The Wire's Scores
- Music
For 2,618 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
51% higher than the average critic
-
7% same as the average critic
-
42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: | SMiLE | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Amazing Grace |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 2,168 out of 2618
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Mixed: 430 out of 2618
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Negative: 20 out of 2618
2618
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
A box set containing their first two LPs plus demos and live tracks, provides some help in cleansing the palette while providing context for the evolution of their massively cribbed style. [Jun 2021, p.67]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
At her best she lives up to the statement of intent on “This Sound” where her style is pitched as physical, literal but metaphysical, mystical and medicinal. ... But by the time she implores us to “do yourself a favour and eat some shrooms”, she sounds dangerously like just another hippy with too much faith in her medicine. [Jun 2021, p.- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The album progresses through tastefully understated melancholy and rage to a clutch of pop songs whose assured emo posturing melts into cries for salvation so exquisite they’re undeniable. [Jun 2021, p.64]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Where French multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott gained attention with her reinvention of the viola da gamba as a rhythmic instrument on 2015’s enchanting Captain Of None, this album is more ambient and interior. [Jun 2021, p.63]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The trio crowbar open new fissures in metal’s ever-shifting tectonic plates with five astonishingly powerful songs, each imbued with its own magic and mystery. [Jun 2021, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The brasher moments of Afrique Victime are at least as worthwhile, Moctar having assembled a crack band. ... If this guy only really has two main modes – flamboyant electric blues and downhome, tricksy folk-rock – he can scorch in both, making complaints churlish. [Jun 2021, p.53]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
It is the slick heat of Gibbons’s liquid guitar groove, tempered by the equally blistering yet mysterious cool of his desert surroundings, that makes Hardware a deeper listening experience than initially expected. [Jun 2021, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Good as the present iteration of The Chills is – featuring Erica Scally on guitar, keyboards, violin, Oli Wilson on keys, Callum Hampton on bass and Todd Knudson on drums – it’s Phillipps’s darkly catchy writing that dominates this seventh studio record from the band. He has a synoptic vision that takes in everything from fake news to cargo cults. An essential contemporary voice. [Jun 2021, p.48]- The Wire
Posted May 18, 2021 -
- Critic Score
For music as heavy as this, the performances and production are impressively agile and light on their feet. Ultrapop is clear-eyed and enraged, pristine and pulsing with adrenaline. [Jun 2021, p.46]- The Wire
Posted May 18, 2021 -
- Critic Score
An album as complex as this encourages listeners to reflect on themselves. [May 2021, p.46]- The Wire
Posted May 18, 2021 -
- Critic Score
An unpretentious work of Romanticism - that holds space for the infinite experience imbued in a poem, a song, or a voice. [May 2021, p.55]- The Wire
Posted Apr 27, 2021 -
- Critic Score
When you listen to Made Out Of Sound, you feel encouraged to immerse yourself in every note, cherishing the beauty of this otherworldly space. [Apr 2021]- The Wire
Posted Apr 14, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The ten tracks are built on foundations of looped percussion and tight bass sequences, usually based around short, sharp and undeclarative sounds – synthetic rimshots and damped hi-hats rather than snares or kicks. While this can run into staid territory, as on the triphop shuffle of “One Two”, for the most part its subdued hardness accents the drift of Milton’s vocals. His delivery often overwhelms the matter of his lyrics in the best way. [Apr 2021, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Apr 9, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The result is a kind of lo-fi dream music, sea-changed and composite, with whisper-core mbalax drifting in and out focus between vaporous synth washes, low-key beat programming, spoken teachings and lilting song. [Feb 2021, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Carti’s voice here sounds rough and occasionally hoarse. His famed knack for repeating phrases ad infinitum seems to lead into cul-de-sacs, and the rumbling PC beats don’t float as easily as his earlier work. But there’s plenty to appreciate on Whole Lotta Red. [Feb 2021, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
There may only be nine tracks here, but it’s like there are worlds upon worlds to explore; Strom had a knack for making every note feel special. [Feb 2021, p.55]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Across these tracks, the searching spirit of Virginia Wing is often challenged, its questions far from being answered – but the album feels more true to life because of it. [Feb 2021, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
McCartney’s infamous whimsy tempered by his refreshed penchant for odd sonic detail (the spectral guitar tangles that trail through “Find My Way” for instance) and an aged voice whose natural erosion is more feature than fault. [Feb 2021, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Audet’s obfuscatory impulses only make the album more compelling. [Feb 2021, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Altın Gün’s unwavering commitment to Turkish psychedelic rock receives a glossy refurbishment here. [Feb 2021, p.60]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
It’s powerful music for open roads and endless dreaming; once it’s turned on, time is suspended by the limitless layers of unbridled, electric sound. [Feb 2021, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The speech modelling software used to articulate the narrative generates a somewhat grittier, odder voice than your average online speech synthesizer, but that doesn’t keep the album’s expository moments from being momentum killers. The passages where artificial voice gets fed into some typically squelchy MOM electro beats are considerably more fun to listen to. [Feb 2021, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
These days, addressing race and gender in doom metal is considered extreme in itself; with Gas Lit, the duo demonstrate that extremity is not just found through deftly executed blastbeats and downtuned riffs, but within the decision to create music that defies categorisation. [Feb 2021, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
The aforementioned “Carpathian Darkness” is an archetype for the album as a whole, thoroughly captivating despite (or because) of its familiarity. [Feb 2021, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Compact but effective EP release. “Mandrill” buzzes with metallic heft and 8-bit zips; “Capuchin” breaks into a melody that practically bounces. Gore is obviously having fun here. [Mar 2021, p.63]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Isles offers multiple reboots of the “Glue” formula: chunky broken beats, keening voices in many languages, and duvet-warm basslines, as on lead singles “Atlas” and “Apricots”; the latter is based around a clip of the much sampled Bulgarian State Television choir. Guest vocalist Clara La San adds a femme-pop twist to “Saku” and a tight electro jam called “X” which is the best of the bunch. [Mar 2021, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Pick A Day To Die pieces together Sunburned fragments dating back to the late 2000s, resulting in an endearing zigzag of moods. [Mar 2021, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Sound Ancestors is a masterpiece. The 16 pieces not only expand the conversation around the art of sampling, but also further hiphop’s ability to grow as a collaborative Black artform. [Mar 2021, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021 -
- Critic Score
On “Pure GreyCircle” Malliagh intensifies the mixture, introducing slabs of bass tone that flex and squeeze against elusive beats. There’s some weird subject matter, too; across polished surfaces and sharp corners, tracks such as “Sylph Fossil” and “Zones U Can’t See” smuggle cosmic lyrics inside voices that whisper or glide, always diving below the mix or spinning above. [Apr 2021, p.66]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021