The Independent on Sunday (UK)'s Scores

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For 593 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score:
Kinshasa Succursale
Critic Score 100
Lowest review score:
Famous First Words
Critic Score 20
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 379 out of 593
  2. Mixed: 204 out of 593
  3. Negative: 10 out of 593
593 music reviews
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    • Metascore: 62
    • Critic Score 80
    Glowing Mouth
    Glowing Mouth is so subtly soaring it could restore words such as "atmospheric" and "portentious" to the rock lexicon.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    Betty Wright: The Movie
    The slightly sterile neo-soul fump of the Roots may lack the feel of their progenitors but the songs make up for that.
    • Metascore: 75
    • Critic Score 80
    Both Ways Open Jaws
    On the evidence of this [album] one can safely say that the Dø are the best French/Finnish duo in pop.
    • Metascore: 84
    • Critic Score 80
    El Camino
    Too late for those album of the year polls?
    • Metascore: 90
    • Critic Score 80
    Rio [Live]
    It starts nervily and there's some creative recycling of motifs, but once he builds up a head of steam the force is truly with him.
    • Metascore: 82
    • Critic Score 80
    El Tren Fantasma
    Watson packaged up the month that he spent riding the train, using his original recordings, adding his own narration, throwing in some interviews, and creating something magical.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Critic Score 80
    Given to the Wild
    There are no standout songs but that's kind of the point: GTTW washes over you like a cooling stream on a hot day.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    For the Good Times
    Very musical, it is, if ever so slightly coffee table.
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    Something
    Somewhere between Ladyhawke and M83, it's 1980's fetishism all the better for the apparent lack of irony.
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark
    Very enjoyable package.
    • Metascore: 73
    • Critic Score 80
    Area 52
    A seething, soundtracky, high-gloss, high-energy orchestral Latin "fusion", full of licks and stabs and twiddly bits.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Critic Score 80
    Clay Class
    Their unadorned, effects-free music remains simple and straightforward, like a rock equivalent of the Dogme school of cinema.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)
    It is, as you'd expect, spacious, gentle, reachy, euphonious and, for Air, fairly organic sounding.
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 80
    Montauk Variations
    Pianist Matthew Bourne goes all English-pastoral in this largely lovely solo suite.
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    Pray To Be Free
    It is a near-total triumph.
    • Metascore: 79
    • Critic Score 80
    The Something Rain
    Stuart Staples and his band delivering nine pieces of beautiful bossa-nova noir, daydreamy reverie and existential easy listening.
    • Metascore: 52
    • Critic Score 80
    Sounds from Nowheresville
    This is an album that deserves at least to reacquaint the Ting Tings with the outskirts of Somewheresville.
    • Metascore: 71
    • Critic Score 80
    Where It Hits You
    Tracks such as "Epilogue to a Marriage" here, serve as a reminder that there's always room for the real thing, and you'll know it when it hits you.
    • Metascore: 77
    • Critic Score 80
    Sonik Kicks
    His most enjoyable LP since Our Favourite Shop.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Leaving Eden
    You can almost hear the chickens out in the yard and see the dust mites dancing in the sunlit air.
    • Metascore: 68
    • Critic Score 80
    I Thought I Was an Alien
    Touching and strangely beautiful.
    • Metascore: 69
    • Critic Score 80
    SSSS
    It's nevertheless a hugely enjoyable ride, Clarke and Gore's duelling synths creating an entirely instrumental soundtrack to the sci-fi movie playing inside your own head.
    • Metascore: 74
    • Critic Score 80
    World, You Need a Change of Mind
    [An] exceptionally artful debut.
    • Metascore: 85
    • Critic Score 80
    Ode
    The material is all Mehldau's and quality varies from the standing ovations of the opening and closing tunes to lesser tricked-up vamps, but bass and drums groove superbly throughout.
    • Metascore: 70
    • Critic Score 80
    In Time to Voices
    The songwriting has come into focus and the hooks get under your skin.
    • Metascore: 72
    • Critic Score 80
    Portico Quartet
    It's great.
    • Metascore: 63
    • Critic Score 80
    Grinderman 2 RMX
    They've enlisted non-dance musos such as Robert Fripp, Barry Adamson, Nick Zinner and Josh Homme, as well as relative young 'uns Cat's Eyes and Factory Floor, with often delicious results
    • Metascore: 86
    • Critic Score 80
    Locked Down
    For once all that languorous muck is refreshing.
    • Metascore: 76
    • Critic Score 80
    Boys & Girls
    Unrefined, unresigned, occasionally clunky, frequently obtuse but always, always fit to bust.
    • Metascore: 67
    • Critic Score 80
    Tell Tales
    Filled with beguiling close-harmony tunes which wouldn't feel out of place on the Wicker Man soundtrack and sound like venerable trad-arrs but are actually originals.
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