Playlouder's Scores

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For 823 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 An End Has A Start
Lowest review score: 0 D12 World
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 569 out of 823
  2. Mixed: 198 out of 823
  3. Negative: 56 out of 823
823 music reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Case We Die
    Home recording gives 'In Case We Die' an apathetic politeness that lacks any real grrrrr, which is a shame.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bleed Like Me
    While 'Bleed Like Me' is easily better than 'Beautiful Garbage', it's still not worth buying. It's recognisably Garbage, but it's unarguably garbage too.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Open Season
    Everything feels bolder than before, more assured of the rightness of singing from places that most lyricists fear to tred. In textures and words alone, 'Open Season' is a country mile ahead of any of the supposedly heroic guitar debuts knocking around in 2005.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lost And Safe
    The Books make the incongruous harmonious, the silly sensitive and the complex easy to understand. 'Lost And Safe' will sweep you up into an aural world where, for once, beauty and humour co-exist.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Odyssey
    A wondrous re-emergence.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Elevator
    'Elevator' is not as instant as 'Make Up The Breakdown', though it has adequate catchy tunes in the style of XTC and Joe Jackson to retain most of the interest from those who enjoyed them last time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Suspended Animation
    'Suspended Animation' is less a compendium of songs and more a splurging, raging, raping jazz metal fusion machine, weaving in samples, gong noises and assorted cartoon horror.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Horses In The Sky
    This record is, the odd awful phrase here or there aside, rather marvellous.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Guero
    Too often tracks drag us down below the high standard an artist like Beck Hanson has set himself. Red Hot Chili Peppers outtakes with some harmonica and vocoder balanced incongruously on top are frankly not good enough.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Language. Sex. Violence. Other?
    The ham-fisted attempt to modernise Stereophonics' sound... falls flat at every attempt as samples, effects and the odd electronic buzz avoid the underlying mulch like gas-gun fired dried peas off titanium.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Arular
    When 'Arular' works - a good three-quarters of the time - it's unmissable.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silent Alarm
    'Silent Alarm' is a brilliantly accomplished art rock record that immediately immerses you in a world of taut, late 80s post-punk, melodic indie. It rarely lets up.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Surrounded By Silence
    The jewel in Scott's creative crown is that he has an uncanny knack of keeping it flowing, even when his beats and tones are jerking our sensibilities to shreds with their cerebral madness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lullabies To Paralyze
    What's great about this album is they've managed to wield the same monolithic power riffs but make them count, with melodies and ideas way more consistent than before.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    B-Sides & Rarities
    As with most such collections you're going to get good, bad and extremely ugly, and this is no exception. The fact it spans three CDs seems a bit indulgent considering some of the material should be consigned to an incinerator never to be heard again.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Human After All
    Too much of it is straightforward four-to-the-floor anodynity, and a number of tracks run out of ideas almost immediately, explore touchstones they've caressed more inspiringly before or, worse, do both.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Employment
    Essentially, 'Employment' is a very British record; an entirely Britpop creation spawned ten years after the event.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wind In The Wires
    'Wind In The Wires' is a magnificent record full of the language, imagery and sound of travel.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Meltdown
    Great pop from a great band.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Some Cities
    Like most of the cities Doves sing about, these songs are grey, drizzly, often unpleasant, and more often than not... very, very dull.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Frances The Mute
    Miraculously the lyrics never sound like the pompous shite they undoubtedly are. They fit the music and make the whole picture even more laughably and absurdly brilliant.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Days Run Away
    Alright, so there's no 'Destroy The Heart', the lyrics are uniformly unremarkable, and the odd track is even, dare we say, a touch ropey... 'Days Run Away' is still better than it's got any right to be, and a marginally heroic homecoming with it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Beekeeper
    It's an album that's unlikely to yield any massive hits, but like that other iconic singer songwriter, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos has survived initial success to end up in a place where she has the space to do exactly what she likes in pretty much the only way she seems to know how.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Gemstones
    There's a confidence and a swagger that wasn't there before, Green uncapping the band who can convert his quirky sketches into clever, swinging masterpieces.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lost Marbles And Exploded Evidence
    It's a joy to listen to but tough to recommend.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cloud Making Machine
    This is probably the most adventurous musical journey of Garnier's life.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fear Of A Black Tangent
    He has humour and cerebral sharpness in spades.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003
    Easily one of the most essential sessions albums ever released, this, and probably one of the year’s most essential, full stop.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    LCD Soundsystem
    LCD Soundsystem have set 2005's bar very high indeed and they sound like they’ve barely got started.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Outside Closer
    They've created a world of tender reflection encompassing engaging melodic cycles, pastoral textures, glitchy interjections, acoustic decoration, melancholic strings, loose, jazz tinged drums, lonely horns, yearning guitar laments and delicate vocals: All melded into ebbs and flows that form a coherent universe through songs which all have their own defining characteristics.
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