The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 2,192 reviews, this publication has graded:
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47% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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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: | Radical Optimism | |
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Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,175 out of 2192
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Mixed: 988 out of 2192
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Negative: 29 out of 2192
2192
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck augments his usual reedy Americana stylings with some unexpected developments on Muchacho.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2013
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if it is to be his last communiqué, at least the old smoothie's going down swinging.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 20, 2012
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“Sleep All Summer,” which features Archers of Loaf frontman Eric Bachmann brings his harsh vocals to the forefront of the track, which unfortunately make it challenging for Case to standout. But it’s a small flaw in a gorgeously curated record that reveals Case is never really done reinventing herself.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 30, 2018
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 5, 2017
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Two Hands is Big Thief’s best to date, and undoubtedly one of the best of the year.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 10, 2019
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White's own voice lacks the character to drive his songs, but Big Inner is a hugely impressive debut nonetheless.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 22, 2013
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Max Richter’s only motive here is beauty, drawn from all corners of his musical interests, which are many and varied. The result is a journey that takes one from Renaissance choral polyphony to the inventive precocity of teen duo Let’s Eat Grandma, via Bach and Handel, minimalism, post-rock and electronica, with nary a misstep in sound, selection or sequence. ... A rare treat.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 17, 2017
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Dacus’s warm vocals are as rich and full as ever, between upbeat album singles like “Hot & Heavy” and yearning, piano-driven ballads (“Please Stay”).- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 24, 2021
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Despite the occasional challenge of big blasts of (gleefully disruptive) discord on tracks such as “trolle-gabba”, those considering dipping a toe into avant garde pop will find the waters are warm on Fossora. Give it time – it’ll grow on you. Like a fungus.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 30, 2022
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For better or worse, Duster sounds as though it was created by humans. Imperfections are packed into structures that are more comprehensible, and far less nebulous. Each crackle, echo and strained vocal makes the limitations of being human seem not only clear, but beautiful in its vulnerability.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 13, 2019
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Some are perfectly matched: the cycling strings of the poignant “The Electricity Goes Out And We Move To A Hotel” are like waves lapping at a wall, while the darting bricolage of scraping bow and “close-up” violin brings a real sense of desperation to “Dawn Of The World”. Anderson’s characteristic air of matter-of-fact wonder, meanwhile, lends a gentle charm to the epiphanies of “Everything Is Floating” and “Nothing Left But Their Names.”- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 15, 2018
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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”).- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Ultimately, it’s his own, most career-defining work to date. ... The record progresses--in every sense of the word---he allows himself to become more vulnerable, more considerate.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 6, 2018
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Close your eyes as you listen to Montero and you can almost feel the rainbow confetti falling from the ceiling and sticking to your tears. This album isn’t the creation of a gimmick-spinner. It’s an album bursting with technicolour heart.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 17, 2021
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On this, Gillian Welch's fifth album, the familiar blending of traditional sounds and moods with modern sensibilities is effortlessly sustained through songs like the mordant "The Way It Goes" ("Betsy Johnson bought the farm, stuck a needle in her arm, that's the way that it goes").- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 24, 2011
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There’s been a lot of hype surrounding her since she made it on to BBC’s Sound of 2018 list. Miss Universe justifies it.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 21, 2019
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Making perfect pop isn’t easy, but Troye Sivan is a star who’s done his homework. With one foot in pop’s past and another in its present, Bloom is a record that could turn its considerate maker into one of mainstream music’s most revered and fascinating talents.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 30, 2018
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Her vocals – and the album itself – are dextrous, flexing between those high notes and lower registers at the most unexpected moments.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 24, 2021
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Swift has said she has no idea where she’s going from here. She doesn’t need to. But it’s a Christmas treat to hear her enjoy creating a whole magical, mystical world away from the spotlight. No reinvention required.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 14, 2020
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- Critic Score
By avoiding clutter, both in lyrics and in instrumentation, each song feels like inhaling a gulp of cold, crisp air.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 23, 2023
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Here, Lewis does what she does best: adds the glossy sparkle of Hollywood and a sunny Californian sheen to melancholy and nostalgia, with her most luxuriantly orchestrated album yet.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 21, 2019
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This 111-track set does a commendable enough job, reflecting the extraordinary creative tumult happening behind the headline crap about gobbing and safety-pins.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 3, 2017
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Amo won’t satisfy all of BMTH’s fans, but it’s certainly accomplished, catchy and eclectic enough to bring in some new ones.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 24, 2019
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Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 21, 2019
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On Everything Hits at Once, the Austin-formed indie veterans have compiled a glimmering collection of songs that date back to 2001’s Girls Can Tell, or are as recent as to come from 2017’s Hot Thoughts. There’s also a brand-new song, closer “No Bullets Spent” (built using parts from “Dracula’s Cigarette” of their Get Nice! EP), which is a low-simmering take on power and corruption.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 29, 2019
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In its commitment to euphoria, Dance Fever is an album that looks forward to the release of all the pandemic’s pent-up energy at this summer’s festivals. ... I hope she never learns to keep a lid on her wonderful wildness.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 12, 2022
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A blunt, bold album on which Hackman’s beatific voice sits atop methodically messy instrumentals.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 7, 2019
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It’s a relief then, to find that – despite Fontaines DC’s own misgivings – they still have plenty more of note to say.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 30, 2020
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Brimming with intensity and the analgesic hypnotism that is Pierce’s signature, And Nothing Hurt would make a suitably majestic final Spiritualized album.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 6, 2018
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Karine Polwart’s latest album draws together several narrative and observational threads--avian behaviour, the boggy moorland landscape near her home, problematic procreation, and a tragic early 20th century romance – into a taut allegorical message about community and progress, all set to vividly evocative arrangements by soundscaper Pippa Murphy, employing harp, celesta, balofon and percussion as required.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 22, 2017
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Providence Canyon is more muscular than its predecessor and, for the most part, a heck of a lot of fun: an 11-song LP recorded in Nashville with Cobb’s Grammy-winning producer/cousin Dave Cobb.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 11, 2018
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What comes across perhaps more strongly in this audio version of Before The Dawn is the subtly contrasting nature of the two suites, their disparate characters--entrapment versus liberation, petrifying terror versus exultant joy--reflected in the music.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 23, 2016
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Flower Boy presents a surprisingly sensitive, thoughtful, even pleasant personality.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2017
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If such bittersweet reflections came packaged on a solo Albarn release, they’d probably be set to sorrowful, detached, acousto-electronic sounds. But his old friends have alchemised those sentiments into songs that elevate his suburban tristesse into moments of sheer ecstasy.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 20, 2023
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Blending Cline originals and recent covers with reimagined standards by the likes of Jerome Kern and Rodgers & Hart, all realised in beautifully enigmatic arrangements which wrap woodwind, horns, strings and tuned percussion around Cline’s guitar. Throughout, atmosphere is paramount.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 18, 2016
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 21, 2019
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In the past, Obert’s fractured lyricism has sounded too blunt against such stark instrumentation; here it’s as though his words are being bathed in moonlight, coaxed softly into being. A wonderful, lucid dream of a record.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 19, 2021
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 13, 2020
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Perhaps their greatest album since their Mercury Prize-winning breakthrough The Seldom Seen Kid, released over a decade ago.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 10, 2019
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For the most part, this is an album that restores faith in the sheer joy of music.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 17, 2015
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 6, 2020
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The warm but haunting Trouble Will Find Me will surely cement their accession to the rock mainstream.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 16, 2013
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There’s an interior dialogue throughout, which is sometimes more intriguing than musically engrossing. ... But there is transcendental beauty here to get lost in.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 12, 2019
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Kate Tempest’s follow-up to the dazzling Everybody Down is similarly ambitious in scope, fired by the same compassion and delivered with the same level of energised loquacity.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 5, 2016
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What’s impressive is how Thundercat makes this music, with its complex structures and zigzagging rhythms, so human.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2020
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Where most rock superstars sink into trad tedium by 69, Springsteen is still crafting sophisticated paeans of depth and illumination, a rock grandmaster worthy of the accolade. A must-have for anyone who has a heart.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 12, 2019
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It’s not quite godlike, but Yeezus certainly feels like it was created by a higher power.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 17, 2013
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Backed by a band who vigorously play to his timeless strengths, he sounds as sprightly as ever.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 25, 2018
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Re-Animator packs global anxiety and paranoia into exquisitely crafted songs. A superb album.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 10, 2020
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What’s Your Pleasure? reveals the magic that happens when an artist feels truly free.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 25, 2020
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 1, 2024
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Throughout is a sense of wonderment at being alone. Perhaps solitude is an underrated pursuit, but with Inner Song, Owens makes a highly convincing case for it.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 28, 2020
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 1, 2013
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 11, 2018
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Dave Alvin's latest album may be his best yet, its tales of the flipside of the American Dream set to gritty blues riffs that speak of long months on the road.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 8, 2011
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He drifts like a spectre through a labyrinth, exploring his favourite themes of sleep, reality and the subconscious. The tones here are stark and bleak, compared to the claustrophobia of 2014’s Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. ... By the end of ANIMA, you’re left wondering about those dreams that are just out of reach, but also what we risk losing when we look back.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 27, 2019
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Never once do Sons of Kemet compromise on their fiercely individual sound.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 13, 2021
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While The Breeders may not be reclaiming their youth on their latest effort, they’re not trying to: they approach All Nerve with the sensibility of a band that embraces how they’ve grown since their early punk days.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2018
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Of course, it takes a certain degree of patience (or pretension) to unpick the record entirely, but once unravelled listeners are rewarded with a dystopian world best described as sci-fi sleaze.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 6, 2018
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Although the fear was that Adam would be spreading his father’s legacy too thin, each track has the weight of a completed thought, not a sketch bulked out.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 19, 2019
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With the skirling, Arabic-tinged drone-rock textures of his band The Space Shifters augmented by cello and Seth Lakeman’s violin, the album’s miasmic charm imbues even the rockabilly standard “Bluebirds Over The Mountain” with new, mysterious depths.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 13, 2017
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 11, 2024
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While Negro Swan elaborates on Hynes’s best work, he remains grounded in cosy bedroom-pop by shambling drum machines, vocal compressors and gratuitous psych pedals.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 23, 2018
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 18, 2019
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Staples called this his most personal record yet. Perhaps it’s this new vulnerability that makes the album so great. Or maybe it’s the whip-smart one-liners. Or the vivid storytelling. Staples will say this latest triumph is just a dude doing some different things.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 8, 2021
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If the Grammy-nominated Forever was their blistering hellscape, Underneath is a glitchy, industrial wasteland.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 13, 2020
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On her latest effort, the singer-songwriter proves that the power of reinvention suits her just fine.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 4, 2018
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Nadia Reid’s 2015 debut Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs heralded the arrival of a prodigious talent, the young New Zealand singer-songwriter’s confessional material embodying an emotional intelligence and honesty akin to Laura Marling and Judee Sill, her folk leanings tempered by languid jazz inflections set among a patina of subtle sonic textures. Preservation continues in like manner.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2017
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Pre Pleasure is one of those rare records that reveals the whole artist, cheap kicks and all.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 25, 2022
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It’s excruciating in its honesty – even for Lenker, who’s hardly known for shying away from her feelings. Now she bares her pain with complete abandon. It’s quite extraordinary.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 22, 2020
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As beautiful as it is exciting, Suddenly is an uplifting album that embraces the change and shifting perspectives that life throws our way.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 27, 2020
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It's the most simple, directly dance-oriented they've been since Disco, putting down a marker for the rest of the album.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 8, 2013
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An album, that restores to R&B some of the adult concerns that powered the genre through its '70s golden era.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 29, 2012
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 30, 2011
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Overall, this is a powerful statement from a laudably liberated artist. A record red in tooth and claw.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 30, 2018
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Hold the Girl is eclectic and searching, a little glossier than Sawayama’s debut, perhaps, but also much more introspective.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 15, 2022
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Martin Simpson applies his dazzling fingerstyle technique to a broad range of material.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2013
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It’s a fascinating oddity streaked with sex, violence and sorrow, a sort of seedcorn of the Robert Rodriguez aesthetic, presented complete with the lithographs that accompanied the original, albeit in cramped CD size.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 24, 2016
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“Riser” features Jaki Liebezeit-style tom-toms behind cosmic contrails of synth trapped in a cavernous ambience; while string synth and wordless vocal keening drape like fog around “Abandoned/In Silence”, whose clarinet line establishes accidental but apt echoes of the theme to Exodus.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 16, 2016
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With Modern Kosmology, long-time Manchester folktronic siren Jane Weaver has made her most completely realised album yet, albeit by dispensing with folk music almost entirely, in favour of more forceful Krautrock and psychedelic influences.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 17, 2017
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Perhaps reflecting the three years spent touring after their marvellous Music In Exile album, the excellent Resistance finds Malian desert-rockers Songhoy Blues forging firmer bonds between their native modes and Western styles.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 14, 2017
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Jupiter’s songs remain daringly iconoclastic, from the anti-monarchist critique of “Benanga” to the anti-materialist slant of “Pondjo Pondjo”; but there’s still plenty of room for pure pleasure, as per the dashing, ebullient celebration of dancing, “Ekombe”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 6, 2017
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It’s a public catharsis which succeeds through a combination of subtlety and the determination to derive general observations from personal experience.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 2, 2017
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The euphoria of parenthood is effusively conveyed in several tracks, though the overall mood created by the heavily reverbed vocals, drones and pulses remains pregnant with potential distress.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 23, 2017
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 18, 2017
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It’s infectious stuff, right from the opening bars of “I Don’t Wanna Be Without You”, a languid shuffle of organ and saxes, with occasional castanet flourishes accenting the rumba groove.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 1, 2018
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This apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree: like her dad John, Lilly Hiatt has a gift for unpicking knotty lyrical themes in a personalised blend of countrified rock music.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 1, 2018
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Walls is unchecked, indignant and raw, and though it ends with a note of despondency, it is a triumph.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 12, 2018
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In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 6, 2019
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He’s already had a No 3 album, without the kind of major label backing many of his peers enjoy. The follow-up happens to be even better.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 19, 2021
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Across the album she stretches her voice into familiar, hushed shapes – but the record marks a clear evolution of an artist done with being called pretty.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 21, 2021
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You Signed Up For This is an effortless pop debut. As an already established singer, Peters had little to prove, but after a shimmering first album, she has laid any residual doubt to rest.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 27, 2021
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All 10 tracks are stacked with hooks, making it as good as their 2009 breakthrough album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. ... Mars’s sophisticated stream-of-consciousness lyrics operate in perfect synchronicity with the album’s sound. Melancholy themes of mortality are balanced by a giddy commitment to seizing the dance floor moment.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 3, 2022
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Petals for Armor doesn’t offer up an easy redemptive arc towards happiness; it is a Herculean effort to pull yourself out of depression. But in letting us in on that effort, Williams has created something special.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted May 8, 2020
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Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Senjutsu is just how much fun the band are having. It’s an album built to entertain, full of theatre, full of gold-standard musicianship. They keep things neat at 10 tracks, but when they do indulge themselves a little, it’s worth it.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 2, 2021
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Across the next nine tracks they deliver pounding pop thrills and arena-sized catharsis, in a style that refines their distinctive sound instead of pimping it up, Noughties style.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 24, 2022
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2016
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 7, 2021
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Through the album there’s a mesmerising rhythm, a kind of rocking horse motion that spurs you on to the next track. ... On Swimming he was adrift, searching for a lighthouse beam that would bring him back to “a place of comfort”. On Circles, it sounds as though – if only for the briefest of moments – he found it.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2020
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