The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,195 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 Hit Me Hard and Soft
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,177 out of 2195
  2. Mixed: 989 out of 2195
  3. Negative: 29 out of 2195
2195 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time of Dust
    Balanced by bitter barbs at modern snivellers and shysters in Time of Dust itself, the result is a compact but concentrated dose of poison.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Foolish Heart
    There’s a calm, reflective quality, allied to an intense involvement, about both players’ solo work, of which My Foolish Heart may be Towner’s best since his sublime 1973 debut Diary.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    False Alarm
    On False Alarm, though, they offer something that proves they’re still worth paying attention to.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Independence Day
    At 14 tracks, the album is one of Fredo’s longest and yet it still manages to feel concise. Independence Day is another push forward for Fredo – a mostly solid follow-up from a rapper continuing to hone his voice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Good Witch
    Some tracks on The Good Witch serve as incantations to manifest a better lover; others spit curses on past ones. All of them, though, convincingly set Peters up as the next musician to confidently march us into another sad girl summer.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Soberish
    Soberish is a record of push and pull, of doubt and regained confidence. ... Phair is the queen of rock reinvention, and as this album proves, she’s got a few lives left.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Boys & Girls
    Just a series of great, swampy soul grooves, fronted by the most arresting new voice you'll hear this year, and the kind of natural songwriting that seems to contain the entire history of Southern music within its staves.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
    By reflecting on the personal issues that first inspired him, Murdoch has reminded his band what they’re made of and sparked a loving surprise: their most expansive, exquisite mission statement since 1998.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Silver & Gold [Boxset]
    Part of its success is due to Stevens' uniquely ambivalent position, at once ingenious and ingenuous.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rock and Roll Animals
    It offers an engagement with the notion of music as a lived obsession that far outstrips their mostly meagre intentions.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Miles Davis Quintet: Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5
    Freedom Jazz Dance features the entire session reels for tracks from Miles Smiles and Nefertiti, complete with studio dialogue, enabling us to hear Miles discussing and directing the music, ironing out details. ... The point when they all seem to realise, as one, what to do with “Nefertiti” is a moment of pure, transcendent joy.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happiness Begins
    The album loses some momentum around the more generic “Strangers”. But even with that song, the harmonies are hard to resist. It’s the best pop comeback – and likely one of the best pop albums – of the year.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here
    Alicia Keys’s musicality is far superior [than Solange's]: whether developing swaying gospel fervour on “Pawn It All”, threading balofon through the two-part reflection on African-American queens “She Don’t Really Care/1 Luv”, or riding a perky Latin shuffle for “Girl Can’t Be Herself”, her work is grounded in a melodic appeal that’s almost magnetic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Volume 1
    Despite their diversity, a mood is sustained through Midlake’s arrangements, which draw on fond ‘70s influences, from the glam-rock boogie of “Restart” to the sweeping yacht-rock sheen of “Unlikely Force”. In most cases, the songs locate almost perfect surroundings.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Circuital
    Circuital opens with a gong and orchestral fanfare, appropriately so for what may be My Morning Jacket's best album.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two of Everything
    With Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys co-producing, Olive has captured the flavour of 1960s Brit-blues on the cusp of spreading into druggier, more exploratory areas.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lady from Shanghai
    It's an absorbing, sometimes harrowing ride.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Downhill from Everywhere
    Downhill from Everywhere provides plenty of evidence of that relit spark, delivering the sheer joy of hearing a master songwriter with the wind in his sails.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sings Christmas Carols
    It’s the gap between his character and the songs’ sentiments that gives this album its curious appeal.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
    The whole album is a terrific reminder of the intense, personal connection Swift can conjure in song.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1000 Forms of Fear
    No surprise then that this first solo album following her second wind is full of exquisite craftsmanship.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ghost on Ghost
    So long as you're not paying close attention, it's a beguiling enough experience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sticky Wickets
    The follow-on to their beloved titular 2009 debut finds Duckworth and Lewis exploring further aspects of the beautiful game, from its amateur enjoyability and levelling qualities to the euphonious variety of its argot.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Phoenix
    Given the stuttering, protracted process it’s been through to get here, it’s a surprisingly coherent record. ... For the most part, though, Phoenix is worth the wait.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Low Country Blues
    The T-Bone Burnett-produced Low Country Blues is Gruntin' Gregg Allman's first album in 14 years, and it's the best work he's done since the Allman Brothers' Seventies heyday.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tinsel And Lights
    Tracey Thorn takes a wider brief than usual for her Christmas Album Tinsel & Lights, mostly avoiding the routine carols and standards in favour of left-field choices.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    The words themselves are glorious, as frequently absurd and brilliantly imaginative as some of the best sci-fi writers--Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, HG Wells--while the instrumentation recalls their cinematic adaptations, or classic superhero cartoons.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fine Line
    It may not reach the pinnacle of sex or sadness, but Fine Line is a fine album nonetheless.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wonderful, Glorious
    Eels songwriter Mark "E" Everett has always trod a peculiar, idiosyncratic path that runs parallel to most pop music, but here he collides with it in such a tender, open way that the emotional hit of some songs is quite shocking.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Darling Arithmetic
    It’s an elegant, thoughtful album, rendered in deft, subtle brushstrokes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Son of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys
    This follow-up to the original 2006 Rogue's Gallery sea-shanty compilation is slightly less salty but just as broad-ranging musically.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Back in Black
    Cypress Hill demonstrates across the record, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Cheech and Chong of hip-hop are back – and are as clear-headed on hazy-eyed matters as ever.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gentle Spirit
    Thankfully, the further Wilson gets from his heroes, the better he gets.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Algiers
    On their sixth album, Calexico finally sound more like a band with memorable, individual songs, than a project dedicated to creating audio soundscapes evocative of the American southwest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    ["Mr Tembo" is] a rare moment of extrovert cheer on an intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unearth
    Grasscut push the electropop envelope in intriguing new directions with Unearth, its songs inspired by alliances of people, poetry and places.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Is Beautiful
    The songs on Everything is Beautiful, by contrast [to Everything Sucks], are warm and sun-dappled; reminiscent of the uplifting, gospel-influenced hip hop of Chance the Rapper.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Skin
    Skin is brilliant across the board.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Desired Effect
    The result is a series of huge-sounding, stadium-ready pop anthems of undeniable charm.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales of a Grass Widow
    Tales of a Grasswidow is easily CocoRosie's most satisfying, fully realised work so far.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Going Back Home
    For his part, Daltrey matches Johnson every step of the way, fighting his corner just as fiercely as in his dayjob.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Combat Sports
    Combat Sports is a great return for The Vaccines, and an album that will soar at their live shows.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lux
    Whereas most 75-minute albums of short songs swiftly pall, Lux never bores because it's never making foreground demands on your attention.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Molly Drake
    Despite her amateur standing--she never once supposed these tapes would be made public--there's a keen poetic sensibility at work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    4everevolution
    It's a more considered and persuasive analysis than most of his younger, grimier peers can offer.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cupid Deluxe
    Sometimes it suffers from Prince-like micromanagement, but when it succeeds, it's blissful.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blues Funeral
    Taken as a whole, it's a marvellous piece of work, boasting a rare congruence between lyrical themes and musical evocations, and fronted by one of the most broodingly characterful voices in rock music.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apocalypse
    Apocalypse is Bill Callahan's best release in some while, sustaining a unity and intimacy of mood throughout.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dreamland
    Bayley’s voice – light, airy, mournful – makes you think of Peter Pan if he were forced to grow up. Thinking of childhood in such analytical detail can throw up wonderful memories, sure, but it can bring out dark things, too – things that tend to hang around in later life. It makes for a complex, thoughtful and moving record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hey, I'm Just Like You
    Tegan and Sara’s last album, 2016’s Love You To Death, was a bold stadium-pop record; this one is less polished, but just as punchy. ... Most people read their teenage diary and cringe. With Hey I’m Just Like You, Tegan and Sara have painstakingly, tenderly, written theirs out again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    What she's come to realise, finally, on new Florence & The Machine album High As Hope, is that her voice is just as, if not more powerful when she holds back.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interstellar
    It's Rose's harmonies that make the album special: warm and breathy, they seem to sidle gently into position, rather than cut with razor precision.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Dynamite
    The album asserts the great variety and malleability of electronic music, from the electro breakbeat of “Lime Ricky” and the languid offbeat groove of “Pink Squirrel” to the synthesised collage of “K Mart Johnny”.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living in Extraordinary Times
    Living in Extraordinary Times marks a band still working at their full capacity, bringing new ideas and sounds while retaining what inherently makes James James--big choruses, danceable tracks, and timely lyrics.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales of Us
    The delicate guitar and piano figures and the sombre languor of strings behind Alison Goldfrapp’s breathy vocals create something akin to a cross between the dreamlike mythopoeism of old folk tales and the lush cinematic arrangements of Michel Legrand.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Primal Heart
    Perhaps it’s her wisely chosen collaborators or more life experience, but Kimbra’s exploratory ethos has never been so on point.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alone in the Universe
    This is your echt ELO in all its familiar state of sub-Beatlesy woe.... Whether his form of “properly” meets with your approval will, of course, depend on your capacity to perceive virtue in the familiar and the sentimentally melancholic (and in brevity: Alone in the Universe clocks in at roughly 35 minutes’ duration).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Late Night Feelings
    The emotional cohesion the record loses in its shifting cast of singers/songwriters/genres it makes up in DJ-savvy textural variety.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The New Abnormal
    The New Abnormal – a spookily prophetic title – is stacked with rolling, streetwise grooves, boldly graffitied onto the chipped paintwork of NYC past.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hotspot
    Hotspot teeters somewhere between their ballad-heavy album Behaviour (1990) and 1988’s shimmering dance record Introspective. ..You sense this album is intended as an expression of hope for the future, rather than a fond look back.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Shouldn't Be Telling You This
    I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This is imbued with the charisma of its creator; it’s a playful and inviting album whose first half zips through the mostly vocal-led numbers with ease and sprightly energy. ... Remarkable singers give rich layers to this accomplished album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ohio Players
    Their rock’n’roll friends, from Beck to Noel Gallagher, are on hand to lend the album a rabble-rousing tone. Ohio Players sounds like a house party where the whiskey is flowing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Social Cues
    The band’s best work to date.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rome
    Norah Jones and Jack White sing on three tracks apiece, respectively languid and predatory, the end result being a short but perfectly-formed portal to a different state of musical mind.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It
    While this follow-up shares some of the annoying mannerisms that curdled one’s enjoyment of The 1975’s 2013 debut, it’s ultimately a much more enjoyable and considered work, one which starts to deliver on the immense hype that accompanied their emergence.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gag Order
    Gag Order comes loaded with deliciously weird and compellingly urgent hooks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?
    Her best album in about a decade.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The 20/20 Experience
    There's nothing too innovative about Timbaland's production, but it's probably as reliable a set of grooves as R&B will spawn this year, custom-tailored to carry the singer's gentle falsetto.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Switch
    Those looking for a dramatic change from their previous work will be disappointed as there are few surprises to be found. Whilst this can sometimes feel like a missed opportunity, there is still plenty on here to intrigue. This is a brave, immersive and timely record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Wasteland Companion
    A refreshingly non-dogmatic take on retro musical styles.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Delta Kream
    Delta Kream is a soundtrack for those hot and heady nights of late summer. It’s brilliant.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Plastic Hearts
    From start to finish, Plastic Hearts dresses catchy, Eighties-indebted pop melodies in rock’s studded leather, lets them spin a few wheelies and max out the speedo. It’s basically a truckload of fun with added blood and guts, driven by Cyrus’s reckless, open-throated, soul-bearing charisma.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Rose of Spring
    First Rose of Spring is the work of an artist who will never grow old.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It All Starts with One
    Norwegian singer Ane Brun's quietly involving music occupies a spectral space in which her delicate, tremulous voice reveals shared intimacies with a rare poise.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Courting the Squall
    As you’d expect from Elbow’s frontman, the songs on this debut solo album rarely stray too far from the sleeve on which Guy Garvey wears his heart.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My True Story
    It's a virtually faultless set, with plenty of neat touches personalising familiar material.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Day of Summer
    A typically diverse collection.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Train to Paris
    It's easily the best work Diddy's been involved with in his entire career.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Betty Wright: The Movie
    The album plays to her strengths, as befits a woman who has sustained a career as producer of, among others, Joss Stone's breakthrough sessions.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gon' Boogaloo
    Recorded in one take, with drums, bass, guitar and backing vocalists huddled around two microphones, the results have a rustic charm akin to a more grizzled Leon Redbone, with rolling rumba-rock and reggae grooves.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elephants on Acid
    Cypress Hill are the hippies of the hip hop world, making music surrounded by a green-tinged haze that takes more cues from classic Sixties and Seventies rock than anywhere else. Elephants on Acid is one hell of a trip.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Future Dust
    This is an album that shows a band who’ve grown stronger and unafraid to flex their muscle.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silver Landings
    Musically, it’s lovely – loose, swirling California rock and country, led by gaze-out-the-train-window melodies. ... This album will leave a mark – one that is Moore’s and Moore’s alone.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Used to Think I Could Fly
    She sings like she’s falling apart, but the quality of the album suggests she’s got it together.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If You Wait
    The care and attention pays dividends on If You Wait.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Soft Cavalry
    A slow-burning triumph.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Requiem
    When they get their teeth into a groove, Goat’s alloying of krautrock and Afrobeat, desert blues and psychedelia proves irresistible.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Master of My Make-Believe
    Liberally spattered with sonic exclamation marks.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yes, I'm a Witch Too
    Her second volume of collaborative remixes/re-recordings with diverse guests draws its source material from all stages of Ono’s career, and brings home not just how enduringly courageous she has been, both artistically and socially, but also underlines the vein of fierce feminism running throughout her recording career.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Dreamer/The Believer
    That he manages to express such ethical and religious principles without coming across like a sanctimonious buzz-killer is quite remarkable.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    King's Mouth: Music and Songs
    12 meticulously crafted songs. ... Just as the preceding art installation invited viewers to enter its vast head of LED lights and wonder, this album does the same.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    Reconstituted with a brawny two-guitar attack, The Hold Steady return with another portfolio of dirty-realist tableaux in Teeth Dreams.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SMOD
    As on A&M's albums, he's captured the trio's charm and lightness of spirit within infectious grooves built around Sam's cyclical acoustic guitar riffs, with the individual raps supported by their warm, uplifting harmonies.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forever Endeavour
    Ron Sexsmith writes with a similar emotional honesty to Mark Everett, but in a more classic style, akin to the moving simplicity of Tim Hardin.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Other Side of the River
    It’s a lovely, laidback collection, with percussionist Willie Bobo adding a languid Latin feel, and multi-instrumentalist David Lindley excelling on guitar and violin, while Reid’s sepiatone delivery is expertly framed by master producers Eddy Offord and Tom Dowd.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You're the Man
    It is further evidence of his mellifluous voice, somehow both relaxed and urgent; of his muscular grasp of his genre; and of his willingness to push its boundaries.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Day of the Dead
    Bryce Dessner brings his minimalist experience to bear on “Garcia Counterpoint”, a Reichian exercise of layered guitar lines, but only Wilco’s Nels Cline comes close to the spirit of exploratory abandon in Wilco’s live version of “St. Stephen”. And amongst a tranche of dutiful replicas, Anohni’s “Black Peter” stands out for its transformative orchestration and delivery.
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