The Wire's Scores
- Music
For 2,618 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
51% higher than the average critic
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7% same as the average critic
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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: | Spiderland [Box Set] | |
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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
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- Critic Score
Sound stretches and stretches without ever threatening to crack, and you start to long for some crude and rude collisions; a belch, a digression, a protest, an accident... [Machine guns blasts in the second half come] too late, and too orderly. [Dec 2011, p. 63]- The Wire
Posted Jan 23, 2012 -
- Critic Score
It's a pity that the albums is slight, with five songs, one of them a minute-long interlude, in just over half an hour, and settles for revisiting a sound Carlson knows rather than anything more daring. [May 2018, p.44]- The Wire
Posted Jul 12, 2018 -
- Critic Score
On his fourth album, he seems to be wrestling with how to modernise his signature blues and roots foundation without minimising its traditional elements. Parts that would work better with stripped down production are overproduced with the layering of background vocals, keyboards and added sound effects, making the music too rich for the message. [Jul 2018, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Jul 13, 2018 -
- Critic Score
H-p1 is a slightly more adventurous outing than usual, due to the recruitment of synth player Shazzula, but the additional textures, pleasing as they are, fail to revolutionize what is essentially record collection rock. [Jul 2011, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Aug 17, 2011 -
- Critic Score
Mess is more immediate than the past couple of albums, and in context, more baffling. [Mar 2014, p.63]- The Wire
Posted Mar 28, 2014 -
- Critic Score
A fitful and languishing affair whose best moments will have you yearning for more, while the worst may leave some listeners wondering what they were doing here in the first place. [#248, p.59]- The Wire
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- Critic Score
While some tracks here showcase his incredible touch, others are straightforward hiphop loops that might have been built using a Tony Allen sample kit, and the album as a whole lacks conceptual or thematic unity. [Jul 2021, p.60]- The Wire
Posted Jun 29, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Cutting through the tedium reveals a moderately engaging narrative of low level criminality with solid insights ranging from the cloying to mildly provocative. [Feb 2017, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Jan 27, 2017 -
- Critic Score
There’s far more US punk in this music (you’re often reminded of The Descendents and The Dictators) than UK punk and, considering we live in the age of Bob Vylan, much of the album sounds too retrograde. I would have loved more of the angriness, and some quality control on the inherent defeatism/smirk of band name and album title. [Aug 2021, p.65]- The Wire
Posted Sep 2, 2021 -
- Critic Score
There is, in the end, something vaguely nauseating about a bunch of popular entertainers in middle age creating state-supported art inspired by the deaths of countless young men caused by an act of state-subsidised slaughter. [Jan 2015, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Jan 9, 2015 -
- Critic Score
There’s a telling lack of conviction when he uses the past tense saying “I used to feel so devastated… now we on our way to greatness”. It’s a shame because when he settles for articulating rage from a less lofty position at the centre of a crowd he’s rejuvenated, alongside Schoolboy Q, J Cole, Styles P and Kirk Knight admitting a burn in his gut and boasting of how he’s “flowing religiously... Amerikkka’s worst nightmare, the super predator”. [May 2017, p.62]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Ultimately, though, one crucial element is missing: El-P's voice. His desperate, throbbing-forehead-vein rapping is as vital as his sound as the synths or the beats, and this disc would have been vastly improved by even one bilious verse. [Aug 2010, p.61]- The Wire
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- Critic Score
To run with the cinematic analogies, I'd suggest that Frost is the musical equivalent of Nicolas Winding Refn, all neon lit brutality and state of the art emptiness. [Oct 2017, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Oct 11, 2017 -
- Critic Score
As jazz-inflected triphop goes, it's not even anywhere near as inventive or risky as DJ Spooky's Optometry sounded back in 2002. [Mar 2014, p.60]- The Wire
Posted Mar 31, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Ultimately Plantasia is often hard to love for the music itself. It was released several years after more evocative pieces for the Moog had already been released – from Perrey and Kingsley, Dick Hyman and even Garson himself – but it remains beloved as an amusing curiosity first and foremost, and for good reason. [Dec 2019, p.66]- The Wire
Posted Nov 20, 2019 -
- Critic Score
Lacking the eldritch weirdness of Actress's music, their faded grandeur somehow feels strangely mundane, despite their inherent beauty. [Oct 2012, p.62]- The Wire
Posted Dec 5, 2012 -
- Critic Score
State Of Ruin is a typically pristine offering from Planet Mu’s UK roster of trap and grime inspired producers, at once displaying high definition composition of dynamic bass pressure without really producing anything hugely exciting. [Apr 2019, p.50]- The Wire
Posted Apr 3, 2019 -
- Critic Score
The Body’s central drive focuses on heaviness, both as a sonic and emotional motif, and while their creative apex I Shall Die Here demonstrates a logical conclusion of the former, I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer sees the band explore dramatic terror, to limited success. [Jul 2018, p.44]- The Wire
Posted Jul 13, 2018 -
- Critic Score
It's all elegantly executed and often beguiling, but just too clean and predictable to be really involving. [#228, p.62]- The Wire
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- Critic Score
"STP3/The Killer," "Silent Witness," and "I Come By Night" are exceptions, however--somewhere along the line a spark's been snuffed out. [Oct 2012, p.67]- The Wire
Posted Dec 5, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Boiling down the complexities and contradictions of the countryside to a succession of stiff choral hymns, a chance to understand and connect is lost. [Apr 2021, p.55]- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Tracks like “It’s Not Me” and “All-Seeing Eye” feel like works in progress and weigh down an already overlong album. Yet the album has its superlative bursts, like the fingerpicked coda of “Goodbye” and the gnarly biker metal guitars on “Alarms” and “Goatfuzz”. [Oct 2016, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Nov 8, 2016 -
- The Wire
Posted Nov 8, 2016 -
- Critic Score
It's an uneven set, relying strongly on her performance to carry the songs forward. [#229, p.68]- The Wire
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- Critic Score
Overall, as a listening experience in itself, The Master feels like a retreat. [Nov 2012, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 5, 2012 -
- Critic Score
The lyrical intricacy and rhythmic playfulness of old are still there, but an arthritic creakiness creeps in, especially when he indulges in hackneyed poetism and dodgy wordplay. [Feb 2012, p.71]- The Wire
Posted Feb 17, 2012 -
- Critic Score
The album suffers at points from fastidiously clean production; it’s not just lo-fi romanticism to want to hear musicians of Vieux’s calibre in settings that are less polished. [Jun 2017, p.76]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2017 -
- Critic Score
It's just a coarser, clumsier version of the updated industrial bashing of their last album, without the dreamy coronae of guitar.[Jun 2016, p.60]- The Wire
Posted Jul 18, 2016 -
- Critic Score
Boosie's attempts to remain commercially relevant in today's rap climate, however, makes the album a diluted draught of medicine and mediocre chart fodder. [Jul 2015, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Aug 5, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Vol 3 finds Sean C at the helm, resulting in a batch which sounds clunky at times, but works perfectly at others. [Dec 2020, p.66]- The Wire
Posted Jan 6, 2021