The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,507 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 All Born Screaming
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,966 out of 5507
  2. Mixed: 2,464 out of 5507
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5507
5507 music reviews
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    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Green Language
    At a time when fellow Scots Hudson Mohawke, Calvin Harris and Jackmaster are making names for themselves across electronic music genres, Rustie's sitting in a space that's all his own.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Meshes of Voice
    It's a wild,disorientating but exultant experience, using voices, keys, guitar, percussion and electronics to embrace minimalist, quietlyclanging churchbell sounds.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Pale Communion
    This is an admirably coherent collection of songs that are as uncompromisingly intricate and strange as they are incisively melodic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Royal Blood
    Peel back the early 00s rock (the Vines, Death from Above, riffs that lurch like Jack White drunk at a saloon bar) and there are quavering vocals that add texture to their stodgy sound, too.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Annabel Dream Reader
    This is fun, but lacks the variety or genuine edge of their influences to grab a listener by the lapels and hold their attention throughout, whether they like it or not.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neuroplasticity
    Spx could do with some melodies as memorable as the music-making behind them.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Junto
    There may not be a standout track here--a Romeo or a Red Alert--and the desire to show their range (almost every track fuses a different style, from dancehall to trap or tropicalia) dilutes the effect of the whole. In each song, though, there'll be a small detail that hints at the skill of Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton as producers.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manipulator
    Best of all, the songs are almost uniformly fantastic, and extraordinarily well sequenced.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Distance
    Dan Michaelson has made a bit of a miniature masterpiece in Distance.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    After the End
    After the End sounds like pretty much every other 80s-influenced indie record you've been hearing since what now feels like the beginning of time itself. Still, at other points, Merchandise do manage to provide a fresh take on the 80s.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sparks
    While it's easy to admire the ambition of this album, it isn't always easy to listen to.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Maximum Overload
    Maximum Overload is as wickedly infectious as their high point from 2006, Inhuman Rampage, and more exciting and substantial than their two subsequent albums.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blacc Hollywood
    Khalifa sounds at his best when he sticks to his formula, instead of trying to tap into the (increasingly lucrative) rapper-with-a-heart-of-gold market.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Great Divide
    Something of a cross between Biffy Clyro and Bon Jovi, the Twins are not concerned by a barrow-load of cliches as they aim for the man in the back row.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society
    James Yorkston fans get their money's worth: dense with dialogue and spanning 16 tracks, the folk songwriter's eighth album feels like an hour with old friends.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Benjamin Booker
    Singing with a maturity beyond his years, he crafts hooks that pay homage to Robert Johnson, Sam Cooke and the shambolic punk he grew up listening to.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hyperdub 10.2
    This follow-up is an attempt to remind fans that Hyperdub is no stranger to the pop song--even if the pop songs on offer here are suitably warped to fit the label's general aesthetic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Acoustic Classics
    A bravura performance.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wovenwar
    This is an instantly lovable, consistent and convincing debut, brimming with razor-sharp melodies and subtly expressed technical prowess.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lacuna
    The pace is often just a little slower than you expect, or than feels natural, which allows those hooks room to breathe and creates the slightly stoned, beatific air that permeates Lacuna.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Get Hurt
    The results should have at least been interesting, but Get Hurt is nothing but the same old overblown rock sound with every dial turned up several digits past 11.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss
    If they [the songs] are fiction, this is a triumph of storytelling. Where things fall down is in the production: the howling blues-rock of The Voice of My Doctor aside, her singing is pulped into a girlish murmur, which is no way to treat one of pop's great voices.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gist Is
    Impressive--but even genius benefits from a little guidance.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LP1
    It has its flaws--as you might have intuited from the videos and press shots, they largely stem from trying a bit too hard--but you leave it convinced that FKA Twigs is an artist possessed of a genuinely strong and unique vision, one that doesn't need bolstering with an aura of mystique.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    L'Amour [Remastered]
    The closer you listen, the more unsettling--and yet enticing--it all sounds.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Angus & Julia Stone
    The Australian duo's music has a languorous, slow-burn quality to it, and the pretty Wherever You Are shows off their understated vocals, but too often things feels very sanitised.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sea When Absent
    Listening to it is like standing in the middle of a festival with music coming from all directions.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Owl John
    Owl John: low on self-esteem, but high on ambition.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Time Is Over One Day Old
    Album closer You Don't Need the World sees them get closer to that sweet spot between avant garde and chart; but while it's strangely haunting, it only serves to show how uninspiring the rest of the album is.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Want My Soul
    It takes a standard rock-band lineup and adds a sense of otherness by lightly dusting every instrument with effects, and arrives packed with beautiful, subtle detailing.
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