New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

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For 6,010 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: 4,231 out of 6010
  2. Mixed: 1,626 out of 6010
  3. Negative: 153 out of 6010
6010 music reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Late Registration
    By freshening up his style without entirely abandoning it, West still has the rest of the rap world playing catch-up.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Relatives in Descent
    As America crumbles, Protomartyr have proved that they can be that cereus, blooming in the dark times we inhabit--and continue blossoming into a formidable and vital band.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Stay Positive
    Stay Positive not only confirms The Hold Steady’s status as one of the best rock’n’roll bands in the world, but establishes them as one of its most important too.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Iridescence
    Far from making vague allusions to the events prior to Iridescence, Brockhampton lay them bare, atop some of their most adventurous work to date.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ZUU
    Overall, he has created a musical representation of his upbringing in the Sunshine state, evoking its intricate culture. His mixture of smoother, dreamier beats in opposition with harder-hitting and chest-bouncing ones create an aural journey and explanation as to why he is “real-ass n***a from the 305”.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gigi's Recovery
    The Murder Capital may have arrived with a shout and a fist but they’re soaring now with nuance, ideas, a whole lot of heart and the first great guitar album of 2023.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    All My Heroes Are Cornballs
    Song to song, it’s genuinely exciting to see where JPEGMAFIA might go next, and you never quite know what to expect. JPEGMAFIA’s third album is his most accomplished record yet.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sleep Well Beast
    They’ve [experimental sonics] been added to the steadfast elements that make The National so good: clever turns of phrase, genius storytelling, Bryan Devendorf’s marching-band drums, delightful arrangements and piano and brass that work well together.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pause
    It is its author Kieran Hebden's best work to date and confirms the prolific young soundmeister as a major talent.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hail To The Thief
    That's not to say there's not some exceptional music on this record, it's just once again the impact of the best moments is dulled by the inclusion of some indifferent electronic compositions.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lost Tapes
    The Lost Tapes is no barrel-scraping… it's more dark magic straight from the source.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Comfort To Me
    Though ‘Comfort To Me’ retains The Sniffers’ talent for a rowdy rock’n’roll track – the largely instrumental ‘Don’t Need A Cunt Like You (To Love Me)’ blazes in and out of view with one-and-a-half minutes – it also shows a more reflective side to the band amid the silliness.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Un Verano Sin Ti
    There’s no sense of bet-hedging in its lengthy runtime and no real filler. It’s the sound of an artist in his imperial phase doing as he pleases without needing to try too hard: not just a low-key flex, but a richly entertaining listen.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I See You
    They find a balance with the old xx though. Fragility and self-doubt are still themes. Indeed, the highlight is Romy’s pensive, vulnerable ballad ‘Performance’.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midnights
    After a foray into a different sonic world, on Swift’s return to pure pop she still shimmers.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
    Deafheaven’s brilliance has long been hung upon the pursuit of a truth, like documentarians before they hit the edit suite. These songs are filthy, dank, often devoid of light, but like a weed emerging from a pavement’s crack, there’s something resembling hope there. A suggestion that maybe there’s something more.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Helplessness Blues
    They peddle the same sort of fake-rustic rootsiness that seems to be colonising our era: all these flatpack off-the-peg dreams of Ruritania that iPad-stashing mid-lifes have taken up as a counterpoint to their rabid technophilia.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mezmerize
    If you want it to be, it's brilliant. It's also a record so ambitious, so angry, and so mad-as-a-goose that there are otherwise intelligent people who will hear it once and straight away deem it an interminable racket. [30 Apr 2005, p.61]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beauty And The Beat
    It's like 'Pet Sounds' born and raised in the Bronx. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pompeii
    Encasing the malaise and drudgery of the last two years and preserving them in dark grey ash, ‘Pompeii’ captures a distinct sense of isolation without explicitly spelling it out. There’s much to excavate here.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Twin Cinema
    Inevitably, when the Prozac finally wears off the more 'thoughtful' numbers fall flat on their faces. [20 Aug 2005, p.58]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Benji
    This time round, the humour is more subtle but the observations on life, and increasingly death, are no less keen.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    New Moon
    What this collection of songs from his mid-'90s creative purple patch shows is that few people in recent times have done sadness so exquisitely.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interplanetary Class Classics
    The blurred lines are kinda the point and half the fun. But now The Moonlandingz have turned fiction into semi-reality by making their debut album... and it’s brilliant.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Juno
    Ultimately, what these songs leave is a feeling that, for all the album’s brilliant shine, experimenting with darker styles might not go amiss for what’s next.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Drift
    Every bit as stark, foreboding, but utterly singular as 'Tilt'. [6 May 2006, p.33]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Working Class Woman
    Davidson’s Working Class Woman is smart, intriguing and deserves to be heralded as one of the year’s most inventive releases--Lord knows she’s worked hard enough for it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happy Songs For Happy People
    Their most intriguing, beautiful and dazzling record to date.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Source Tags & Codes
    'Source Tags And Codes' comes with an albatross-like weight of expectation round its skinny neck - yet happily, it's supported by a band who have grown to match it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Greatest Hits: The Evidence
    If you really want a definitive collection of Ice-T's work, go and buy his albums 'Power' (1988) and 'OG - Original Gangster' (1991). This is not to criticise this greatest hits package, which, technically, does a decent job of presenting an overview of his illustrious career. However, when you have an artist like Ice, with such an impressive body of work, you have to come with more than 17 tracks.
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