The Guardian's Scores

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For 5,513 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 Post Human: NeX Gen
Lowest review score: 10 Unpredictable
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,972 out of 5513
  2. Mixed: 2,464 out of 5513
  3. Negative: 77 out of 5513
5513 music reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Look Park
    Look Park is understated to the point of diffidence, but recommended for those who favour the song over the sonics.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Turkey
    Krol is hardly a rock’n’roll virtuoso, but he knows how to make carefree music to make you bounce. Sometimes that’s enough.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I'm with You
    Business goes on essentially as usual across this collection of muscular funk-rock songs, though it falls short in the ultra-catchy-hooks department.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neuroplasticity
    Spx could do with some melodies as memorable as the music-making behind them.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Elysium
    Their 11th album is a peculiar listen. Half of it harks back to 1990's reflective masterpiece, Behaviour, with songs about ageing (Invisible) and escape (Breathing Space) exerting poignant pulls... The other half, however, feels bitter and flippant.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Afterglow
    You can’t deny Afterglow’s big dreams, but it often feels somnolent, not superlative.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Low in High School
    What it all amounts to is your standard Morrissey solo album: great songs cheek-by-jowl with songs that would once never have got past reception; brilliance alongside stuff that boggles the mind; not bad, but not built to reach far beyond his standard fanbase.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feedback
    No doubt it will be disdainfully ignored by teenagers, who will be equally oblivious to guest slots by the earnest Mos Def and a weary-sounding Dave Matthews, but it will enliven thirtysomething dinner parties.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alone in the Universe
    Alone in the Universe bobs along pleasantly, but you can’t help but notice the lack of any song as strong as Mr Blue Sky, Don’t Bring Me Down or Livin’ Thing.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays, Vol. 1
    It doesn't seem to have taken much of a creative shift for them to sound ridiculously Christmassy, because the Spree do that naturally anyway.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Eve
    The result is a lavishly produced, cheerfully upbeat set with the massed vocals matched against bubbling keyboards, guitars and percussion, and the Kronos Quartet and the Luxembourg Philharmonic somehow fighting their way into the mix.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    New Facts Emerge
    Despite their past volatility, these days the outfit have a relatively stable lineup--although scholars will note that Smith’s wife, keyboardist Elena Poulou, has now left. It doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect on New Facts Emerge, however, which continues to plough a familiar, fractious furrow.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Days Run Away
    Francis's insistent yelp is certainly the main event here. Without him, the 11 quickfire tracks would have decidedly less personality, though even then there are moments so featureless that you could be listening to any bunch of second-tier janglers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Freedom & Surrender
    Her fifth LP sees her back in that safe zone between smooth jazz and quiet-storm soul, with signings including Norah Jones sidekick Jesse Harris and country-rock kingpin JD Souther.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Where The Humans Eat
    You can't help but warm to him.
    • 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.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Undun
    What it isn't--quite--is the magnum opus it could be. The second half loses impetus.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hellfire
    It’s noisy, jolting and filled with gruesome imagery, but somehow arid and remote, music presented with a self-satisfied smirk (“idiots are infinite, thinking men numbered”, drawls Greep at one point) that prevents wholehearted commitment. Maybe it takes on a different, more direct power live.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    EVOL
    The formula is working, but for fans using his albums as a way in, they’re missing a big part of what makes Future so intriguing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    iii
    It’s an album that feels insubstantial at times, but is a lot of fun nevertheless.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Baby Monkey
    The fact is, Moby is still the best person to make records that sound like early Moby.
    • 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.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Those The Brokes
    Many songs here are too long and similar in tone to the band's ubiquitous debut. But given time, the moments of real magic peek through.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Surrounded by Time
    At its most enjoyable, Surrounded By Time imagines a kind of alternative history for Jones. ... The other experiments are a mixed bag. ... That said, even the album’s missteps come with something oddly pleasing attached.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Elect The Dead
    Here, without the berserk velocity of System's guitarist Daron Malakian, he is a little more conventional and a little less interesting.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Radio Wars
    The album's first half conceals those weaknesses beneath dramatic arrangements, but the law of diminishing returns sets in by the midway point.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Highest Point in Cliff Town
    A provincial, balmy afternoon-ready record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jake Bugg
    There's an attractive openness to the album, with no sense of contrivance: he's singing about what he knows. Once he knows a little more, you get the sense he might manage something truly memorable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Parker Millsap
    Old Time Religion is a finely told American horror story, while Truck Stop Gospel is a stomping study of an infuriating evangelist. Elsewhere, At the Bar turns The Wizard of Oz into a weepie country waltz and Quite Contrary tells of nursery rhyme characters breaking bad.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hills End
    Hills End is workmanlike, which is both its strength and its drawback: everything is in the right place, but who was ever overwhelmed by competence?
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