The Telegraph (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,234 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 77
Highest review score: 100 All Born Screaming
Lowest review score: 20 Killer Sounds
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 880 out of 1234
  2. Mixed: 352 out of 1234
  3. Negative: 2 out of 1234
1234 music reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
    The Nearer the Fountain may be Albarn’s most intimate, understated and impenetrable work yet. But if you are prepared to get lost in his self-involved hall of mirrors, you might just find yourself beautifully bedazzled.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carry on the Grudge
    His long gestating third album is every bit as fantastic as earlier offerings, stuffed with narratives of contemporary bohemian life; wordy, free-flowing verses giving way to singalong choruses, spiced up with perky, lateral hooks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is What We Do
    Behind its rather mundane title, This is What We Do contains multitudes of grooves, with both a positive spirit and a physical imperative that are nigh-on impossible to resist.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heroes
    The playing is lovely, lilting and delicate.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Walking Like We Do
    The results may be a bit odd and unfashionable, but one of the great pleasures of Walking Like We Do is that it simply could not have been made by anyone other than The Big Moon.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep
    His latest offering is powered by some lovely, liquid bass playing that offers a silvery thread through the textured mélange of disjointed electronic noises, splintered guitars and ghostly traces of strings. It is certainly not for everyone. But Ejimiwe’s relentlessly downbeat delivery may have finally found its moment.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
    It sounds modern and old fashioned at the same time, infused with an adolescant self-absorption that is at once depressive, funny and wise beyond its years.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything You've Come to Expect
    Bright character studies of predatory women, manipulative gurus, sleazy lotharios and outdoor sex fiends are peppered with non-sequiturs that force listeners to fill in gaps.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Key Markets
    It is not very hip, and it doesn't really hop, but Sleaford Mods have arguably come closer than anyone else to creating a uniquely British form of rap: rant music.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Being
    This is stand-up-and-listen music, commanding attention in surprising ways. Being suggests that far from mellowing with age, Maal – who turns 70 in June – remains as eager and excited to explore new frontiers as he ever was.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    *Happiness Not Included
    Four decades into their career, Soft Cell have rarely sounded more current.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reflektor
    It is exhaustingly, daringly, bafflingly brilliant, but you might want to lie down in a dark room after listening.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reason to Smile
    There are a few moments here that feel like major label fodder, sure, but on the whole Kojey Radical deserves enormous credit for putting out an album that remains thoughtful and spiky despite its clear intention to get people dancing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Born This Way
    Gaga goes over the top and keeps on going: exhilarating, exhausting blockbuster entertainment.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1000 Forms of Fear
    A clever range of textures (from raw cello through stuttering piano to popcorn-light synths) keep things interesting and there’s a bravery in the way she spins inspirational lyrics from her long battles with addiction and bipolar disorder.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Old Magic
    Nick Lowe is pop's master of pastiche, and this delightful collection of country bar-room and lounge ballads sounds like a game of spot the musical references.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harlem River Blues
    Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot Records) ranks alongside the best American roots music being made at the moment and his concerts should not be missed.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turn Blue
    This may be the most raucously uplifting divorce album ever heard.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Battle Born
    Flush with stirring, singalong melodies, they construct exciting, catchy songs that draw on the dynamics of stadium rock established by classic bands.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Divers
    For the most part Divers is a magic carpet ride that finds Newsom still spinning wild (and generally impenetrable) interwoven yarns with the jaw-dropping dexterity of a modern-day Scheherazade.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Radiate Like This
    The all-female indie-rock quartet, have returned after a six year hiatus with fourth album Radiate Like This, and it feels more intimate than ever.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As You Were
    What gives it freshness and conviction is Liam’s performance.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Give Me the Future
    It’s easy to make fun of, but the melodies are uniformly gorgeous, the layered synth and string arrangements are bright and exciting, Smith’s singing is filled with pliant emotion, and it all adds up to a pop album so addictive that it feels as though it had been intravenously injected into my system.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hit Parade
    The album is peppered with playful uses of samples. It’s deeply sophisticated music – an astute melting pot of genres bound together by the latest production techniques.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Night Chancers
    He continues the good work with sixth album The Night Chancers, a set of seductive, atmospheric late-night grooves on which Dury conjures sinister vignettes of insomniac dwellers of the wee small hours.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Old Adam
    Inspired playing by Sam Sweeney (fiddle), Rob Harbron (concertina), Roger Wilson (guitar, fiddle), Ben Nicholson (bass), Toby Kearney (percussion), and guests appearances from Jon Boden (guitar, fiddle) and Martin Simpson (guitar) add to a delightful album.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Somewhere Under Wonderland
    Still channelling Lynyrd Skynyrd, REM and the Band, the rest of the Crows keep the tyres on the tarmac like pros.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spare Ribs
    Sweary, punky and bilious, Spare Ribs is unlikely to win over new converts but it is as good as anything in Sleaford Mods extensive oeuvre.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Steve Reich: WTC 9/11
    The performances are superb.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kitty, Daisy & Lewis The Third
    The Third is a hot, sweet pancake stack of danceable tracks, drizzled with drama and swung by a terrific horn section.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Doo-Wops and Hooligans
    What makes this a really exciting debut, however, is the Kanye West-style genre-bending on Grenade, The Other Side and Our First Time, which joins the dots between between Michael Jackson and Bob Marley.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    Great pop music with its big heart in the right place.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jesus Is King
    Packed with gospel choirs, church organs and soulful ululations condensed into a typically bravura tableaux of obscure samples, warped synths and spooky slabs of vocoder harmonies, Jesus Is King sounds as scintillating as anything in West’s considerable canon.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    M B V
    Those same multilayered textures [in Loveless] are all here, and if anything there are more finely chiselled planes of fresh variation: there is a discipline as well as wildness behind the distortion.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
    It's certainly good to have West's unique talent back in music, but this ambitious behemoth may be easier to admire than to listen to.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harry's House
    This is music with a big, gleeful smile on its face. And it is accompanied by clever and compassionate lyrics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    At times, Koenig is reminiscent of Paul McCartney in nursery rhyme mode--tunefully sweet and silly. Yet Koenig’s pithily epigrammatic lyrics throw a bit of intellectual grit in the mix, even if they possess all the clarity of a cryptic crossword.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breakfast
    Like Barrett and Wilson, Teleman indulge a whimsy that can tip into tweeness. But the melodic repetitions and slightly eerie echo around the guitar line give it a weird edge that works.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    E3 AF
    E3 AF marks his growth into an elder statesman of rap. Perhaps he sounds so assured because he’s embedding himself again in the sound that he helped to pioneer.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    GRRR!
    While the Stones may not have struck oil with these songs, their energy remains undimmed, their back catalogue endlessly renewable.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    See You in the Stars
    Lasting a little over 30 minutes, See You In The Stars is almost cocky in its brevity. There’s not an ounce of fat on it, and it’s all the more satisfying for it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Only the Strong Survive
    Springsteen has charisma and conviction to match anyone who has ever picked up a microphone, allied to a dynamic grasp of exactly when to ramp up and when to hold back, and he delivers these songs like they mean the world to him. In other words, he’s got soul.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blessed
    She certainly knows how to convey emotion.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Slow Rush
    Dreamy and digressive, Parker’s songs meander and drift as if going nowhere before suddenly switching track. It can be hard to get to grips with, but there is purpose to such apparent waywardness. Meditative lyrics grapple with the relentless passage of time, lending emotional grit to his woozily blissful jams.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The 2nd Law
    Muse's rather absurd spaceship may be welded together from bits of other acts--but it still flies.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eternal Sunshine
    Eternal Sunshine is pop at its sexiest – 13 songs designed to lodge themselves in your head for eternity, whether you like it or not.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is Why
    Williams’s song C’est Comme Ça perfectly sums up the album: a reckoning with change, a refusal to deliver the same-old tricks even when it’s the easier option.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brightside
    The tension and ambiguity implicit in downbeat songs with upbeat choruses lies at the heart of an album that may not easily yield its secrets but will keep you singing as you try to work them out.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Being Funny In A Foreign Language
    Fifth time around, The 1975 get the equation right: pop first, art later.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sheezus
    Sheezus should confirm Allen’s status as a national treasure, reason enough to be cheerful.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bridge
    The Bridge is out of time yet timeless, pure pop class.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hardest Part
    The Hardest Part doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It knows what it is: undisguised, accessible songwriting pulsing with country lifeblood which manages to avoid being swallowed by its own ennui.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The World Is Yours
    There are a couple of lesser chug-alongs, but mostly it's as good as anything in the Motörhead canon.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Stupid World
    Vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Ira Kaplan, percussionist and pianist Georgia Hubley, and bassist James McNew sound as fresh and relevant now as they ever have.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Four
    Four is hard to dislike: it's cheery, uplifting, high spirited and good fun.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revolve
    You can hear his love and enthusiasm bursting out of these grooves, not just in the way he roars over the top of melody lines but in the spaces he creates for other musicians to shine.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silver & Gold [Boxset]
    Overall the compilation makes its way towards a bigger story of many ideas, emotions and textures.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coming Home
    Accessorised with Staxy horns and handclaps, the resulting album has a genuine groove and glow.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Long Leg
    Any vocalist might thrill to engage with such sleek backing tracks, yet Shaw’s cool delivery and off-kilter lyricism occupies unusual spaces in the band’s arrangements, pushing the whole project into edgily discombobulating territory.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am Moron
    With Ross’s voice shifting from deadpan sweetness to striking shout over bare-essentials grooves adorned with just a twist of something startling on each track, I Am Moron is much cleverer than it would have you believe.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Absent Fathers
    Life has been a struggle for the son of Steve but the closing track, Looking for a Place to Land, suggests there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything is Love
    Beyoncé impressively matches her superstar rapper husband in terms of lyrical swagger, rhythmic flow and verbal bounce. That she does it to a backdrop of samples constructed around her own extraordinary singing lends the record's mantric grooves the luxurious sheen of high-end pop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
    The album is a beauty, none the less, the care put into it confirming Williams's exalted position in the tower of song.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bride
    This is a beautiful, beguiling, disturbing and rewarding album of love, loss, grief and recovery from one of the most intriguing singer-songwriters currently active in British music, of either gender.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seven Psalms
    It feels remarkably intimate: a half-shuttered window into the world of the man behind some of the world’s most famous songs. If only Simon were to pry open said window slightly wider, one would feel more fulfilled – but there’s always future albums for that.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sugaring Season
    She's continued to move away from electronica, but these rich, emotionally sophisticated songs (which will appeal to Cat Power fans) still have a strong rhythmic core.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Voyager
    Given Lewis’s age and retro-musical instincts, major stardom may now be beyond her grasp, but if you like your pop music grown up, she’s up there with the big boys.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    El Camino
    Each track has a timeless quality, as suited to a Seventies mid-west saloon as a students' indie disco.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beyond the Sun
    It's hardly a novel idea to cover these songs, but Isaak's versions succeed through skilful arrangement, vibrant recording (mostly at Sun) and above all some remarkable vocal performances.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Love You Jennifer B
    Ellery and Skye have managed cohesion amid the cacophony. I Love You Jennifer B is a dramatic outing that combines the modern, the classical and everything else in between.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When the Heart Emerges Glistening
    His harmonies have a louche charm, his trumpet sound has a fascinating vocal intimacy, and he makes lightning-fast interplay with the quintet, especially sax player Walter Smith III.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    That's It!
    A great deal of care has gone into the record.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Starboy
    What is surprising is how seamless and integrated the sound is--a really luxurious, supple groove of sparkling electronica and sinuous, melodic vocals.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1989
    Sharp observation and emotional engagement raise her material above the level of celebrity Twitter spat.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Highway
    With Williams it's classy and classic country. This is a very good album.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    End of World
    It hasn’t exactly all been easy listening, but still definitely Lydon’s most approachable album ever. It sounds as though it was hard-earnt light relief for him, fun for its chief protagonist to make, and with repeat plays it only proves increasingly infectious.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Universal Credit
    The references are frank, from the satirical title (he made the album while receiving Universal Credit during the pandemic, and the cover depicts him receiving a giant cheque for £324.84, the current monthly allowance, from besuited men in celebratory style) to the succinct writing within.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If You're Reading This It's Too Late [Mixtape]
    This sounds like the work of an artist who knows he is at the head of the hip hop pack, laying down a gauntlet to the whole of rap music.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Distance Inbetween
    Distance Inbetween is by some distance the Coral's most muscular offering.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happier than Ever
    The 16-song set flows beautifully, carrying listeners on an emotional journey in which surprising musical twists and glittering barbs of lyrical empowerment cast optimistic light on a long dark night of Billie’s tortured soul.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    101
    Slipping easily between lush orchestral pop and electronic symphonics redolent of Air, she also keeps a firm hand on the lyrical tiller, occasionally even bearing comparison to the poetic pith of Leonard Cohen.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blonde
    Blonde makes for sensationally beautiful background music that can morph into a bizarre hodgepodge of disparate ideas when you concentrate on bringing it into the foreground.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Songs
    Overall, it's a good album.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Livin' on a High Note
    She wields the survivor's axe of righteousness and you listen up, because she sings with the no-nonsense generosity of one who's telling you how to keep your own darkness at bay.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nonetheless
    Like every previous Pet Shop Boys album, Nonetheless is clever, fun, and at times very touching.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Devil You Know
    She infuses this crepuscular collection of songs by the likes of the Rolling Stones, The Band, Neil Young and Gnarls Barkley with a compelling voodoo.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hold the Girl
    The more conventional songs radiate power too, from straightforward pop-rock anthem Hurricanes to the electronic thud of Holy — her It’s A Sin moment. The album’s final three tracks feel superfluous, but Sawayama ultimately succeeds where Dr Frankenstein failed: her creation greater than the sum of its parts.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cometa
    Throughout, the music remains a bit distant. It’s as though Hakim, despite all he feels, is making a comment on the otherworldly and ineffable nature of love. Like a kite itself, love doesn’t stay still. It floats, moves and pulls you in different directions. Just like this collection of songs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Album No. 8
    This is a laidback album, drawing on the dreamy Seventies milieu of Laurel Canyon with a touch of the easy listening sumptuousness of Burt Bacharach. It is about the ways lovers drift apart, evoking the fall of Autumnal leaves rather than blood on the tracks.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jonny
    With Blake re-accessing his quirkier side after years of solid songcraft, and Childs guided away from his more loopy excesses. A hatful of memorable tunes, too.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Suck It and See
    After an opinion-dividing experimental phase with 2009's Humbug, roar back to melodic life on their fourth album.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    (self-titled)
    This is an album in which Mumford embraces and forgives his own, to deeply moving effect.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sweetener
    Grande can really sing, which is a treat in this Auto-Tuned era. Her four-octave range has been compared favourably to Mariah Carey’s, but her style is far more delicate and understated. She rarely unleashes full power blasts but her delight in singing is transparent and her producers take full advantage, layering her all over the tracks.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Asphalt Meadows
    Death Cab are back with a bang and a new-found self-assurance.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Band of Brothers
    There’s plenty of life in the old dog yet.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Await Barbarians
    This is an album full of wistful, careworn emotions and a sense of quiet profundity.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Could We Be More
    In all it’s a fascinating mix, which should attract new recruits to Kokoroko’s ever-growing legion of fans.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Autofiction
    It’s a fresh, raw and intentionally scruffy album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Disc-Overy
    A sensational debut from the British rapper. Tempah's wit, imagery and rhythmic flow is offset by schoolboy humour and a tendency to build raps from non sequiturs.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fuse
    The 60-year-old producer has clearly been keeping an aficionado’s ear on developments in digital electronica, and there is nothing particularly retro or dated about this comeback. Thorn’s voice has a timelessness that will always sound contemporary. She never strains or overemotes but lets her instinct for elegant melody and the understated intelligence of her lyrics carry the dramatic weight.
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