Observer Music Monthly's Scores

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For 581 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 Hidden
Lowest review score: 20 This New Day
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 376 out of 581
  2. Mixed: 195 out of 581
  3. Negative: 10 out of 581
581 music reviews
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    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kala
    There are the terrible lyrics and more than a few moments where her one-style-fits-all MCing grates, but there's also the politics that no one else would touch, an intelligence, colour and humour, and the added benefit of centrifugally heavy production. Skip a couple, and you're in for a treat.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Way I See It
    Perhaps those earliest Detroit grooves are truly inimitable after all. But if you want to hear someone give the task one hell of a shot, The Way I See It affords the finest view.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Workout Holiday
    One of the most exciting things about White Denim is the way they balance unfettered extravagance with constructive constriction.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Partie Traumatic
    The Florida band's music is pleasingly random, too. One minute they're new romantics or dour indie kids, then, before youve had a chance to draw breath, they're apeing the Ronettes.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Back To Black
    It works - even though this area of pop culture has been mined remorselessly for the past 50 years - by dint of its clever melody lines and smart lyrics.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bright Mississippi
    His piano versions of standards such as Winin' Boy Blues show that the funk was always in the Big Easy's blood.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loose
    This is glorious, 21st-century Technicolor po.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Graduation
    The best track on this typically polished but ultimately quite disturbing album (the back-to-basics self-examination of 'Everything I Am') is a brave attempt to confront such uncertainties head on.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ash Wednesday
    Not much has gone Perkins's way in the past 15 years. Now, though, at a time when few singer-songwriters bear comparison with their predecessors, when grief this raw all too rarely begets pleasure, you cannot help but feel that his luck is about to change.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Duckworth Lewis Method
    Played, boys, oh well played.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Dancers
    The heart of Two Dancers lies in these seemingly jarring juxtapositions. The individual ingredients may be a decidedly mixed bag, but the final product is both coherent and very satisfying.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There Is Love In You
    The result is a fifth Four Tet album which has the power to delight someone who has never listened to a Kraftwerk record all the way through, just as much as those who know their Walter from their Wendy Carlos.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Boys And Girls In America
    It's brainy and brawny: Springsteen and E Street Band comparisions valid.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Distortion
    A lovely addition to the noisy canon and a barbed new year tonic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Gold
    [A] vital, dolorous treasure.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
    Not everything is perfect here, the five live cuts, in particular, not particularly inspired choices. But you could lose yourself in these recordings.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Insult To Injury
    With three full decades of sardonic wordplay behind him, these unusually expansive musical settings inspire the mordant West Midlander to some of his freshest and most subtly intoxicating work to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Super Taranta!
    A singularly rousing gem.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All The Lost Souls
    But snobbery apart, this is a terrific album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living
    The Hardest Way... is twice as good as any album about the price of celebrity has a right to be.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Woman, A Man, Walked By
    Although it's as uncentred as 2004's "Uh Huh Her," this album broadcasts confidence rather than confusion.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Heard It Today
    A masterly work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
    Trouble is, save for the soft bits being softer and the hard bits being harder, it's practically a replica of its predecessors.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Age Of The Understatement
    It's a stunning record, a must-have even, but it fails to turn musical excellence into cultural significance and may end up being played in branches of Borders rather than in bedrooms everywhere.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Veckatimest
    Veckatimest's only down side is a touch of preciousness, a need for refinement that, unchecked, might nudge Grizzly Bear towards the polite rather than imaginative. It's a small quibble. For now, this is almost perfect.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tromatic Reflexxions
    Every track contains something to surprise and delight.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Colourful Life
    Cajun, unquestionably, are the real deal.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brotherhood
    Brotherhood seems to be one for completists only. But the bonus disc, Electronic Battle Weapons 1-10, takes this into must-have territory.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Safe Trip Home
    This album is a mature and thoughtful collection of songs and a fine memorial to her father, who would have been right to be proud.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Seldom Seen Kid
    Their fourth album picks up where 2005's "Leaders of the Free World" left off.
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