The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,191 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,174 out of 2191
  2. Mixed: 988 out of 2191
  3. Negative: 29 out of 2191
2191 music reviews
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    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    California Son
    The arrangements are suitably bombastic: there’s a theremin camping up the pub piano on his cover of Laura Nyro’s ”Wedding Bell Blues”. His version of Bruce Wayne Campbell’s (aka Jobriath) 1973 glam stomp “Morning Starship” really sells the wry/cosmic lyrics about a girl picking a rocket’s lock with her hairpin. ... Morrissey’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” is leaden jazz karaoke, stripping the original of all its haze and drift. The electro-stomp/harp, fading to reflective piano fade-out of his reworking of Melanie Safka’s ”Some Say I Got Devil”, makes a joke of his lifelong self-pity.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Flamagra
    Flamagra--a playful yet melancholic, skittish yet meditative 67 minutes of cosmic genius--is one of Flying Lotus’s most accessible releases.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    IGOR
    The production here is superb. Tyler has never been one for traditional song structure, but on IGOR he’s like the Minotaur luring you through a maze that twists and turns around seemingly impossible corners, drawing you into the thrilling unknown. ... This is Tyler’s best work to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dedicated
    An album of polished pop. Perhaps this will put her at the top where she belongs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    I Am Easy to Find feels like an old friend you’re pleased to keep around--even if, had you been introduced today, you wonder if you’d have been compelled to make the effort.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Here Comes the Cowboy
    Always exquisitely unbothered, the indie-rock poster boy now sounds like he can’t be bothered.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    End of Suffering
    We have to wait for the final, title track for the end of suffering. That Carter’s young daughter Mercy is on the recording ramps up the emotion and hopeful vibe of this acoustic ballad. It’s a much-needed resolution to an album of full-throttle catharsis.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    U.F.O.F.
    This deathly intrigue is drawn from Lenker’s own personal traumas, which she successfully spins into something that feels universal. But you don’t come away from this record feeling downcast. It’s more a reminder of how fleeting yet beautiful life is, and an appeal to make the most of it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    An unfashionable record, then, and that may be its best asset. With such low stakes and barely any emotional intensity, Father of the Bride won’t cement Vampire Weekend’s legacy. But after a highly strung decade on the indie-rock A-list, it gives them room to breathe.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love + Fear
    Love is a pleasant although occasionally overly earnest capsule collection of pop sounds where Diamantis proves herself to be the master of the “brief pause... and gentle drop” technique. ... Her voice skitters across songs with a frostiness reminiscent of Madonna’s Ray of Light era, and sometimes it feels like a lecture being delivered into the mirror: everyone’s just like you, no one’s happy, enjoy your life.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Peter Doherty & the Puta Madres
    “Paradise Is Under Your Nose” is the stand-out, a stirring folk lament kept on track thanks to the vocal duet with co-writer Jack Jones of Trampolene doing the heavy melodic lifting and some keening fiddle from Miki Beavis, but there’s only so much the Puta Madres can do. As with most Doherty releases, it’s back-loaded with meandering, semi-bothered filler.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Balance
    It’s stuffed with generic accounts of relationships, life on the road, times with the band.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Grim Town
    The pace drifts towards the second half, where the five-minute-long “Missed Calls” drags. But there’s no doubt this stop on Soak’s journey is one worth spending time at.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the End
    It sounds like The Cranberries found some kind of closure in this last record. Hopefully fans will, too.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Designer
    At an age where the pressure is on to have everything worked out, Harding sounds delightfully free.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Not Waving, But Drowning
    The album has an unpolished feel – a diamond in the rough – with its analogue sounds and snatches of conversation from the recording studio.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Social Cues
    The band’s best work to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Serfs Up!
    Wonderfully unsettling.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cuz I Love You
    This is a polished, playful album, though it has a DIY edge to it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Map of the Soul: Persona
    They’ve formed their own blueprint in which the messages they purvey and the grandiose shows they stage are our main point of interest, but the music, production-wise, falls a little by the wayside when it comes to breaking new ground.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Geography
    Their mega beats endure on No Geography, but this is also a stupendously successful splicing of past and present.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ventura
    [Ventura] streamlines .Paak’s sound, making for a tightly packaged, melodic and danceable album.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What's It Like Over There?
    For the most part, Circa Waves prefer to channel youthful disillusionment with an aggressive guitar line (bound to open up one or two moshpits) than any grand lyrical statement. They’re not trying to set the world to rights so much as offer fans an outlet for escapism. It’s refreshing.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Free Spirit
    A very credible record with no real mistakes--but no real personality, either.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Titanic Rising
    Titanic Rising isn’t Bob Seger meets Enya. It’s better.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
    For the most part, When We All Fall Asleep is stiflingly dull and bloated, with subpar production from Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell (known for his time on Glee).
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deforming Lobes [Live]
    Deforming Lobes is unpredictable and invigorating--the best representation of Segall’s restless creativity to date, not to mention the most fun to listen to.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Health
    Everything is more direct: the vocals are bolder and higher in the mix, the instrumentation sharper, the lyrics more personal.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You're the Man
    It is further evidence of his mellifluous voice, somehow both relaxed and urgent; of his muscular grasp of his genre; and of his willingness to push its boundaries.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Words Left
    For someone who claims she has no words left, she manages to say rather a lot.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Miss Universe
    There’s been a lot of hype surrounding her since she made it on to BBC’s Sound of 2018 list. Miss Universe justifies it.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On the Line
    Here, Lewis does what she does best: adds the glossy sparkle of Hollywood and a sunny Californian sheen to melancholy and nostalgia, with her most luxuriantly orchestrated album yet.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Brian Jonestown Massacre
    Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 18th album might not be breaking any ground, or sitars, but 15 years after Newcombe nearly destroyed himself, it’s good to hear him sound so self-assured.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lux Prima
    Lux Prima is an accomplished record--proof that two wildly different minds can work seamlessly together.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Believe
    It’s an album that takes the sombre mood of today and translates it into downtempo music that’s both refreshing and thoughtful.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    What a Time to Be Alive
    Walker drizzles bluesy, Hozier-like soul bombast and nebulous folk tunes with Bond strings and EDM sizzles; tracks so thin and flavourless they go down without chewing.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Psychodrama
    One of the most thoughtful, moving and necessary albums of 2019 so far. ... Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Still on My Mind
    There is no earworm melody as insistent as “White Flag” here, but melancholic opener “Hurricanes” and single “Give It Up” boast that same persistent emotion. And, of course, there’s that voice: steadfastly pure and mellifluous, just as it sounded 20 years ago.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sucker Punch
    Sigrid has a raw energy and emotional briskness that can make you feel like you’re doing aerobics in neon leg warmers atop a pristine mountain. Pure friluftsliv.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Pt. 1
    Merging their asymmetrical early math pop with the deep space atmospherics of Total Life Forever and Holy Fire, plus added innovations – ambient rainforest throbs on “Moonlight”, deadpan EDM on “In Degrees”, Afro-glitch Radiohead on “Café D’Athens” – they’ve created an inspired album of scorched earth new music that, in all likelihood, will only really be challenged for album of the year by Part 2.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In a Galaxy
    In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When I Get Home
    When I Get Home is an album, yes. But ultimately, it’s a sleepy, uplifting antidote to the often painful reality that black people, particularly black Americans in Solange’s experience, have been increasingly facing in recent years. We’re in the midst of ever-escalating chaos. But here Solange has come, offering us a chance not just to rest, but to relish in that languidness.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Grey Area
    What Simz does here is phenomenal. This is an album--and artist--to cherish.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wasteland, Baby!
    Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s second album Wasteland, Baby! is still stuck mid-sermon, albeit emaciated from surviving solely on stale communion wafers.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Strange Creatures
    Strange Creatures is certainly packed with musical ideas.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Crushing
    Grunge-rinsed, feminist-flipped, upcycled Fifties guitar an’ all: Crushing is a triumph.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eton Alive
    This is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Head Above Water
    Lavigne might not have found a musical identity that truly becomes her, but Head Above Water is an effective, and occasionally affecting, album.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    thank u, next
    So thank you, “Ari”, for a lovely listen. I have to confess, I’d like a bit more vocal grit. Maybe that’s up next.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    AJ Tracey
    With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change
    Nesbitt is back with her second LP, switching to a brand of soul and R&B-fused pop that feels bang on time, and suits her far better. The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change has slick, polished production from Fraser T Smith (Adele), Lostboy (Anne-Marie), Jordan Riley (Zara Larsson), and Nesbitt herself.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Better Oblivion Community Center
    The self-titled record, a loose but beautifully crafted collection of folk-rock songs, explores the kinds of anxieties intrinsic to the modern age--the longing to be at once noticed and invisible; the paralysing effects of limitless information, and the desire to do good versus the desire to be seen doing good.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    DNA
    Mostly this standard boyband fare, reheated, and topped with modern pop sprinkles. It just feels so unnecessary.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Get Tragic
    There is some sense that Blood Red Shoes are trying too hard to cultivate their own myth, with all these tales of rock and roll hedonism. For the most part, though, the music on Get Tragic is good enough to speak for itself.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amo
    Amo won’t satisfy all of BMTH’s fans, but it’s certainly accomplished, catchy and eclectic enough to bring in some new ones.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heard It in a Past Life
    Heard It in a Past Life is evidence of Rogers’ ambition and potential, but it is proof, too, that you can’t bottle lightning.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Assume Form
    The good news is that the perma-brilliant James Blake has flooded his fourth album--Assume Form--with euphoric sepia soul and loved-up doo-wop. His trademark intelligence, honesty and pin-drop production remain intact.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?
    Already Disappeared, which was co-produced with Cate Le Bon in the sprawling desert expanse of Marfa, Texas, is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Unseen In Between
    Gunn has created a work of quiet, understated charm. But as far as helping him break out as a distinctive artist, it’s less likely to make its listener sit up and pay attention than lean back and close their eyes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Remind Me Tomorrow
    “Seventeen” winks at the inevitable, then celebrates it. Remind Me Tomorrow is best in thrall to this untouchable energy, when Van Etten and her band sound ecstatic despite their worldly wisdom.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    What Is Love?
    Essentially, this is yet another album of formulaic EDM pop and Latino R&B dancefloor grinders, more market tester than art.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Icarus Falls
    The first 12 songs glow with standard praise for a natural, respectful love (rumoured to be about his on/off model girlfriend Gigi Hadid) but things take a darker turn after Malik’s mythical musings (over muted pings of electric guitar) on “Icarus Interlude”, which concludes with him singing that he “lied to the liars”. Both sonically and lyrically, things get more interesting from this point.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Springsteen on Broadway
    Live albums, never quite being able to replicate the atmosphere of a show or the cleanness of a record, can be hard work--but Springsteen on Broadway is an enthralling listen.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Prophet Speaks
    Satisfying and wholly enjoyable album.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Skins
    SKINS is another fiery blast of catharsis, a largely metaphor-free space where depression isn't hinted at poetically but invited to throw down. ... There are no songs as refined or showing such potential as ?'s “infinity (888)” and “Moonlight”, and many of them feel like half ideas.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    DUMMY BOY
    DUMMY BOY is an insufferable 13-track farrago of anything from rock riffs to calypso drums, all pinned by 6ix9ine’s obsessive use of the “n” word, along with every other negative trope found in the gangsta rap of the early Noughties. ... Avoid.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bitter-Sweet
    The result should be something that feels rooted in nostalgia, but in fact these songs sound and feel as modern and innovative as they did when first released decades ago.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
    As with all of The 1975’s escapades, it ought to be a disaster. Instead, the showpiece triumphs as an unlikely paragon of social media-era pop. In a glass bottle, tamed and ridiculed, the inferno is strangely beautiful.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Phoenix
    Given the stuttering, protracted process it’s been through to get here, it’s a surprisingly coherent record. ... For the most part, though, Phoenix is worth the wait.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oxnard
    Oxnard isn’t quite the epic final chapter .Paak clearly craved for his trilogy--it certainly fails to compare to his 2016 breakthrough masterpiece Malibu--but you have to wonder if he really cares that much. On so many of these tracks he sounds restless, like he’s already thinking about moving on to bigger and better things.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    LM5
    Ultimately, despite a few high points, LM5 is so scattershot, both thematically and musically, that it’s hard to find much to grab onto.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Merrie Land
    For all its gloom, Merrie Land is an entertaining and theatrical album, with vocals that capture the social observation of early album Parklife. It’s also an immensely clever feat of word painting, never relying on lyrics alone to reflect the sense of anxiety.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Delta
    Delta is good but not great.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Walls
    Walls is unchecked, indignant and raw, and though it ends with a note of despondency, it is a triumph.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Simulation Theory
    Simulation Theory seems to fall into two territories--songs are either half-hearted nods to the best of their heavier rock-opera back catalogue, or futuristic, electronic pop-heavy tracks that borrow from bands more adept at that particular sound, and the vast majority of which are burdened with Bellamy’s political paranoia. For a new listener, it’s baffling. For a former, diehard fan, it’s disappointing.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Origins
    Origins is further proof of Reynolds’ pop songwriting capabilities and also his ambition when it comes to pushing the messages that matter onto the charts. And there’s no doubting his sincerity. It’s a refreshing quality in a pop frontman.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Capitol Studios Sessions
    Bar an impressive freakout on “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)”, his piano playing rarely warrants centre stage. But his character--a kind of suave jazz-bar lech--is the heart of the show. ... As cash-in celebrity Christmas covers albums go, Goldblum’s has a lot of spark, and even a little soul.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Olympus Sleeping
    Olympus Sleeping feels dated, and a little forgettable.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturn
    NAO has hovered around a near-perfect brand of sultry, neo-soul-inflected R&B. Four years later, and she seems to have mastered it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Suspiria [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    A handful of tracks stand out, and are among Yorke’s best solo work.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honey
    Nine songs that glow and pulse with bittersweet sensuality.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Forever Neverland
    Forever Neverland is chock-full of safely idiosyncratic bangers, and never misses a beat. But maybe it could have done with missing a few.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Natural Rebel
    Natural Rebel, sadly, is paint-by-numbers singer-songwriting. For a 10-track album, it feels hideously overindulgent--only two songs fall under the four-minute mark, and those still feel drawn out by plodding, bog-standard riffs.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Warzone
    Ono’s continued Flower Power philosophy--“People of America, when will we see?” goes “Now or Never”--feels simplistic at a time when artists are so used to deconstructing the social and political systems that Ono rails against. And so Warzone falls into a strange dichotomy: as the album closes with a version of “Imagine” that is hymn-like enough to sound like the heralding of a new dawn, the relevance of Ono’s protests feels as if it’s faded.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Look Now
    Costello’s peerless lyricism often mirrors his tone, and here it’s suitably refined.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Songs of the Plains
    There’s no fuss in the instrumentation, either, mostly just gentle picking or brisk, deep thrums on Wall’s acoustic guitar, which are bolstered by icy laps of pedal steel and the occasional harmonica. It’s effective in the simplest of ways--and allows the listener’s imagination to do the rest
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bottle It In
    This is not always a comfortable bracket for a Kurt Vile song to fit into. When he goes off the deep end though, diving into a vast pool of astral matter as he does on spaced-out closer “Skinny Mini”, it’s a deeply immersive and transporting album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Love Is Magic
    His brilliant fourth album Love Is Magic takes listeners on a similar thrill ride [as his 50th birthday], dominated by swirling loops of grand, romantic melody, sly twists of sardonic wit and heart-stopping drops of sheer honesty.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desperate Man
    He offers up beautifully crafted country that uses rock, gospel and blues influences to push gently at the genre’s boundaries: sweet guitar licks, thrashing drums and Church’s voice straining at the top end of his range.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wanderer
    Understated, beautifully crafted and always emotionally involving, Wanderer shows an artist who has found strength in her convictions, and a new pace of life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elephants on Acid
    Cypress Hill are the hippies of the hip hop world, making music surrounded by a green-tinged haze that takes more cues from classic Sixties and Seventies rock than anywhere else. Elephants on Acid is one hell of a trip.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It's About Time
    Rodgers doesn’t allow his pals to freshen the old formula, reducing them to audio clutter.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Blood Red Roses
    For the most part, though, Blood Red Roses’ vaguely anthemic ditties are as adrift as his sailor, with nothing much beneath the surface.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chris
    Letissier makes her vintage synths snap, crackle, pop, fizz, freeze, squelch, shimmer and soar.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Blue Hour
    Though their themes remain in the gutter, Suede aspire to monuments, and The Blue Hour will stand as another sordid masterwork.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Art of Pretending to Swim
    The Art of Pretending to Swim is Villagers’ most assured, and daring, album.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My Mind Makes Noises
    It’s fine to be influenced by one particular band, but they need to find their own voice or risk being known as little more than The 1975’s pale imitators.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For Ever
    Despite a four-year wait, the songs on their second album, For Ever, still sound like understudies for Mark Ronson mega-hits.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    True Meanings
    A record with some rich layers and embellishments, but you sense that the excess of outside influence might be making up for something.
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