New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

  • Music
Select another publication »
For 6,000 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: 4,222 out of 6000
  2. Mixed: 1,625 out of 6000
  3. Negative: 153 out of 6000
6000 music reviews
view
per page
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sheezus
    Allen’s old sharp eye feels watery on Sheezus, squinting at the discourse around feminism, race and privilege unfolding online in 2014, and riding them as a bandwagon back to the middle of the very space the Myspace-spawned pop star once owned, but not having the conviction to do much with them once she’s arrived.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Divide and Exit
    Escapism’s one thing, but we need artists to sneer at the stars and sing songs about the gutter, and right now no-one does it like Sleaford Mods.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Birds of Satan
    Dave Grohl and Pat Smear both make cameos on the record, but high profile guests aren’t the album’s high point. That accolade goes to the gentle soft rock triumph of ‘Raspberries’, the shred-happy ‘Pieces of the Puzzle’ and the piledriving, ’70s-era Aerosmith ballad ‘Too Far Gone To See’.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The People In Your Neighbourhood
    At 73 minutes, it could easily have been boiled down to give it more punch, but you can’t bemoan the celebratory feel of The People In Your Neighbourhood.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sky Swimming
    Rivas’ voice isn’t enormously distinctive, either, meaning Sky Swimming rarely eclipses the dreaded adjective ''pleasant''.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    9 Dead Alive
    It’s all jam and no croissant, sadly.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    May
    It works, up to a point, but means the whole smooth and romantic-sounding affair, though not quite boring, lacks that special spark.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shriek
    It’s been a long wait, but Wye Oak are beginning to blossom.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shrink Dust
    This madcap might raise the occasional laugh, but inside he’s crying, and for all your voyeuristic unease, you won’t be able to look away.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Indie Cindy
    The album had to happen, and for a band that are now ostensibly a touring entity, the measure of its songs is whether you’d want to hear them being played at, say, Field Day this summer. Slipped between their classics, they’ll do just fine.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    Albarn pulls you close and whispers the codes of his life into your ear. Switch settings to ‘decipher’.
    • 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.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Embrace
    Although 'I Run' and 'At Once' are the sort of soaring tunes they always did so well, on the whole there's no compelling answer to that initial question: why?
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Candy for the Clowns
    There’s the occasional peak, like ‘Clown’ or ‘Destroy Me’, but Candy For The Clowns feels more like an act of stubbornness than defiance.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Salad Days
    Mac knows better than to let his bellyaching get in the way of everyone else's good time--instead, he’s simply dialled down the quirk and written his best record yet.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Under Color of Official Right
    eedly bass, tumultuous drums and big, dirty guitars careen beneath Casey's deadpan delivery, building riotously enjoyable labyrinthine passages that lead to nowhere, though Protomartyr make the journey feel essential.
    • 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).
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loom
    Psychological trauma aside, there’s a warmth to Weiss’ soft, sighing vocals and Daniel Falvey’s rippling guitar textures that lifts Loom to the heavens.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rented World
    A slick offering, Rented World is let down by a tendency to veer towards the formulaic, evidenced by closing track, ‘When You Died’, an altogether too tepid acoustic tear-jerker.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett
    Bereft of blues bombast, electronic trickery or bothersome concepts, when E's not coming on like Red House Painters he's getting seriously classical.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drop
    It’s not quite the equal of its predecessor--last year’s breakneck, flute-powered ‘Floating Coffin’--but is a gem nonetheless: nine tracks of noise-spiked Nuggets-y psych-punk, each one hitting with the crisp concision of a long-lost jukebox classic.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Weird Drift
    It seems Paradinas' real talents lie behind the scenes.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The New Classic
    There’s nothing game-changing about The New Classic, just recycled hustlin’ tropes and an ugly, nasal double-time flow overcompensating for mediocre wordplay.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Food
    While Food may be more home-cooked comforts than Blumenthal experimentation, at its best it’s a fulfilling portion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
    This is the sound of progress.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Are Catchers
    With the help of former Coral man Bill Ryder-Jones, Liverpool's We Are Catchers (aka Peter Jackson) has captured the melancholy essence of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's solo album 'Pacific Ocean Blue' and distilled it in the murky Mersey to produce this confident debut.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Minimum Rock N Roll
    For all its high-mindedness, it’s garage-rock primalism is just as easily enjoyed with your brain switched off. Perhaps that’s the point.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Amphetamine Ballads
    There aren’t quite enough classic songs here to render their voice vital, but as long as boring bands exist, this kind of piss and vinegar will always be welcome.
    • 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.
Page: