NOW Magazine's Scores
- Music
For 2,812 reviews, this publication has graded:
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43% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 66
Highest review score: | The Life Of Pablo | |
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Lowest review score: | Testify |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,287 out of 2812
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Mixed: 1,452 out of 2812
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Negative: 73 out of 2812
2812
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
13 exuberant folk-pop songs delivered with clarity, colour and conviction.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 27, 2020
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The hour-long LP often plays out like an experimental 80s fever dream, but it’s still anchored by The Weeknd’s broody sonic DNA.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 23, 2020
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Across Suddenly, Snaith surrenders to the current. If you do, too, you’ll find a rich and rewarding listening experience.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 28, 2020
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The album is both challenging and rewarding. On songs like Fresh Laundry, Allie X’s vocals are often treated with high-gloss effects that steal the personality from her voice. It’s not until final track Learning In Public that you hear her unvarnished, which by then sounds jarring. It often feels like she’s doing too much with too much.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 24, 2020
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Boucher's production prowess, beautifully complex and ambitious songwriting, is self-evident on Miss Anthropocene.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 21, 2020
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Things pick up toward the end with the slightly more upbeat run of Lost In Yesterday, Is It True and It Might Be Time. For the most part, though, Parker is a better producer than he is a songwriter.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 21, 2020
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Have We Met is another new departure, yet it still has that familiar strange storytelling swagger that’s at the heart of Destroyer.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 3, 2020
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If Cry Cry Cry had the feel of a band shaking off the cobwebs and getting used to each other’s company once again, Thin Mind leaves no doubt about Wolf Parade’s continued vitality. You instantly feel that renewed vigour in the storming first seconds of the opening Under Glass.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 27, 2020
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Andy Shauf’s new songs are fictional but feel oh so real, especially if you live in Toronto and even more especially if you live in Parkdale and frequent Skyline, the diner where most of the Toronto-based musician’s new album takes place. ... There are new melodic and rhythmic risks taken.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2020
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Lyrically, Styles is at his best when he’s biting. 0000... He’s not exactly mining unexplored territory. But, he’s an Internet Boyfriend – and Internet Boyfriends are non-threatening. As he inches closer towards the adult pop contemporary charts, Styles is thankfully owning his one-fifth of the One Direction power-pop legacy.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 12, 2019
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There are a handful of feel-good moments. ... But it’s not enough to carry the bloated 18-song track list to a satisfying end. Instead it feels like getting caught in an endless kaleidoscope of solipsistic nostalgia. The effect is suffocating in its repetitiveness.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 27, 2019
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Cohen’s voice is at the centre of all the songs – present and passionate, the unmistakable deep rasp even better matching his searching weariness the older he got. And it’s all here, that never-duplicated mix of sex and death, the sacred and the profane.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 25, 2019
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Jesus Is King provides an undeniably moving and distinct new chapter in the book of Kanye. Whether you choose to skip it or place it high on your mantel, its cultural significance is only bound to grow.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 29, 2019
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Her sad-girl persona, thrust upon her unwittingly by music media, transforms into its most dramatic form. It’s a brazen sadness echoed through crashing symbols and spacious synths. The songs are devastating, but also nourishing: it’s a whole new version of Olsen.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 4, 2019
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Recorded in her cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, the album has a strong connection to nature and draws on themes of survival, healing and spirituality. ... Not all tracks sound like club hits, however. Deep Connections has a soft, ethereal quality created by synthy arpeggios and My Body Is Powerful samples soothing nature sounds – birdcall and distant howls – over a pentatonic scale.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 20, 2019
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It’s more polished than most S-K albums, but it’s still a flurry of frenetic chords, caustic drum beats and yelps and hisses from Carrie Brownstein and Tucker. Clark gave The Center Won’t Hold a very modern filter and sheen, but Sleater-Kinney still set the tone.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2019
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Piano, reverb and guitar fuzz make it Del Rey’s dreamiest and most cohesive album since 2015’s Honeymoon and her most rock-inspired since 2014’s Ultraviolence. The National Anthem singer adds new shade to her ongoing California period, re-evaluating the narrative of life in the United States that she’s built her brand on.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2019
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He’s managed to inject this compact collection of eight tunes with more than a whiff of 90s alt-radio nostalgia, but the songs are hummable enough to rebuff anyone inclined toward cynical eye-rolling.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 5, 2019
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Beyond the amber waves of grain, Purple Mountains offer fans a feast of food for thought.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 31, 2019
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With 22 tracks over 80 minutes (including a few skits you’ll skip after the first listen), it’s way too long. It’s themed around Chance’s wedding to his longtime partner, Kristen Corley – a rite of passage that mirrors the “big day” of his debut album release. And like a wedding in which the priest’s sermon is getting in the way of the dinner buffet, you can really feel it drag.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 29, 2019
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The album evokes images of oceans, lakes and rivers in not only the album art, song titles and lyrics, but also in the overall atmosphere. Songs fluctuate like water, varying from tumultuous and joyous to still and tranquil. They flow with ease.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 11, 2019
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The album wouldn't be satisfying if it was just another version of Freudian. But Caesar calls the album an experiment, and that's often what it feels like. He's still figuring it all out.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 8, 2019
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Individually, the songs are absorbing, but when listened back to back, they begin to lose their magic.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 8, 2019
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It’s rock ’n’ roll for 2019, though the band calls it simply pub rock. Either way, it’ll get a mosh going.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 8, 2019
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He remains a confident and commanding rapper, full of agile double-time flows and verses that skip from biographical vignettes and life lessons to boasting. But, given he rarely has more than one verse per song, Diaspora gives us a fragmented window into his thoughts.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 28, 2019
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Musically, it's considerably less abstract than his last solo album, 2014's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. Like the other albums under his name (including last year's Suspiria soundtrack and his pseudo-solo side project Atoms for Peace) it's more electronic than rock, but there's a warmth to it you wouldn't expect.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 27, 2019
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An all-you-can-eat steak buffet for listeners. ... The musical arrangements are even sparser than Callahan’s last studio album, 2013’s Dream River, yet his foghorn voice remains intimately pushed to the forefront of the mix.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 20, 2019
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Like fine wine, Bill Hader or Gillian Anderson, Greys are only getting better with age.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 6, 2019
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Their lush and vivid sounds feel like a reaction to change--and the self-reckoning required to move forward.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 5, 2019
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Full of 80s college rock and 90s indie rock feel-goodness, the band’s debut album Football Money will no doubt fool throwback slackers into adopting this band as their own.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 29, 2019
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In a tight but varied 39 minutes, Tyler is exploring the sonic terrain in Flower Boy with a narrative concept that, like a non-relationship, feels endless and all-encompassing, then hard not to put on repeat.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 29, 2019
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The wild, bludgeoning crest of the album’s centre gives way to the soft, yellowing bruises of its final third, revealing that the band can be just as disarmingly potent and complex even while exhibiting the utmost restraint.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 28, 2019
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Improvised music already lends itself to the unpredictable qualities of the elements, but Tagaq and company also find their strength in building patterns. ... Her vocal performance on the record is inspired. It arrives like a violent current that you have no choice but to lose yourself in.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 20, 2019
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There’s nothing inherently wrong with sticking to a formula that works, and in Cowboy’s case, it’s pretty acoustic songs and (mostly) mellow vocals. But for a songwriter like DeMarco, who on previous albums has triumphed when trying something new, perhaps change is worth pursuing.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 17, 2019
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Pierce has called Brutalism his most honest work yet, but personal detail aside, it’s an incisive album about the prevailing mood of the moment: anxiety. The lyrics might be grim, but the music encourages us to stick it out.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 24, 2019
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Titanic Rising is a leap forward for the self-described “nostalgic futurist,” yet Mering’s core musical gifts remain intact. Her voice holds you like a steady flashlight beam in a meadow fog.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 11, 2019
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There’s a world-weary wisdom that was only hinted at in party-heavy previous albums, and the band is skilled at translating it into catchy lyrical nuggets you can raise a tall can to.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 5, 2019
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Her evocations to dance, be present and claim space are the most potent and political moments.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 26, 2019
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The album can’t help but feel like an appetizer. So, yes, it is too short, but that’s the point. We can be hungry for more, yet still satisfied here. That this is Vol. 1 means there will be a Vol. 2.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 21, 2019
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The fleeting interlude Sonora, inspired by Cochemea’s Yaqui (an Indigenous nation from Mexico) ancestors, brightens the album with a hint of tropical sax.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 5, 2019
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In 1995 at the Source Awards, Andre 3000 made an iconic callout: “The South got something to say.” In under 40 minutes, Solange re-asserts the claim on a grander scale: the South has still got something to say.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 3, 2019
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- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 27, 2019
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Jacklin sings like she’s reading entries from her journal back to herself. The confessional quality is amplified by minimal, unobtrusive production that places her superb voice and her acoustic guitar forward.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 26, 2019
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The record lags a little in the middle as the songs start to blend together. There’s enough differentiation that you don’t want to skip them altogether, but it’s a kink to work out on later records.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 20, 2019
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[Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored is] the most jarring song on the album, which is otherwise her most mature and cohesive yet.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 8, 2019
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She adds magic to the mundane, cracking it open to reveal multifaceted nuances: longing, pleasure, resentment, jealousy and also self-love.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 5, 2019
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It’s an inward, headphones-on plug into a young man wrestling with varying levels of success, from codependency and addictive behaviour to self-acceptance. It’s the sound of Zayn grappling with toxic masculinity.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 31, 2019
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Recorded last summer in Los Angeles, their debut 10-track album effortlessly showcases both Oberst’s and Bridgers’s strengths as songwriters who are unafraid of literate vulnerability as they explore subjects like loneliness, privilege and estranged family.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 31, 2019
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Where the project falls short is in the handful of filler tracks that pollute the listening experience, including the repetitive Temptation, F&N and Overdose. Yet it still counts as a victory for Future, who has now introduced The WIZRD to the world. It will be interesting to see what he does next with that persona.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 28, 2019
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Whether it’s Africa, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, a-ha's Take On Me, their hamfisted Billie Jean or (say it ain’t so) No Scrubs, every cover is unnecessary and pretty much unwanted. Cardigan-toting, alt-rock covering R&B was played out before it ever even happened.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2019
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It’s characterized by both futile resignation and hopeful nostalgia. That’s a generous way to write, and Phoenix stands as a complex, giving record backed by some of Pedro the Lion’s finest musical compositions.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2019
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Her percussion is often mesmerizing, the glue holding it all together. It’s all cinematic in a broad sort of way, the kind of album you can put on and walk through the streets, imagining how the movie of your own life would unfold. Thematically, it swerves through early 20-something existential angst in a rather predictable and trend-chasing way, which starts to lag and feel samey in the album’s second half.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 22, 2019
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Assume Form doesn’t have the instant gratification of his 2013 album, Overgrown--arguably his best--but it gradually pulls you in like a soothing balm. ... It’s still a James Blake record, but with brighter synths and more natural instruments. Any moments of darkness are balanced with light.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 18, 2019
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Her music is generous in its illumination of depth. There’s a sense of solace on the record. Everything before was a hard reckoning, and she knows trouble is never far off, but she’s breezy here. Comfortable, even.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 17, 2019
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Foxwarren doesn’t feel like Andy Shauf and his backing band; it feels like a creative, cohesive group.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 14, 2018
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Her voice, while gorgeous, is not big in range--its beauty lies in its candidness and presence. She sings like she’s personally sharing intimate tales with each listener.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 13, 2018
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The problem is that Earl’s stream of consciousness style does not lend itself to easy listening. Off-kilter drum loops and piano chords bury the lyrics on Red Water and Peanut, creating an unfriendly sonic experience reminiscent of listening to a song with cheap earphones in a noisy room. Listeners will only be able to appreciate Earl’s poetry once they devote every ounce of their focus to hearing it.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 7, 2018
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Starter Home is country music for intellectuals, but he still hits those classic country tropes: longing in Waiting and alcohol as a cure for regret in Drinking With A Friend. His voice is velvety and smooth with texture, vital for a mature sound.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 5, 2018
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It’s less cohesive than the high watermark he set with Malibu, but hitching a ride back to Oxnard is a freewheeling and occasionally exhilarating quest into Paak’s sonic curiosity.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 26, 2018
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With production duties primarily hot potatoed between Hagler and Kenny Beats, the beats and feel are consistent and strong while not getting in the way of Staples’ flow, which is elastic and modern without losing an inch of his clarity and bluntness.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 9, 2018
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Paired with Quezada and Thulin’s frantic soundscapes, Obey is a reminder that the steeliest demeanors can belie a raging cauldron of emotion. By the time the album’s short 38 minutes are over, what seemed at first like ambivalence feels more like transcendence.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 23, 2018
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It falls short of the band’s more certified classics like Death Is This Communion and Blessed Black Wings, but Electric Messiah feels basically satisfying--like a meal ordered from your favourite restaurant. A heavy, greasy, gut-ballasting meal.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 11, 2018
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After the long wait it’s not a disappointing effort, but it’s all over the place.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 10, 2018
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It contains some of her poppiest and funniest material to date, taking her minimal techno and Italo-esque electro rhythms into unabashedly melodic territory on the joyous So Right while swinging in the opposite direction with warehouse-friendly industrial sci-fi instrumentals Burn Me and Workaholic Paranoid Bitch.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Oct 5, 2018
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Art Of Doubt shows that you can still find comfort in the sounds of your past, especially if the bands who shaped you have adapted and evolved along with you.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 25, 2018
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Master Volume is a delightful, precise record. The band are at the top of their game on it, but it still feels like a no-stakes basement jam session between three friends. Maybe that’s why they’re so contagious: the Nil aren’t for the culture, they’re for the kids.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Sep 14, 2018
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Twice nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize, Calvi has consistently delivered brilliant albums. This new era of openness only serves to push her to more relevant and engaging levels.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 31, 2018
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Fans of AnCo’s more upbeat and animated works probably won’t love this album, but it is successful in its experimentation and as an affirmation that they have and always will have something unique to bring to the table.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 21, 2018
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It’s sometimes surprising when you discover that pop songs, as loud and vibrant as they often are, can be quite devastating. This is especially true on Mitski’s excellent fifth album. ... It’s a bold record, rising and falling over the course of 14 tracks.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 17, 2018
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There are enough good songs to give Queen a pass, but if it’s going to be 19 tracks, it needs to be more consistently awesome.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Aug 14, 2018
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In getting their own group back together, the Internet have delivered their most fully realized project to date.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 23, 2018
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Death Lust is an extreme album in which Williams bares his raw, overcome soul over ear-splitting guitar noise. As harrowing as it can be, it’s transcendent rock music that feels unparalleled so far this year. Durham Region should be proud.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jul 13, 2018
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Side A is mostly introspective threats, neurotic boasting and paranoia about enemies. Side B is the same but with a focus on women and his love life. As with most of his releases, it works perfectly--but for 25 tracks to work is undeniably impressive.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 29, 2018
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As each conflicting quality is reconciled, it’s never compromised or downplayed. They sound both aware of and immersed in the culture surrounding them while fully settled into their own reality as billionaires. In essence, they are Black, rich and famous, in that order.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 21, 2018
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The album favours a downtempo pace, and Smith’s superstar potential is apparent on close-to-final song Tomorrow. But it’s the mid-album entry The One, with its swirling string arrangements and ambiguous tension between defiant lyrics and aching delivery, that suggests Smith’s ascent is far from over.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 12, 2018
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Kanye West has always been a troll but there was once an empowering, heroic quality to his narcissism. As he struggles to find his footing in a strange new world, there is still merit in a work like Ye if you can somehow look past the self-destructive celebrity behind it.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 4, 2018
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The album is a delightful access point to the cloudy emotional zones Bernice have always occupied, from a warm place of Snuggie-bound safety.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jun 1, 2018
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Rault’s commitment and ability to ape the sounds of his idols is both his strength and his Achilles’ heel.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 30, 2018
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There’s something bewitching about this free-form section of Testing, but there’s still that feeling Rocky's stylistic adventurousness--however appealing--is overwhelming lyrics and flows that aren't as ambitious as the production.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 30, 2018
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The record’s simple presentation and briefness make for an engaging change from the epic crossover attempts of his prior LP Darkest Before Dawn.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 25, 2018
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Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most inward-looking album but also one that pulls back to engage with bigger political and cultural conversations more directly than we’re used to from her.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 21, 2018
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Lyrically, Beyondless is occupied with notions of excess, from the endless cycle of war, to switching one dependency for another, to indulgence and appetite. It works because the band fundamentally thrives in extremes.- NOW Magazine
- Posted May 3, 2018
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There might not be any outright smash hits ready for radio and curated streaming playlists, but it’s a well-paced album with strong replay value. Cole doesn’t sacrifice any inch of rhythm or melody while detailing his cautionary tales.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 24, 2018
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The greatest strength of the album is that you don’t think of the original artists while Ndegeocello is singing. Some will feel she’s been reckless with beloved jams, others will fall in love with them all over again, and many will discover a new side of them even if they’ve heard the original a million times.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 4, 2018
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There’s more softness and vulnerability than one usually associates with the Weeknd, but also his signature numbness. ... Opener Call Out My Name’s title is typical of the EP’s uninteresting lyrical approach, but he sings with a grandness that is further amplified by sturdy production choices: a buzzing bass line and waltzing drum beat that sounds recycled from hit single Earned It.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Apr 2, 2018
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The album as a whole drags a little. But the softness of Kline’s vocals and the instrumentation anchoring her lyrics and stories make up for it.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 29, 2018
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White’s yelps and screams, reverb, synth and jittery guitar riffs could be more pleasant or cohesive, but that’s not White’s style, especially not on this record. Piling it all on seems to be the point he’s trying to make--this sense of being overwhelmed, constantly, at the hands of technology.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 23, 2018
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There’s still an indomitable punk fury, and A Productive Cough is the most hopeful Titus Andronicus record yet.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 6, 2018
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Many great pop artists build imaginary worlds with sets, costumes, music videos and artwork, but Gwenno achieves something similar using a richly detailed soundscapes that gradually draw you in deeper.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Mar 5, 2018
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Remy is at her most confident as a writer and singer on Poem, and, by working with others, she’s created the fullest realization of U.S. Girls yet.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 27, 2018
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These details--textures, feelings and moods translated into sonic imprints--elevate the work to a cohesive and impressive debut. It’s proof that taking time, both in creation and in listening and metabolizing an album, is more valuable than ever.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 23, 2018
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With Uncle, Duke & The Chief, they confidently step into calmer, more spacious sonic terrain and lean on classic pop songwriting. The nine songs still take plenty of left-field Ruffian tangents, but they come in brief, controlled bursts that add personality and colour.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 23, 2018
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The album doesn’t sound phoned in, necessarily, but it absolutely sounds vacuous, vapid and clichéd.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Feb 5, 2018
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When it works, it’s as joyful as the best Tune-Yards songs. ... Given her soaring delivery elsewhere, the talk-sung ABC 123 and Now As Then fall flat in comparison, and the reliance on 808s feels a tad dated for a group lauded for their innovative production.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 25, 2018
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You could boil Freedom’s Goblin down to “rock,” but the 19 songs offer 19 flavours of the genre--a testament to how many delicious recipes you can still make out of vocals, guitar, bass and drums (and, in this case, a dollop of horns).- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 24, 2018
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Another artist might show signs of disappointment or uncertainty when faced with the notion that not much has changed in half a century, but on Medicine Songs, in the face of the unchanging nature of the oppression she’s expressed through her music, Buffy Sainte-Marie has chosen to be just as determined, unflinching and constant in her own art.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Jan 18, 2018
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It uses funk, jazz and simple loops that blend elements of rap’s spiritual origins with more recent sounds in a way that allows Rapsody’s throwback lyrics and casually complex bars to shine.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Dec 7, 2017
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dvsn’s deeply satisfying and sputtering beats are accentuated with wandering and jazzy piano riffs, melodic guitar and classic soul/R&B nods that maintain warmth and red-bloodedness but also overemphasize the Morning After’s sentimentality.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 29, 2017
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Not every song sees atmosphere, theme and emotional power meld seamlessly--a collab with composer Sarah Hopkins called Features Creatures feels like a b-side--but when those elements coalesce the result is all-encompassing.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 29, 2017
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Now, her newest batch of songs feel overly done up and superficial, with squeaky synths and drum machine beats fabricated for the club.- NOW Magazine
- Posted Nov 13, 2017
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