The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,511 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 Lives Outgrown
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,970 out of 5511
  2. Mixed: 2,464 out of 5511
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5511
5511 music reviews
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    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hypnotic Eye
    The songwriting is solid, the musicianship familiarly old-school, and while Hypnotic Eye lacks the killer standout tracks he turned out by the truckload in his youth, it packs enough vim and energy to suggest the fire is far from out.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Voyager
    Yet for all its merits--her voice is utterly pure, and the altpop textures luscious--The Voyager lacks unity.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alvvays
    They certainly have their sound down (reverb-laced guitars, big choruses, surf-tinged moments), but there's a lack of variety here.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tribal
    This album is no time capsule; it's fresh and bracing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Half the City
    They are not pure revivalists--they write their own material, which is often adequate rather than memorable--but their style is steeped in the musical traditions of the region, and they are helped by a remarkable singer.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Morning
    When his voice shows signs of life--some tremulous vibrato here and there, the odd bit of grit in his lower register--any real character is wrung out of his voice by the coffee-shop-friendly production.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lese Majesty
    As it is, not every experiment on Lese Majesty works, but when they do, the results are spectacular. And even when they don't, the lovely sense that you're listening to an album genuinely unlike any other is pretty overwhelming.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Soul Mining (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) [Box Set]
    A patchwork of catholic musical influences stitched tightly together by one man's peculiar, expansive vision of pop: Soul Mining is a brilliant and very idiosyncratic album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nobody's Smiling
    Common has crafted one of the best hip-hop albums of the year so far.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Conversations
    Although they count Fleetwood Mac as inspirations, the suave, soft-focus tint to Conversations is a lot like a vintage episode of Top of the Pops 2 featuring St Etienne, Sade, Simple Minds and Vanessa Paradis.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Trouble in Paradise
    In truth, the songwriting quality never really dips. Almost sickeningly overburdened with fantastic tunes, Trouble in Paradise may well be not just a triumph against the odds, but the best pop album we'll hear this year.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shattered
    Shattered is a grown-up, repeat-listen rock record of rare quality, and a great addition to an already astoundingly good back catalogue.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Complete Surrender
    This new sense of ambition is crucial for a once-whimsical band, and is reflected in their banishment of nu-folk tweeness in favour of bombastic Motown soul.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jungle
    By deliberately creating a sense of mystery around themselves, Jungle may have raised expectations that their music cannot yet deliver on.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    L'Aventura
    Yes, it's hugely self-indulgent at times, but in the best way, whereby the listener is gently invited along for the ride, rather than dragged kicking and screaming.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honeyblood
    There's nothing new here, but it's all done with vim and effervescence.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Redeemer of Souls
    Redeemer of Souls is a return to thunderous and unrelenting anthems delivered with all the subtlety of an axe to the skull.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    World Peace Is None of Your Business
    Not as great as you might have hoped, but far better than you might have feared.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Typical System
    Postpunk, hardcore, krautrock and odd, spacey lounge-jazz are all sucked up and bent brilliantly out of shape over the course of an album that's abrasive but accessible, awkward but assured. Properly special stuff.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Chroma
    All in All is simply lovely. The rest of the album isn't always this good, so perhaps only inconsistency is holding back his rise to pop's higher league.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life is Easy
    Thomas's lingering look at the past won't get the cool kids onside, but ravers of a certain age will find much to love.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    1000 Forms of Fear
    While Sia deserves stardom, 1,000 Forms of Fear is so sonically flawless and contemporary-sounding that its impact may fade with time.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Remedy
    Original and impressive.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take Me for a Walk in the Morning Dew
    Surely this is the comeback album of the year.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Futurology
    Futurology never feels like a pastiche, and sounds unmistakably like the Manic Street Preachers while sounding unlike any other album they've made.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    5 Seconds of Summer
    Aimed squarely at the teenage market, it's shrill exuberance and lyrical mischief all round as songs leap and sometimes creak under the weight of their double entendres.
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