The Quietus' Scores

  • Music
For 2,115 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 7% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 76
Highest review score: 100 Gentlemen At 21 [Deluxe Edition]
Lowest review score: 0 Lulu
Score distribution:
2115 music reviews
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If the EPs marked the group out as hazy, lo-fi practitioners in the Beach House mould, In Heaven benefits from a general polishing-up on terms of production, but more importantly from a more varied stylistic palette.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Conatus seldom reaches the same level of experimentation as Danilova's collaborations with the likes of LA Vampires. But what she proffers instead is far tastier: a deft fine-tuning of the slick and stylish formula of Stridilum II, with the slightly schlockier moments of melodrama eschewed for something more sophisticated.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tinariwen's Tassili may not have the distorted guitars of previous records, but the acoustic recordings suit the contemplative mood and makes for a powerful return to their roots, as the musicians' circumstances, like getting lost in the desert, go in circles.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    As a general rule on New Brigade, the faster, shorter and more atonal the tracks, the more intriguing the Danes become.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Overlook is not her best record, but is an encouraging return to a sensibility marked by deliberation and sensuousness in equal measure.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hell on Heels is one beautiful amble.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It may just be Anthrax's most consistent material since Among The Living in 1987.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Floreat isn't simply a seduction--in the most understated way, it's too intense for that.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crucially, her sense of humour remains intact, sharp and lethal – the sweet laments carried by her increasingly accomplished voice feel often to be one step away from, not laughter exactly, but self-deprecation, or a mordant smile at her own expense.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In its explicit references towards woozy psych, soul and even glam, Tripper is better, and marks Johnson as being a songwriter and rock auteur deserving of comparison with the likes of Mercer, Andy Cabic and Jim James.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The voices are huskier, the music juicer, the innocence of yore starting to chip away as Paradise sees them explore the dark side of vice and life. They're are all the better for it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It may not be the Rapture many were expecting this year, but this triumphant return to form is pretty glorious nonetheless.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Where debut EP Summertime! and the über-hyped eponymous first album's songs had an oddly melancholic joyfulness that captured a number of imaginations back in early 2010, here there's a quiet switch to an oddly uplifting melancholy. On the best songs, that is – too many just sound gloomy and dull.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The engagement with dance music and half-improvised feel lends it an irresistible forward momentum, something that picks up pace throughout the album to exhilarating effect; the album's second half in particular creates a disconcerting sensation of constant acceleration, until it finally collapses into its closing throes and falls away.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Leave No Trace favours synths over horns – in fact, it's not until about ten minutes in that we get our first taste of brass - and whilst the sound is still impressively full-bodied, without the continuous stream of interwoven saxophone and trumpet solos that made its predecessor such a joyous affair it feels pretty empty in comparison.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dense, professional, and thoroughly realized, Mirror Traffic will become a lot of people's favorite Malkmus album. He sounds more like Malkmus than ever, and it makes me shiver.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's that mix of astral expensiveness and strict artistry that makes Thundercat's debut LP The Golden Age Of Apocalypse as grand and visionary as its title.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The first Shjips album to be recorded in a proper studio, with an engineer, West is Wooden Shjips' fullest exploration of these tensions to date, and sees the band stepping up their game in every aspect.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Whilst it may lack the game-changing originality of other big 2011 releases, the record spans half a century of musical history more effectively than any other in recent memory.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Where the warm, bright finish on Fondo made it gleam expansively, occasionally here you wish for a little more space in the mix and in the arrangements, if only to allow us to explore Vieux Fara Touré's beautiful songs more freely.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    From a purely musical perspective, however, it executes that very most rare form of retroism--the type that makes the tired, forgotten and domesticated once again radical.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Its huge, cocaine-pricked melodies remain present and correct throughout, but the tracks themselves are among his best so far.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The result is a woozily involving mood piece that encompasses everything from the shimmering heat of daytime ('Lifesized Stuffed Animal', where music box chimes rub up against disoriented square wave bass) to the dead of night, caught in the lairy drunken lurch of 'Kitties'.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bermuda Drain is, from the off, a massive step forward for Prurient.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    While the album is by no means a disappointment, one can't help but long for the return of a less inhibited Krug, free of – albeit self-imposed – limitations.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life's Rich Pageant rather sweetly gathers the emotions and carries them back to the time.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    One immediately clear difference between Two Way Mirror and previous Crystal Antlers work is the fact the band, led by vocalist and bass player Jonny Bell, have improved immeasurably as musicians.