NOW Magazine's Scores
- Music
For 2,812 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
43% higher than the average critic
-
2% same as the average critic
-
55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 66
Highest review score: | The Life Of Pablo | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Testify |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,287 out of 2812
-
Mixed: 1,452 out of 2812
-
Negative: 73 out of 2812
2812
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Critic Score
Jacklin sings like she’s reading entries from her journal back to herself. The confessional quality is amplified by minimal, unobtrusive production that places her superb voice and her acoustic guitar forward.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 26, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
[Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored is] the most jarring song on the album, which is otherwise her most mature and cohesive yet.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 8, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
She adds magic to the mundane, cracking it open to reveal multifaceted nuances: longing, pleasure, resentment, jealousy and also self-love.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 5, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s an inward, headphones-on plug into a young man wrestling with varying levels of success, from codependency and addictive behaviour to self-acceptance. It’s the sound of Zayn grappling with toxic masculinity.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 31, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Recorded last summer in Los Angeles, their debut 10-track album effortlessly showcases both Oberst’s and Bridgers’s strengths as songwriters who are unafraid of literate vulnerability as they explore subjects like loneliness, privilege and estranged family.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 31, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s characterized by both futile resignation and hopeful nostalgia. That’s a generous way to write, and Phoenix stands as a complex, giving record backed by some of Pedro the Lion’s finest musical compositions.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Assume Form doesn’t have the instant gratification of his 2013 album, Overgrown--arguably his best--but it gradually pulls you in like a soothing balm. ... It’s still a James Blake record, but with brighter synths and more natural instruments. Any moments of darkness are balanced with light.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 18, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Her music is generous in its illumination of depth. There’s a sense of solace on the record. Everything before was a hard reckoning, and she knows trouble is never far off, but she’s breezy here. Comfortable, even.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 17, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Foxwarren doesn’t feel like Andy Shauf and his backing band; it feels like a creative, cohesive group.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 14, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Her voice, while gorgeous, is not big in range--its beauty lies in its candidness and presence. She sings like she’s personally sharing intimate tales with each listener.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 13, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Starter Home is country music for intellectuals, but he still hits those classic country tropes: longing in Waiting and alcohol as a cure for regret in Drinking With A Friend. His voice is velvety and smooth with texture, vital for a mature sound.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 5, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s less cohesive than the high watermark he set with Malibu, but hitching a ride back to Oxnard is a freewheeling and occasionally exhilarating quest into Paak’s sonic curiosity.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 26, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
With production duties primarily hot potatoed between Hagler and Kenny Beats, the beats and feel are consistent and strong while not getting in the way of Staples’ flow, which is elastic and modern without losing an inch of his clarity and bluntness.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 9, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Paired with Quezada and Thulin’s frantic soundscapes, Obey is a reminder that the steeliest demeanors can belie a raging cauldron of emotion. By the time the album’s short 38 minutes are over, what seemed at first like ambivalence feels more like transcendence.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 23, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It falls short of the band’s more certified classics like Death Is This Communion and Blessed Black Wings, but Electric Messiah feels basically satisfying--like a meal ordered from your favourite restaurant. A heavy, greasy, gut-ballasting meal.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 11, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It contains some of her poppiest and funniest material to date, taking her minimal techno and Italo-esque electro rhythms into unabashedly melodic territory on the joyous So Right while swinging in the opposite direction with warehouse-friendly industrial sci-fi instrumentals Burn Me and Workaholic Paranoid Bitch.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 5, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Art Of Doubt shows that you can still find comfort in the sounds of your past, especially if the bands who shaped you have adapted and evolved along with you.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 25, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Master Volume is a delightful, precise record. The band are at the top of their game on it, but it still feels like a no-stakes basement jam session between three friends. Maybe that’s why they’re so contagious: the Nil aren’t for the culture, they’re for the kids.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 14, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Twice nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize, Calvi has consistently delivered brilliant albums. This new era of openness only serves to push her to more relevant and engaging levels.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 31, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Fans of AnCo’s more upbeat and animated works probably won’t love this album, but it is successful in its experimentation and as an affirmation that they have and always will have something unique to bring to the table.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 21, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s sometimes surprising when you discover that pop songs, as loud and vibrant as they often are, can be quite devastating. This is especially true on Mitski’s excellent fifth album. ... It’s a bold record, rising and falling over the course of 14 tracks.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 17, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
In getting their own group back together, the Internet have delivered their most fully realized project to date.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 23, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Death Lust is an extreme album in which Williams bares his raw, overcome soul over ear-splitting guitar noise. As harrowing as it can be, it’s transcendent rock music that feels unparalleled so far this year. Durham Region should be proud.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 13, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Side A is mostly introspective threats, neurotic boasting and paranoia about enemies. Side B is the same but with a focus on women and his love life. As with most of his releases, it works perfectly--but for 25 tracks to work is undeniably impressive.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 29, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
As each conflicting quality is reconciled, it’s never compromised or downplayed. They sound both aware of and immersed in the culture surrounding them while fully settled into their own reality as billionaires. In essence, they are Black, rich and famous, in that order.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 21, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album favours a downtempo pace, and Smith’s superstar potential is apparent on close-to-final song Tomorrow. But it’s the mid-album entry The One, with its swirling string arrangements and ambiguous tension between defiant lyrics and aching delivery, that suggests Smith’s ascent is far from over.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 12, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album is a delightful access point to the cloudy emotional zones Bernice have always occupied, from a warm place of Snuggie-bound safety.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 1, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The record’s simple presentation and briefness make for an engaging change from the epic crossover attempts of his prior LP Darkest Before Dawn.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 25, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most inward-looking album but also one that pulls back to engage with bigger political and cultural conversations more directly than we’re used to from her.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 21, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Lyrically, Beyondless is occupied with notions of excess, from the endless cycle of war, to switching one dependency for another, to indulgence and appetite. It works because the band fundamentally thrives in extremes.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 3, 2018
- Read full review