of their sound, Born Under Saturn gives us something close to Django Django unchained.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bardo Story
    The Bardo Story sounds like a collection of rediscovered ’60s and ’70s gems uploaded to YouTube.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Slave Vows
    They’ve kept those colours nailed firmly to the mast, and never more so than on ‘No Money Music’, an aptly named track that adopts the aural scare tactics of Suicide’s ‘Frankie Teardrop’.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    8 Diagrams
    Yeah, that’s 8 Diagrams--a knockabout set rather than a knife to the jugular.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bronx (IV)
    None of the band’s bolshy character is lost on Bronx IV, but they do find new places to go.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All We Could Do Was Sing
    Merging aquatic Americana that casts its net over the gang mentality of Arcade Fire, The Polyphonic Spree and Broken Social Scene – and that most über-overexposed of F-words, folk – it’s clear why Johnny Marr is touting the Californian throng as his new favourite band.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spoils
    While homegrown folkies such as Laura Marling are happy to lose themselves in twanging bluegrass and Americana, it’s refreshing to hear a Brit ploughing up our own verdant folk history. Scot troubadour Alasdair Roberts does just that.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Supermodel
    It’s a collection of snapshots of a band stretching towards a brilliantly kaleidoscopic, eclectic new sound--and almost reaching it.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Days Run Away
    There's undoubtedly something there with Frankie--those effortless, skippy choruses aren't as easy to do as they seem. But he and his Heartstrings haven't quite found their true north yet.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Loud
    That voice, when she exploits the grit of that Barbadian burr to the max, is more unique and richly textured than ever, and that and her crack production team are all the personality.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saturn's Pattern
    Twelfth solo album Saturns Pattern backs up recent promises of another shift in sound, sending him into uncharted, acid-spiked waters.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blurry Blue Mountain
    The actual music on Blurry Blue Mountain, however, is warm and enveloping.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    On their sixth album, however, they advance on their trademark blokeishness to embrace a beefier and slicker kind of guitar-led groove.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Olympia
    Ultimately this is an album to dance, not cry, to.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tanglewood Numbers
    A rhinestone-tipped treat. [22 Oct 2005, p.41]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dungeonesse
    Ultimately the one thing truly lacking on Dungeonesse is the bright spark that makes pop stars so entertaining to obsess over.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    June Gloom
    More subtle now, but Alice and Kacey are keeping us guessing.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Momentary Masters
    Momentary Masters is his most satisfying, cohesive record yet, and, in many ways, his most personal.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Apar
    Musically it’s not a huge departure from Subiza, but if it ain’t broke there’s no point fixing it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Spell
    Again finds them excelling in the art of morbidity. [27 May 2006, p.33]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    45:33
    45:33 is loads of fun, a satisfying folly that's as central to an appreciation of "Sound Of Silver" as the lyric sheet.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Odulek
    Goodwin could be a solo star yet.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Whiskey Tango Ghosts
    Trading bolshy indie for pin-drop lullabies and pedal steel guitars, 'Whiskey Tango Ghosts' is Donelly's 'I'm a full-time mum and dammit I'm happy' record. [24 Jul 2004, p.49]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Turbines
    Their fifth album (strung together by a loose concept about an imagined village you needn’t worry about) is as softly satisfying as a bobbly old jumper. One with thumbholes.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Electric Lady
    The album’s first half is fantastic.... The album’s second ‘suite’ is mellower and less consistent.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Roots & Echoes
    A wobbly start, but luckily The Coral are just finding their sea legs.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    White Men Are Black Men Too
    If White Men really recalls anything, it’s those early TV On The Radio records made before Dave Sitek had figured out what he was doing--and you can take that as a sincere compliment.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transference
    Their seventh album, might be one of their best, with the band and leader Britt Daniel sounding as energised and playful as a puppy
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Diploid Love
    It’s a graceful evolution and one that rocks just as hard as the squalling fury of The Distillers ever did.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My God Is Blue
    Sébastien invites you to follow him, like a sexy David Koresh, and with tunes like 'Sedulous', 'Pepito Bleu' and the aforementioned 'Cochon Ville' ('pig city' en Anglais), the call might just prove irresistible.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Damage
    There are a couple of duds, (‘Book Of Love’, ‘Please Say No’), but, as forlorn closer ‘You Were Right’ ably demonstrates, few bands do heartache with as much majesty.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    E=MC2
    A strident, self-assured album.
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Modern Nature
    Both modern and natural, tragedy has tugged defiance from The Charlatans once more.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Slime & Reason
    While an ambitious selection of productions have reinvigorated his approach, as the album rolls on, the same solo call-and-response hooks, and methodical, self-effacing verses show that, vocally, he’s content sticking to familiar, functional turf.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cloud Nothings
    There are moments when Cloud Nothings sounds like your average punk-pop record, but Baldi is willing to render outside the lines with his own idiosyncratic noodlings and daubs of C86-era colour.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Neighborhoods
    They've gone all mature, come to terms with their past and kicked on to the future too.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Death By Sexy
    It's an unyielding piss-up of tattooed garage riffs, petrol-drenched blues and Marlboro-chuffing growlers. [1 Jul 2006, p.35]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dirty Glow
    An appreciation of jarring off-key vocals is essential to really love Naytronix, but at the root of all the batshit tinkles, twonks, robot vocals and dial-up noises is a smooth melodic funk pop perfect for seducing the microwave of your dreams.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tremors
    Tremors is frustrating. But when the colours align it’s alluring and impressive.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Undress
    It’s no radical reinvention, sure, but the singer captures these songs in their most up-close-and-personal state, with instrumentation stripped back to nearly zero.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    To Record Only Water For Ten Days
    The record is both labour of love and exorcism - Frusciante plays every instrument himself and every song is, without exception, pointedly self-analytical and emotionally probing. This, combined with Frusciante's ropey but breath-catchingly fraught voice, can make for uncomfortable listening. Nevertheless, there remains an underlying optimism and fondness for unapologetically pretty melodies that imparts a redeeming and lasting warmth.
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