The Independent on Sunday (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 789 reviews, this publication has graded:
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57% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: | One Day I'm Going To Soar | |
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Lowest review score: | Last Night on Earth |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 495 out of 789
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Mixed: 280 out of 789
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Negative: 14 out of 789
789
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Reuniting him with Slowhand/Backless producer Glyn Johns for the first time in four decades, I Still Do is Eric Clapton’s most assured album in ages, its understated poise and refinement reflecting the influence of his late compadre JJ Cale.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 18, 2016
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- Critic Score
As so often before, the duo’s choice of vocal collaborators is timely and transformative, bringing fresh, unexpected angles to their pieces.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 17, 2015
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 14, 2014
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- Critic Score
This is light and breezy pop that marries summery synths with dreamy female vocals.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 14, 2014
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- Critic Score
It takes a few plays to acclimatise to but, once won over, whatever you listen to next will seem pedestrian by comparison. Lovely, but wholly on its own terms.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 7, 2014
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- Critic Score
All of it frothed up into an accomplished brew and delivered with good-timey vim but without a whole lot of charisma, especially in the vocal department. Snake oil, in other words. Good fun snake oil.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 1, 2014
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- Critic Score
The music is softly strummed, and Bird’s voice is a high, lonesome thing like the wind on a prairie. Sort of.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
One moment--the Jason Molina tribute “JM”--is startling enough to forgive the clunking stadium-grunge workouts that seem, conversely, to be bringing Strand of Oaks to wider attention.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 24, 2014
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Songwriter/producer Sergio Pizzorno opted for a more slimmed-down sound, stripping away layers of sound to allow the ideas to speak more clearly.... It’s a brave but largely successful move, as is the shift from mainly guitar-riff-based songs to ones predominantly fuelled by synthesisers.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 19, 2014
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Listened to sympathetically, as soppy late-night jazz, it’s fine. Just don’t expect sparks to fly.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 17, 2014
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Giddily debunking sacred falsehoods with good, honest scepticism, Bauer’s raucous rebirth offers the best of both worlds: intrigue and instant reward for Walkmen doubters and acolytes alike.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 16, 2014
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- Critic Score
Charges of over-solemnity may be levelled its way, but only occasionally are the melodic and narrative threads lost to a focus on miasmic, brush-stroked atmospherics.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jun 16, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 27, 2014
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- Critic Score
“Inside the Idle Hour Club” is the comedown: woozy, wavy, lush, long. Not exactly cohesive then, but hey--it’s a trip.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 27, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 27, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 21, 2014
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- Critic Score
There’s nothing here to quite match his finest moments, but nothing stinks and that, I suppose, is the best you can expect.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 12, 2014
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- Critic Score
Turn Blue’s stealth seduction suggests this much: their wrong-footing instincts should keep them on the right track.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted May 12, 2014
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- Critic Score
This is an artist with taste and opinions of her own, not just a schedule and a fanbase to satisfy.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
The Instagram of albums, which is to say a source of instant nostalgia, its 70s- and 80s-inspired cocktail of disco, house, lounge, samba et al, could be merely kitsch but is elevated both by the meticulousness of its production and the sinuous seductiveness of its melodies.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
Blacc proves he’s more than capable of stepping into the spotlight for his first major-label album which features 60s soul, folk, retro pop, R’n’B and even country.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
An intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 28, 2014
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- Critic Score
Everett’s earlier, fearless accounts of family tragedy have refined his ability to explore extreme states of emotional disrepair.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 21, 2014
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- Critic Score
This is an instantly engaging showcase of the 23-year-old Aussie’s talents--poppy without diluting her fierce-flowing charisma.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 21, 2014
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If music be the food of love, Kelis has cooked up something tasty enough to satisfy all but the hungriest of hearts.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Apr 21, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
Liars revel in keeping their listeners on edge and entertained making Mess their most wickedly enjoyable album yet.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
They sound confident enough to provide space for Finn’s lyrics of high nights and soul-harrowed hangovers- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
This may well be Henriksen’s most approachable album--certainly for people coming to him for the first time--and even the semi-commercial breakthrough he deserves. It is also absolutely sublime.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 12, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 10, 2014
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- Critic Score
Between the pub and the high seas, Elbow reset their mission statement here: to navigate the heart’s tides with their art intact.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Mar 10, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
The songs are sparky and Cherry is in excellent voice as she raps, sings and swings against the sparse, drum and bass-style backing orchestrated by Four Tet.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 24, 2014
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- Critic Score
Morning Phase is an often gorgeous sequel to Sea Change, but it’s also more than that: it’s cheering proof that Beck isn’t ready to start repeating himself just yet.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 24, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 10, 2014
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What comes across most is the sheer unbridled enthusiasm expressed in the complex, racing rhythms, squalling sax solos, twanging electric guitar and crooning vocals.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 6, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Feb 4, 2014
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- Critic Score
Feels Like Home is musically conservative, socially ingratiating, politically vulnerable. It is unmistakably a piece of product. But it is also brilliant.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 27, 2014
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- Critic Score
At what point does a child prodigy turn into a talent so exceptional that we no longer talk about age? Sarah Jarosz’s third album answers that question in style (though just for the record, the banjo, guitar and mandolin supremo is now 22).- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 27, 2014
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- Critic Score
They are awfully thoughtful, though the thoughtfulness does frequently give way--sometimes you feel with a sigh of relief--to the technical liberation of jig and reel.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 21, 2014
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- Critic Score
Maybe now he can sleep a little less on floors and spend more time making gorgeous albums like this. Please.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 21, 2014
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- Critic Score
Mostly, though, this lingered-over comeback offers sumptuous returns for those prepared to linger over it.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 21, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 13, 2014
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- Critic Score
As we glide through Post Tropical the tracks steadily grow bigger, with gospel-style harmonies and languid slide guitar lending texture to create a dreamy, if cold, soundscape that may leave some with a sense of frustration, as if we are building towards an ever-shifting point on the horizon.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 13, 2014
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jan 13, 2014
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- Critic Score
Drake is revealed as a serious artist whose gossamer-light songs can sound painfully vulnerable, and there's more than a bit of black dog in the poems.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Dec 18, 2013
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- Critic Score
Funny, warm, eloquent, dynamic, oddly soulful and technically delicious. An unremitting joy.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
Posted Dec 12, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Simon Green, aka Bonobo, has created a beguiling and compelling narrative.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Dec 10, 2013
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- Critic Score
The intricate interweaving of guitar and ngoni juxtaposed with the bright, clear backing vocals makes for a sound that’s dynamic and assertive.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Dec 9, 2013
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Truth is, the release of Tin Star should set Ortega’s adopted home town alight.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 18, 2013
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- Critic Score
Bar that electric guitar, this is the kind of music that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on an old piece of 78rpm vinyl rescued from a car-boot sale (which is, of course, meant as a compliment).- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 18, 2013
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- Critic Score
As an exercise in expanded range, Shangri La is too diverse and distinct to dismiss.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 18, 2013
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- Critic Score
There are overworked beatscapes and confounding lyrics, sure--but also multiple sublime, fully formed songs.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 10, 2013
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The constant here is Arthur’s voice: genuinely soulful and able to switch from MC to Marvin at the flick of a falsetto.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 4, 2013
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Happily, beardy-weirdy Texas psych-folkies Midlake manage to weather Tim Smith’s split with no pinch in purpose or progress.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Nov 4, 2013
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- Critic Score
It may be a bit rushed--too sickly sweet for one sitting, while their youthful lyrics will ripen yet--but the hit rate is nonetheless impressively high.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 28, 2013
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- Critic Score
Big only because Arcade Fire think big, Reflektor stretches stadium rock’s reach in the acts of self-reinvention and revitalisation. Now that’s entertainment.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 28, 2013
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- Critic Score
A good “deluxe” remaster job will do at least two things: one, it’ll strip away centuries of digital compression and make the music sound as if you’ve never heard it properly before; two, it’ll include additional material that gives insight into how the finished work was shaped. Moondance delivers on both counts.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 23, 2013
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- Critic Score
The warm human purr of her ethereal vocals is juxtaposed towith fluid electronic elements and the occasional welcome interjection of bluesy guitar and jagged off-beat percussion.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 23, 2013
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- Critic Score
Happily, the North Carolina’s modern hippie’s second album is too ambitious, too fluently fluently surprising and too lovely to appeal to 1970s retro-heads alone.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 21, 2013
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- Critic Score
Even though the album comes in at nearly 80 minutes, surprisingly it doesn’t feel too long. This is largely because it doesn’t get stuck in an Afrobeat rut.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 16, 2013
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- Critic Score
It’s business as usual, only with a lusher production than expected and a tad too much emphasis on Western rock’s tired tropes in some of the licks.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 14, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 14, 2013
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- Critic Score
Back to Forever moves things into the 1980s--all fist-pumping verses and “Kids-in-America”-like big choruses.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 14, 2013
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- Critic Score
One Breath draws on choppy emotions--grief, depression, anxiety--but Calvi commands the tides with the imperious authority of Barbara Stanwyck leading her posse in Sam Fuller's wild western Forty Guns.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Oct 7, 2013
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- Critic Score
There’s less barn-floor stomp than on previous albums, but Country Mile is still rousing, with trumpet, fiddle and much--occasionally dicey--harmonising.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 30, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 23, 2013
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- Critic Score
The set list's rather obvious and the interstitial chat goes on a bit, but the heart of the man is there to be heard.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 16, 2013
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Ageing is a war they can’t win, but by facing it head-on, the Manics have found the spur to move forwards.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 16, 2013
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There’s something artificial and experimental in the project’s very DNA, but that need not be a bad thing, and it isn’t.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 16, 2013
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Though his appeal remains frustratingly specialist, with each release it becomes clearer that Callahan is the natural successor to Leonard Cohen.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 16, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 9, 2013
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- Critic Score
Tales of Us has a stately pace and woozy beauty, with cinematic orchestration of swaying strings over acoustic guitar or mossy cello.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 9, 2013
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Expect more straightforward, big-vocal, soul-funk numbers, and fewer immediate hits. But compared with most R&B records, Monae is still lightyears ahead.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 9, 2013
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A sassy self-overhaul, AM issues lubricious R&B come-ons over a self-assured narrative arc with personality and open potential cannily spliced.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 9, 2013
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In spirit, their third album takes them back to their origins as an independent group from Glasgow making defiantly direct music in an age of detachment.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Sep 3, 2013
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Brilliant, frustrating, thrilling and irritating. In other words, exactly what we’ve come to expect from an Edward Sharpe album.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 26, 2013
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As an 19-track collection of rarities from the period 2003-present, TTEC is necessarily a mixed bag of styles and qualities.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 26, 2013
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There’s singing going on, all right, it sounds lovely, but little is conveyed other than loveliness. However, there’s no arguing with their authenticity or technical excellence.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 26, 2013
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After an average third LP and a four-year hiatus, the art-rockers are once again all kinds of excellent.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 26, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 19, 2013
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Their self-titled debut, aptly enough, is one of the most bitterly anti-romantic albums this side of the third PiL offering.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 19, 2013
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Fluent melodies, nature metaphors, and expressive settings are the robust ties that bind these reveries.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 19, 2013
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“Organic moonshine music” she calls it, and no one could argue with that.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 12, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 12, 2013
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While the presiding atmosphere is retro, the Avila brothers' production keeps things properly real.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 12, 2013
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See You There revisits his classics as well as finding room for one new track and a beauty of an alternate version of "What I Wouldn't Give."- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 12, 2013
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White Lies have just enough elegance and intrigue beneath the bluster to carry it off.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 12, 2013
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Arrangements are simple, bluegrass-inflected and rich in acoustic textures. Warm and thick as a hayrick.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 5, 2013
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With its unrelenting positivity, Yes, It's True sounds like the Flaming Lips fronted by Deepak Chopra, and valiantly courts the daytime radio play that will inevitably elude it.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 5, 2013
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They're reunited with vocalist N'Dea Davenport but don't really need her, their dressing-up-to-go-out groove being the thing.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Aug 2, 2013
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While this may once have been filed under 'shoegaze', now we can call it 'noisy dream pop' and just wade in its wash of guitars.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 31, 2013
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Michigan auteur Hawthorne has synthesised his influences into perfect power pop, with the help of producers including Pharrell Williams.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 29, 2013
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Within the first 60 seconds it's alluded to Blue Peter and Taxi Driver in successive lines. Wind in the Willows it ain't.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 29, 2013
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It's an assured collection of pure pop with an independent sensibility, equal parts Kylie and The XX.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 29, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 25, 2013
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There's no progression or narrative, it's immersive rather than engrossing. Slow Focus is an album to steep yourself in.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 22, 2013
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- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 15, 2013
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Sistrionix is a hugely enlivening 41 minutes of deliciously distorted vocals, instantly memorable fuzz-up guitar riffs, handclap breakdowns, and vicious put-downs of cheating lovers and sleazebags.- The Independent on Sunday (UK)
- Posted Jul 1, 2013
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