The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,193 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Radical Optimism
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,176 out of 2193
  2. Mixed: 988 out of 2193
  3. Negative: 29 out of 2193
2193 music reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Paranoïa, Angels, True Love
    Paranoia, Angels, True Love is too long and rambling to bring Christine and the Queens any new fans, or much action on the singles chart. Its self-indulgence may even tire some existing fans. But if you give it time to grow its wings, it can really lift you up.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Age of Pleasure
    Clocking in at a scant 31 minutes, you could call The Age of Pleasure a quickie – but one that more than manages to scratch that itch.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    But Here We Are
    As a tribute, and a farewell, it could hardly be better.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Council Skies
    Council Skies is guaranteed to make the old fans feel right at home.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Soft Machine
    My Soft Machine is a punchier, poppier outing for Parks but the record shares a lot in common with its predecessor. .... It’s when Park veers off her own path that things get interesting. “Devotion” is a risk that pays off.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent
    His is the sort of personable charm that even the slickest PR machine can’t drum up. It is also, unfortunately, something that’s too often missing from this album. That and variety.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gag Order
    Gag Order comes loaded with deliciously weird and compellingly urgent hooks.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Album
    At no point does The Album push for edge or originality. But you’d have to be the barbecue grinch to deny its lovingly crafted, feel-good vibes. Pure, safe sonic ketchup.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    - (Subtract)
    Lyrically, the album does fall short, but then Sheeran has spent over a decade trading in vague yet universal issues. ... For the most part, Subtract is testament to the old adage that less is, often, much more.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Two Pages of Frankenstein
    It’s realistic, reassuring, and rather soporific.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Fuse
    It’s an album that makes a church of its elegant electronica: all vaulting arcs of yearning melody and glimmers of stained glass that dance upwards, to the familiar urban spire of Thorn’s beautiful, hangdog voice.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    72 Seasons
    72 Seasons may not see Metallica doing anything new – but it does find their old machine firing on all cylinders. Old and new fans alike will be headbanging happily throughout.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Drop Cherries
    By the time her vocals roll in on “God Above”, you’re already caught in the slipstream of Drop Cherries. ... Marten dials back her sound to paint tender, intimate moments using only strokes of orchestral watercolour.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    the record
    Most of them slot together with an appealing combination of simplicity and enigma – like those little puzzle cubes made of three types of wood. All the while, you can hear the careful questioning with which the songwriters have honed one another’s thoughts until they slot smoothly together to become satisfying tactile emotional experiences.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Memento Mori
    By avoiding clutter, both in lyrics and in instrumentation, each song feels like inhaling a gulp of cold, crisp air.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.
    Her sweeping, layered ninth album is more ruminative than reactive: questions of family and legacy, memory and death swirl around one another until they’re one in the same.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Songs of Surrender
    Ultimately this is an album of shadow versions that leave you yearning for originals.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Endless Summer Vacation
    A lovely long bask in Cyrus’s maturing talent.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    UGLY
    UGLY is a powerful and direct transmission from a brilliant, beleaguered brain.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Food for Worms
    Food for Worms sees Shame confidently embrace their flaws and resign themselves to the messy, beautiful chaos of their live shows. It’s all captured within this bedhead of a record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cracker Island
    Signs that Cracker Island is designed to be a summer album sizzle though the heat-haze synths of “Silent Running” (featuring soulful contributions from Adeleye Omotayo) and the hip-sloshing dancefloor pulse of “New Gold” (feat Tame Impala and Bootie Brown).
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cuts & Bruises
    [“Valentine” is] the most endearing entry in an album that has its moments but doesn’t quite leave a mark.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Trustfall
    The record’s problem is that it never settles on one cohesive sound.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is Why
    After releasing all the pent-up adrenaline in the album’s first half, Paramore’s melodies lumber likeably to a sludgier, shoegazier speed after that. But the band keep things interesting by accessorising that sound with a synth flute (on “Big Man, Little Dignity”); a rattle stick tap (on “You First”); a twinkling keyboard; and low horn effect (on “Figure 8”).
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    My 21st Century Blues
    A very brave, strong record. Hats off, Raye. These blues are smoking hot.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gloria
    Smith’s vocals are, of course, beautiful. Creamy and curvaceous; liquid with emotion. But I often feel their voice is searching for tangier tunes to wrap that molten wax around. Without any sharpness to offset it, listening to the repeated wobbly rise of Smith’s lovely, dollopy notes can feel like the aural equivalent of watching a lava lamp.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rush!
    Måneskin are a band who know what they are and what they’re good at – because while it’s true that Rush! starts to feel amorphous, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single moment in its 50-minute runtime where you’re not enjoying yourself just a little.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This Is What I Mean
    The older he gets, the better the conversational-confessional flow of his rapping, which allows him to stroll through a 10-minute bragathon like “Mel Made Me Do It” without breaking a sweat or losing the listener’s attention. He raps about trips to Dubai and giving up weed like he’s sitting beside you at a London bus stop.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
    There’s a little electronic noodling going on to remind us that, though Mering sounds supremely grounded, a part of her is still in exiled orbit around a damaged world. It’s soulful, and a little spooky.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Redcar les adorable étoiles
    Those more open to a ramble will find themselves easily led through the whole journey by Redcar’s commitment to the grooves and expressive vocals. It’s worth taking the whole trip with him, as the mood gradually lightens towards the dawn of final songs “Angelus” (on which he imagines angels descending from the “pissing sky”) and “Les âmes amentes” on which he hails golden sunshine visions of bees and birds and naked bliss. Easy for the cynics to mock, but it’s hard to fault the earnest artistry with which Redcar reaches back for lost innocence. Angelic.
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