New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores
- Music
For 6,010 reviews, this publication has graded:
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55% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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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: | to hell with it [Mixtape] | |
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Lowest review score: | Maroon |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 4,231 out of 6010
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Mixed: 1,626 out of 6010
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Negative: 153 out of 6010
6010
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
All in all, this is merely promising rather than masterful. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]- New Musical Express (NME)
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Their jaunty Americana morphs from something lovely into something utterly essential.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Mar 24, 2017
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There’s almost something for everyone on Dose Your Dreams, and, thankfully, that eclectic aspect to Fucked Up’s most ambitious project yet means it leans more towards opus than hopeless.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 3, 2018
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Tracks like 'Torture' borrow far too liberally from A$AP Rocky's cloud-rap aesthetic to be considered original. But otherwise, Old is a perfect example of why 2013 is a very exciting time for hip-hop.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 30, 2013
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Mar 23, 2020
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These are some of the most interesting and sonically varied songs of her entire career.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 18, 2024
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Konnichiwa is a landmark in British street music, a record good enough to take on the world without having to compromise one inch in the process.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 10, 2016
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When icy guitar turns ‘Pay My Debts’ into one of Van Etten’s darkest songs yet, Van Etten’s wounds feel incredibly raw.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jun 3, 2015
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 10, 2012
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If ‘All Mirrors’ took you to a lavish, creaky ballroom, then ‘Whole New Mess’ tucks you away in the cupboard under the stairs, the door slammed tightly shut.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Aug 27, 2020
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This is the side of Jack White III he's happy to show the world right now, and it's absolutely fascinating to behold.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 24, 2012
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Sounds as if it were recorded on one perfectly wasted afternoon. [22 Oct 2005, p.43]- New Musical Express (NME)
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Bass, horns, strings, organ and choir provide the backbone, and when Whitney allow themselves to kick it up a gear and really let rip, as on ‘Golden Days’ (with its cathartic “Na na na” outro) or the George Harrison-meets-The Band magnificence of ‘Dave’s Song’, they’re untouchable.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jun 2, 2016
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The resulting remixes and medleys, as heard on equipment that probably costs more than your house at Abbey Road, could make you weep with joy. It may not sound as good on a common-or-garden stereo, but you'll still mist up a bit.- New Musical Express (NME)
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 1, 2012
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This urgent and important record will ensure the veterans don’t get lost in the shuffle.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 12, 2019
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 22, 2015
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Open Your Heart is breezier and more tuneful than its predecessor, but this is very relative.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Mar 5, 2012
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Skeleton's only real weak spot: moments of genuinely inventive instrumentation and musical ambition are in abundance here, but somehow the songs feel less than the sum of their parts.- New Musical Express (NME)
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It can be a taxing eardrum workout--its beefed-up guitar work (from Walker, Stu Mackenzie and Cook Craig) and jackhammer rhythms (drumming duo Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore) barely let up. But it’s also loads of fun.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 6, 2016
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- Critic Score
The best moments of the album come when the band get candid about their hardest experiences, all the while leaning into the driving, raw rock sound they were known for.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Aug 24, 2023
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Saturn is full of beautiful, intricately unique songs that could never be imitated.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 26, 2018
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Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is undoubtedly a good record. It's just that in the Beasties' case, merely being good doesn't seem, well, y'know, good enough.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 2, 2011
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These songs contain the record's protest element as well as its exemplary musicality: heartbreaking soul choruses, classical samples and '80s rocksteady rhythms.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 24, 2012
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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.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 2, 2015
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On ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’, the magic is in the way that the music moves: the songs are radiant and full of joy, formed from the synergy of two relentlessly creative minds. The album glows with appreciation for the simple but irreplaceable power of working alongside someone you trust and respect like no other — and it sounds as effortless and rewarding as an old friendship.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Nov 12, 2021
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Although inescapably discomfiting, the music’s complex textures keep the listener snared.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 8, 2014
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For the most part, Rodrigo has passed the bar she set on that single [‘drivers license’], sharing with us an almost-masterpiece that’s equal parts confident, cool and exhilaratingly real. This is no flash-in-the-pan artist, but one we’ll be living with for years to come.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 21, 2021
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If all you can see is a tangle of influences then you're standing too close to the picture, and when Skying's visions come into focus, it not only reaffirms that Primary Colours was far from a fluke, but that they could go so much further.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 6, 2011
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jun 24, 2013
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This is an album to fall in love to, to break up to, to drown sorrows to, or to bounce around to. One-hit wonders? Well, the wonders part is right.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Burial’s success has brought with it imitators, but with this EP he’s outwitted them all by introducing a gloriously widened palate to his music that is both instantly familiar and shockingly unlikely.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Dec 20, 2013
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Pusha T has managed to elevate his art to new heights, signalling that the artist is nowhere close to being done. Despite being longer than ‘Daytona’, there is succinct preciseness to ‘It’s Almost Dry’ with Pusha’s lyricism, in particular, never left wanting. Alongside the outstanding production, it makes for an instant hip-hop classic.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 25, 2022
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Eye Contact is a piercing glimpse into an imagined Utopia of infinite possibility, as if they've focused their years of digital psychedelic jamming into a single beam, and fired it beyond a horizon peered at in vain by their peers.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 9, 2011
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 3, 2018
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Somehow they’ve retained their pop nous, making for an album that’s unique, but maddeningly all over the place.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 3, 2014
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The devil be praised that, rather than visiting the shrink or brothel to deal with his sexual dysfunction, the Grinderman went to the studio instead.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Despite the rock, you can still dance to it. [Review of U.S. version]- New Musical Express (NME)
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A real-life pop record. Well, not pop in the Girls Aloud sense of the word obviously, more in the drop-dead, fuzz-box brilliant 'Here Comes Your Man' sense. [10 Jul 2004, p.48]- New Musical Express (NME)
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It's genuinely surprising, beautifully wrought and announces TNP as one of the most powerful artistic forces in Britain today.- New Musical Express (NME)
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The simple fact she's intent on change makes her and the rest of her career infinitely more intriguing.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 28, 2011
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A striking funereal stomp, considering its bleak subject matter, it really shouldn't be quite as sensationally sexy as it is.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 30, 2012
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It's an unassumingly great record that exists solely to celebrate the pleasures of making a gigantic, melodious racket.- New Musical Express (NME)
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A clearly adult, unfashionably sensitive document, all grace and understatement, experimental through what it leaves out, and the effects it plants in the background.- New Musical Express (NME)
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The band dub these 2022 sets as works-in-progress, and say that none of its members are precious about the songs, a problem that thankfully doesn’t bely this release. You sense even better is to come. ‘Live At Bush Hall’, then, offers a remarkable snapshot of a band in transition, one willing to push on and not let circumstances stand in the way of what they love doing most.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 11, 2023
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Significant Changes is at once both ludicrously fun and inquisitive, knowing exactly when to fuse Jayda G’s learnings and passions into music that’s, quite clearly, full of heart and wisdom.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Mar 22, 2019
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Hopefully Total Control can continue because, brutal as it is, Typical System is the year's finest punk album.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 2, 2014
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Towards ‘Blue Water Road’’s conclusion, things start to drift a little, ‘Everything’ feeling longer than its three-minute-27-second runtime and the Thundercat and Ambre-starring ‘Wondering/Wandering’ not quite landing as memorably as you’d hope. For the most part, though, this album finds Kehlani in spectacular form – softer, stronger and better than ever.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 29, 2022
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From the rebellious energy that dances across the album to the twelve-minute shape-shifting epic of ‘Angel’ that closes out the record with giddy excitement, Working Men’s Club don’t know how to be boring.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 2, 2020
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Intimate and inventive, it’s a beautiful exercise – and one that could provide a bridge between last year’s ‘Any Human Friend’ and the musician’s planned return to melancholic material on her next original work. For now, though, she’s given us a rich new world burrow into, filled with soothing familiarity but brimming with the excitement of the new.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Nov 13, 2020
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- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Nov 17, 2020
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After exploring the isolation of feeling like a “nobody“, Mitski’s explorations of being somebody prove just as compelling.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 2, 2022
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There are a few radio-friendly moments. Happily, they're so sufficiently steeped in classic rawk that songs like 'Curl Of The Burl' don't sound like cynical stabs.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 3, 2011
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This resulting debut is a masterpiece of desert blues; blending American guitar licks with Malian groove.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 17, 2015
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It’s an impressive step-up from an artist who was already operating miles ahead of their peers. ‘soft scars’ can be an emotionally excruciating experience, but it finds yeule connecting with their humanity in ways that seemed impossible just one year ago.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 21, 2023
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Returning to psychedelia of a more modern variety after the Polaris-winning 'Andorra' saw him pegged by some as a '60s revisionist, electronic whiz Dan Snaith's latest offering is a triumph to top even that masterstroke.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Narrower in scope than 'Odelay' but more immediate in impact, it's clearly been conceived as an accompaniment to our hedonistic habit of choice, the last great party album of the millennium.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Filled with both a clarity of instrumentation and thought, this is an album of undeniably mature work. And one which knows how to effect a large emotional impact without unsightly flexing of the muscles.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Against the odds, 'Think Tank' is a success, a record which might not mean much to Strokes fans but which shows Blur's creative spark is undimmed even while their stomach for the pop fight fades.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Making relevant, accessible, uncringey protest music in this day and age is such a difficult task that most artists have decided not to bother. Anohni has been brave enough to take that risk, and the most vital album of recent times is the reward.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 6, 2016
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Shedding old skins with jubilance, ‘Expert in A Dying Field’ is testament to the belief that better things are always yet to come. For us as listeners, they’re already be here.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 13, 2022
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The journey home for the pair has been perilous, but that mix of rage and hope is potent. They see a better community on the horizon, but know that they must be a part of its foundations – ‘Regresa’ is a magnificent rumination on those complex emotions.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 13, 2020
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‘Good Lies’ puts the pair on the edge of a major breakthrough. Its pop-leaning moments are also its most exciting, and the creativity and skill with which they bridge these worlds is thrilling.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 11, 2023
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An album which radically extends the Franz musical palette.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Yes, we could have done without the plodding, church-baiting 'Hash Wednesday', but songs such as 'Explode', and 'On A Fix' more than make up for it and are so incredibly abrasive that you probably shouldn't put 'Eyes & Nines' next to valuable records on your shelf.- New Musical Express (NME)
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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.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 21, 2014
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While it’s not quite all gold--over two CDs the listener’s resistance to slap bass and super-smooth vocals may be tested--the standard as a whole is incredibly high.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Dec 17, 2013
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Though it’s not entirely without precedent, there’s still more than enough innovation here to mark Visiter out as one of the summer’s must-have releases.- New Musical Express (NME)
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‘Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’ is a brilliantly snotty two fingers up at the world. There’s no danger of finding the same fault in Street Safari, a record even more loveable than PATV’s first.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 21, 2018
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Amidst all the experimentation and extremes of this impressive album is a message about life: bathing in the moments of ecstasy will ultimately enable us to cherish and value life more.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jun 21, 2019
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The trio reflect the growing bleakness of the world around them by sounding more fiery and furious than ever before.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 26, 2019
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It’s a record riddled with questions, while refusing to offer answers. In remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jun 4, 2018
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Their peak may be years away yet, but this is still some of the most exciting music you’ll hear until then; I’m not sure what more you could ask of a debut.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 4, 2021
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So We're New Here isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it showcases a producer so in love with the music of now that he not only preserves the power of his source material, but makes it more relevant.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 22, 2011
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The songs splatter unpredictably with little concern for cohesion, forming a whole that is emphatically unique.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 5, 2014
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Debut album Songs Of Praise courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all their own.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jan 9, 2018
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Soused manages to feel understated and ripe for listeners to engage with entirely on their own terms.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Oct 20, 2014
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For in the Düsseldorf duo's continuing remit to bewilder and dazzle, conformity is the enemy. Sick of being billeted as d'n'b smugsters, 'Idiology' is a post-everything record - it's the sound of music being carefully shredded in the hope of finding something new and better.- New Musical Express (NME)
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With High, they’ve recorded an almost perfect 30 minutes of indie-punk. There’s no flabbiness, no million-dollar production that adds nothing to the songs, no bloated guitar lines or pointless drum fills and nothing that even comes close to seeming in any way meaningless.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Aug 18, 2015
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A magpie pop masterpiece that could only be made right now and right here. And for every stupid joke you’ve heard about avocados and house prices and safe spaces and jazz hands, this is a piece of art that shows another side to a generation, one of achievement, wit and humanity in the most confusing of times.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Nov 20, 2018
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Where previously the comparisons to their Radiohead catalogue could warp expectations, the breadth of the material on offer here suggest that it could, eventually, flip that dynamic right on its head.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jan 23, 2024
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Recorded with help from Fantomas shrieker Mike Patton and Buzz ‘Melvins’ Osbourne on guitar, Carboniferous rocks out with little competition.- New Musical Express (NME)
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Intelligent and visceral in equal measure, PUP is effortlessly cool, charmingly nerdy and wholly brilliant.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 7, 2014
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Inspiration comes in a myriad of ways, and the talent must have the time to put these parts together and let them mature; it’s how we’ve ended up with an album as epic and impressive as this.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 10, 2023
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A record that beautifully articulates the giddiness of love, ‘Forevher’ subtly queers up the love song in its most timeless form.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Aug 16, 2019
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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.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Apr 21, 2014
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The high-tempo, energetic sounds throughout match Ahmed’s razor-sharp lyrics and fast-paced rhymes. The use of South Asian instrumentation – especially the Qawwali harmonies – grounds the production. It takes an unconventional approach, but the ‘The Long Goodbye’ manages to distill complex topics with fervour.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Mar 5, 2020
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The result is a glorious neo-rap sound. It doesn’t quite fit in with his contemporaries’ party music, and he’s not always as crafty and traditional as hip-hop, so rappers like Saba often stay on the wayside, delivering absolute perfection without many accolades. That would be a shame, as this is an album at a divine level.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Feb 8, 2022
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Taking so many chances means there are inevitable hiccups, but they scarcely matter.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 3, 2014
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Here’s your prescribed dose of reality with an unmistakable and intoxicating Sleaford Mods flavour. The extraordinary ‘Spare Ribs’ is graffiti on a concrete wall; there’s no manifesto, no easy answers and nowhere to hide.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jan 12, 2021
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All of this makes for a record that never sits still, an album of considerable polish and scope and by far the boldest thing the Danes have ever made, but also a album that still feels distinctly theirs.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted May 6, 2021
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On Clarity she establishes a glamorously appealing pop persona that’s all her own: resilient, materialistic, ready and able to call the shots.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 3, 2019
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‘Lianne La Havas’ is a far more cohesive record than any of its predecessors, focused around a primary nucleus of intimate vocals, nimble guitar-work and driving percussion.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Jul 15, 2020
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That same battle between tension and relaxation runs throughout, fueling this understated gem of an album.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Nov 14, 2011
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It's a success, the influence of the body on the music making it sound positively alive.- New Musical Express (NME)
- Posted Sep 5, 2014
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