The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,623 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 37% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Gold-Diggers Sound
Lowest review score: 20 Collections
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,235 out of 2623
  2. Mixed: 1,370 out of 2623
  3. Negative: 18 out of 2623
2623 music reviews
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    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    YTILAER
    Much of the playing here feels appealingly understated, given the sizable showing of backing vocalists (“6 or 7”) and lots of brass. This atmosphere of diffuse beauty is offset by livelier tracks – such as Natural Information or Bowevil (based on a traditional) – that double as thumping singalongs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Into the Blue
    Impressive, but weirdly hard to enjoy. Into the Blue is similarly promiscuous, but more frequently dazzling.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The New Faith
    An arresting, if not always comfortable creation from an uncommon talent.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nymph
    Having explored the darker side of the dancefloor, Nymph finds Muise experimenting with its more irreverent aspects.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bible
    There are moments, as on Every Child Begins the World Again, so musically numinous and epochally sad that Lambchop approaches Nick Cave’s recent work.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fossora
    Trilling flutes and whimsical clarinets break the mood of majestic ache that makes Fossora one of Björk’s hardest-hitting albums.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: That's What Happened 1982-1985
    There are excellent Miles trumpet solos all over these tracks too, proving that he’d got his sound back after his late-70s breakdown.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    God Save the Animals
    For the most part it’s a rich and deftly arranged work, and though there’s a warmth that can sometimes border on cloying, he cuts through with chaos and levity.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In These Times
    There is a feeling of generous unspooling here, with hip-hop breakbeats (on one standout, Dream Another) and nods to machine-made music in among the sumptuous orchestral and genre-agnostic instrumentation.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hold the Girl
    This is a record about coming home to yourself, about feeling truly alive, one with the added benefit of being stuffed with bangers and not overburdened by corny shredding.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Autofiction
    There’s barely a misstep in Autofiction’s 45-minute running time. A late-career triumph.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Words & Music, May 1965
    Previously unheard on any other archival release, these versions genuinely add to his already considerable myth.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spirituals
    This whirlwind album is full of feeling and fervour, and its liveliness affirms just why she is a singular talent.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Boy
    There are blooping keys and retro drum machines on River Rival; Thinking of Nina feels like a long-lost hit from the 80s. Even better is Soft Boys Make the Grade, a tune that relocates Williams’s gothic bent into a killer soft-rock tune in which he sidles into someone’s direct messages.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Natural Brown Prom Queen
    As woozy and restless as these multipart productions are, she packs in plenty of sticky stuff: melodies, hooks, insistent figures.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    PRE PLEASURE
    Written on keyboards rather than guitar, Pre Pleasure was recorded in Montreal with Marcus Paquin of the Weather Station; you can hear the uptick in arrangement and production in the painterly thrum of the instruments.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heartmind
    Album of knotty nuance bathed in melodic succour.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Cheat Codes
    You could dismiss Cheat Codes as dad rap, but this record is absolute joy from end to end.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fleeting Adventure
    It brims with the sense of release and joy that comes from the tiniest escape from confinement.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Renaissance
    These sour notes aside [Energy and Heated], Renaissance is the feelgood manifesto that puts all the other post-pandemic party albums in the shade, a song cycle crammed full of homages to the historic continuum of Black dancefloor therapy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Surrender
    Occasionally this can leave you longing for something less overblown, but this is Rogers 2.0: dancing sweatily in NYC karaoke bars and singing lines such as “sucking nicotine down my throat/ thinking of you giving head” (on new track Horses) and rocking out. Letting rip suits her.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Theory of Whatever
    Thankfully, The Theory of Whatever takes a gentler, more mature tack; no longer the mouthy street poet of the people, Treays is simply singing his heart out about his muted memories of love, nostalgia and hangovers. It’s a joy to perch alongside and listen to him reminisce.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Special
    Musically, Special’s a bit of a retread. Lead single About Damn Time, with its Saturday-night, last-song-before-we-leave-the-house vibe, bounces on a similar podium to 2019’s Juice, and the title track boasts imperious orchestration, just as it did on Cuz I Love You. But it works.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Riderless Horse
    It’s an unsettlingly raw album, the sparse instrumentation – Nastasia’s soft voice and acoustic guitar, recorded, as ever, by Steve Albini – making her lyrics all the more stark and powerful. ... An astonishingly moving record.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    About Last Night...
    Overall, About Last Night… manages to keep the party going – it’s just more convincing when tears mix with the prosecco.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Gemini Rights
    A sumptuous listen that glows like a freaky summer love.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hellfire
    Best listened to as a whole, Hellfire is as challenging and unsettling as it is exhilarating. About as sui generis as it’s possible to get in 2022.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If You Will
    A well-polished gem – welcome back.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sound of the Morning
    Pearson wears her talents lightly on an album that allows space for them to breathe. Sound of the Morning is a remarkably mature record; hopefully, future releases will be just as absorbing.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tresor
    An ambitious album (it comes with an 8mm film and several quirky videos) from a unique artist.
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