The Independent (UK)'s Scores
- Music
For 2,194 reviews, this publication has graded:
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47% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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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: | Hit Me Hard and Soft | |
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Lowest review score: | Donda |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,177 out of 2194
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Mixed: 988 out of 2194
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Negative: 29 out of 2194
2194
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
The first half of Speak Your Mind is undoubtedly the strongest; showing Anne-Marie no one-trick pony when it comes to infectious, dance-worthy bangers.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 25, 2018
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Beautiful Thing is a confident statement about musical and human authenticity, with production by UNKLE’s Tim Goldsworthy which builds dub-like echo-chambers, inside which a kitchen sink’s worth of sounds claustrophobically rattle.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 18, 2018
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It’s mildly funny and philosophically intriguing. Little else is in this team-up of exhausted pop forces.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 18, 2018
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There’s much to be said for music as a private, sublime refuge, but Holy Wave rarely hit those heights. They evoke only the mild, gauzy dislocation of dawdling in the midday sun.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 12, 2018
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While Joyride has its shining points and attempts to remain true to a cohesive, moodier (albeit more mature) tone, it’s missing the strong, catchier elements that helped Tinashe rise in the first place. But there’s no reason to count her out just yet.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 12, 2018
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This music’s unhinged, pinballing molecules have a wild energy, here and there.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 11, 2018
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Though the Nashville experiment is finally too half-hearted for the desired transformation, “Shelby ’68” mines Melbourne memories for a more personalised rural makeover.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Apr 5, 2018
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Her winning formula back in 2010 was blunt honesty delivered in the form of spoken-word style poetry. Back then, she doled out witty, tongue-in-cheek observations and wry take-downs with ease. Attempts to recapture this style are marred by lazy rhymes and a delivery that’s often more just her speaking over the track.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 29, 2018
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Though hobbled by the occasional cliche, it’s an album with its heart in the right place.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 22, 2018
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Overall, it’s an entertaining, multifaceted set, albeit weakened by a tendency to pursue slim ideas and dead-end notions.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 22, 2018
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Things pick up in the latter stages, starting with the ebullient “Laughing Gas”, which wouldn’t be out of place on any Tom Petty album. As they proceed, the band’s stays seem to loosen up, and they explore different avenues with commendable spirit.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2018
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It’s all a bit stiff: the methodical chording of “All This Way” lacks swing or swagger, as if too tightly corsetted, and “Take Care” displays similar restrictions applied to their keyboard-led material: the plonking piano and falsetto refrain suggest someone’s trying for Brian Wilson magic, but falling well short.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2018
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The occasional cut slices through the general blandness--the lilting “Shades Of Blue” is a winsome folk-pop lollop, and the Neu! motorik groove gives “For You Too” a rare drive--but overall this seems more escapist than reactive, not much help at all.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2018
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 15, 2018
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Her first album of new material in seven years finds Tracey Thorn in feisty form, bashing out “nine feminist bangers” with a relish reflected in the confident, striding electropop settings of tracks like “Queen” and “Air”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2018
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In large part a break-up album, Rare Birds finds Wilson picking through the romantic embers and taking tentative steps forward, over arrangements reflecting both his recent position in Roger Waters’s touring band and his need for healing.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2018
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Combined with the faux-naive, fairytale tone of the narratives, it makes for an irritatingly condescending experience. The lofty aimlessness is matched by musical settings.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 8, 2018
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Moby returns to form, honing in on the sounds that helped him rise through the ranks of the New York City club scene. Weaved in between the 12 tracks is a pastiche of trip hop, soul, electronics and gospel.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Mar 1, 2018
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It’s always been hard to translate the irresistible propulsion of Femi Kuti’s live shows into a comparably effective studio realisation, but with One People One World he makes a decent stab.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 23, 2018
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An album that frets gently and artfully at the wounds of human attraction and rejection.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 22, 2018
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The songwriting is not quite as enigmatic as on that precursor project [case/lang/veirs]. ... The trio’s strengths lie mostly in the natural sweetness of their harmonies, a heartbreaking union of glowing melancholy underscoring the life lessons of songs such as “See You Around” and “Ain’t That Fine.”- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 15, 2018
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It’s a burly collection, with the band’s flanged guitars and proggy synths asserting their refusal to follow any set style, and Hayden Thorpe’s bristling vocals similarly stretching indie constraints; but when the only “new” track is jerry-rigged together from two old tracks, it all seems a bit unnecessary.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 15, 2018
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Though sharp and sly, too often here there’s a shortfall of melodic potency, and an over-reliance on structures that are methodical rather than marvellous, torpedoed by their own cleverness.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 8, 2018
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With his fifth studio album, Timberlake isn’t re-inventing the wheel, but he solidly continues to experiment with R&B, funk, pop and soul, with Americana creating an interesting layer.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 2, 2018
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The deep, surging bass pulse that opens “Summer” suggests a more focused approach, but before long Jim Kerr’s descending again into his dreams, anticipating “all those energies” amidst yet another miasmic, swirling sea of sound, and the song just evaporates into a mist of queasy bombast.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 1, 2018
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At its best, it’s like the oddball offspring of Prince and The Left Banke, its elliptical melodies wreathed in strings and woodwind; but as ever, they sometimes can’t resist adding one more waffer-thin-mint to an already overstuffed musical pudding.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Feb 1, 2018
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 26, 2018
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The most effective songs here are those which reach out directly to her family.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 26, 2018
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This debut album is awash in buzzsaw guitar riffs and splashy cymbals, while the wild-child vocals of Arrow De Wilde channel the jaded disdain of Courtney Love (minus the rage), occasionally peaking in a Lene Lovish-like squawk. It’s a formula which works best on “Love’s Gone Again”, which has something of the elemental primitivism of Pink Flag-era Wire as it treats perverse carnal urges to a dose of distortion.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2018
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While the one-sided “Heart’s Not In It” is crippled by blame-laying, “One Of Us Will Lose” is an edifice of aching melancholy, with streaks of slide guitar threading currents of loss and despair through its descent into the depths.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2018
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It’s tough stuff, tempered by the Soderbergs’ instinctive harmonies, which remain as sweet as ever, and the inventive folk-rock arrangements textured with typical empathy by producer Tucker Martine, involving members of R.E.M., Midlake and Wilco.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 17, 2018
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For this latest incarnation of The Go! Team, bandleader Ian Parton has doubled down on the street-beat cheerleader mash-up mode of earlier albums like Proof Of Youth by searching out an actual youth choir from Detroit to accompany the marching-band-style brass that drives Semicircle. This works brilliantly on “Mayday”, an anthemic lament for love signals ignored, with the ebullient brass and chanted vocals evoking street parades, and “Semicircle Song”, in which the staccato brass lines interlace like a proper New Orleans marching band.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 11, 2018
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Produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, the arrangements offer a feisty take on bluegrass mountain music which sets off Childers’ perkily engaging delivery splendidly.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jan 4, 2018
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Inspired by a shared affinity for the Suffolk landscape, these are mostly small, pastoral ambient pieces which drift, as the title suggests, over the shifting coastal flatlan.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 13, 2017
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He celebrates a liberal culture of generosity (“I Made This For You”) and cultural diversity (“Thank You New York”), exemplified by a musical inclusiveness and sophisticated lyricism which, though occasionally a touch too serpentine and verbose, at its best brings to mind Sufjan Stevens.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 13, 2017
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Habibi Funk deals not in the indigenous strains that occupy the main focus of world music reissues, but rather local crossovers that slipped between the cracks, reflecting outside influences from the Caribbean, Cape Verde, and overwhelmingly, Western funk, soul and disco. ... The more recent examples are somewhat diluted by developments in technology.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2017
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The EP opens with the lovely “Sweet Dew Lee”, a genial pop strummer in the manner of early Orange Juice, its buoyant melody evoking a hill climb to an urban vista as the protagonist daydreams of a parallel world in which he and his departed lover are still an item.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2017
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The results are often enjoyable and always interesting, with the 11-minute journey of “A3”, in particular, navigating an angular, monochromatic turmoil akin to an Arctic ice field.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2017
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While this partner set doesn’t have quite the sustained quality of the preceding album released six months ago, it still affirms the value of spiking country music with a strong shot of rhythm & blues.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Dec 6, 2017
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As the album proceeds, it frays apart as Neil’s gaze shifts to bombs and babies in the plodding anthem “Children Of Destiny”, and to Mexican fairground fantasy in the ludicrous cod-Santana-style “Carnival”. Despite similarly sluggish, slouchy manner, young backing band Promise Of The Real fall some way short of the full Crazy Horse, trudging rather than imposing a sense of implacable destiny.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 29, 2017
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Routine would-be anthems like “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way” and the assonant pairing of “You’re The Best Thing About Me” and “Get Out Of Your Own Way” simply piggyback on tired old modes, reflecting their former glories in the way that modern glass-box buildings simply serve as mirrors for the more dynamic and beautiful architecture of previous eras.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 29, 2017
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Disregard the didacticism, and there’s much to enjoy in tracks like “Til I’m Done”, a pumping disco-funk assertion of independence with abundant orchestral bells and whistles; the louchely loping “Guilty”, with Paloma giving it the full Amy Winehouse; and the pop-soul charmer “Crybaby”, whose kalimba-style keyboard groove recalls Whitney’s “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”. But the bombastic tone overall is exhausting.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 20, 2017
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For while there’s no denying that Low In High School is more musically exploratory than usual, drawing from glam rock, electropop, tango and Tropicalismo, the singer himself has rarely exhibited such a grating combination of spite and self-pity. ... The album’s lengthy centrepiece “I Bury The Living”, an odious slab of trundling guitar bombast, lambasts as “just honour-mad cannon-fodder” the work of soldiers whom he presumes are too stupid to understand the wars they’re involved in.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 16, 2017
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[Jupiter Calling] still relies too heavily on routine romantic fluff like “Hit My Ground Running” and the glutinous “Butter Flutter.” T-Bone Burnett has been drafted in as producer, and brings his usual taste and expertise- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 9, 2017
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The opening “Rebel” sets the tone with a country-style tale of how a good-hearted man’s attempt to live up to his father’s ideals backfires to leave him a criminal, losing his beloved’s respect and affection in the process. From there, the journey swings between ebullient celebrations of life and sombre tales of misfortune, with the shadow of Springsteen looming large over songwriter Eric Earley’s material.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 9, 2017
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Moments after hearing “Best 4 You”, with its slimline groove and sleek falsetto chorus, I can’t remember a trace of its melody or theme: it was just there, and then not there. It’s an experience repeated throughout Red Pill Blues.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2017
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While the U2-style arena-rock impressions that dogged Keep The Village Alive persist in places here, elsewhere Scream Above The Sounds finds Kelly Jones in more reflective mood, resulting in a more appealing balance of head and heart overall.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 2, 2017
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His facility with the form is evident on songs like “Easy To Love”, which aptly has the smooth, easy manner of a standard, and more dramatically with “On The Waterfront”, which renders solitude in epic fashion. ... Elsewhere, he reverts to form with the rolling blues arrangement of “Love This Way”, with his signature piano to the fore, and terse blues guitar punctuating his account of being “lost inside the darkness and the howling wind”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Nov 1, 2017
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Though obviously sincere and heartfelt, Gregory Porter’s tribute to his greatest influence falls a touch short in some cases. His voice, while smooth and warm, lacks the silky, creamy timbre of Cole’s on “Mona Lisa”, and on some songs he sounds more like Kurt Elling or Sammy Davis Jr.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 26, 2017
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Musically it’s pleasant enough, with string and wind flourishes either emboldening or offering solace from the folk-rock arrangements; but it’s all a bit samey, and after a while, rather dull.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 25, 2017
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The limp, autotuned love song “Happy” and drearily positivist “Good Morning” are lazy nods to the mainstream, but elsewhere Wretch is better served by the dark sparkle of arrangements featuring grimy sub-bass synths and itchy electro beats tinted with eerie vocal samples, thumb-piano and synthetic pan-pipes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 24, 2017
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Lyrically, Horan pushes no envelopes, sticking to earnest love plaints and poignant reminiscences for the most part, and even offering to listen to his girl’s problems in “Fire Away”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 20, 2017
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Secure behind the protective pop wall erected by producers such as Max Martin and the ubiquitous Greg Kurstin, there’s little room for originality here. Which may be for the best, given the mid-album limpness imposed by the gratingly wistful, cello-draped childhood yearning of “Barbies”, which oozes insincerity. Pink’s on safer ground riding the pumping pop-funk of “Secrets” and the title-track.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 19, 2017
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Grizzled Americana veteran Ray Wylie Hubbard cooks up a steamy stew of voodoo magick and rock’n’roll mythos on Tell The Devil I’m Gettin’ There As Fast As I Can, a title whose droll self-deprecation is reflected in the weary sprechstimme style with which Hubbard delivers his narratives, homages and sermons.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 13, 2017
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 13, 2017
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Following the largely insipid twinklings of his Beady Eye, As You Were suggests that, given the right conditions and appropriate collaborators, Liam Gallagher could become a more potent force than expected--especially if he could broaden his musical outlook beyond such predictable parameters.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Oct 5, 2017
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Van’s fellow Brit-blues icons Georgie Fame, Chris Farlowe and Paul Jones take turns to duet, in a relaxed manner which exemplifies the overall mood: comfortable rather than inspirational.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 27, 2017
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In truth, the move towards country music made on Younger Now is fraught with potholes that she and producer Oren Yoel rarely manage to avoid. The main problem is the half-heartedness of the move.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 27, 2017
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Sløtface are a pleasing antidote to the cluster of guitar bands being peddled in the UK, drawing more on the grunge of Wolf Alice or the Riot Grrrl attitude of Sleater Kinney. In some cases they try too hard to sound cool.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Wonderful Wonderful is an album that doesn’t let the listener look forward to the next track, because the album is restlessly glancing backwards over its shoulder, haunted by past successes of The Killers, and the great artists who came before them.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 21, 2017
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Most of the album’s tracks also date from an earlier era, four of them retreads of songs originally recorded for his 1967 flop album New Masters. Sadly, they haven’t matured well.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 18, 2017
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When they stray from their core heavy rock duties, there’s an Oasis-like magpie quality to the songs, be it the way that the acoustic harmony-pop of “Happy Ever After (Zero Hour)” recalls ‘60s pop trifle “Sitting On A Fence”, or the way Dave Grolsch’s Lennon-esque inflection on “Sunday Rain” is winkingly set within guitar and dynamics echoing Abbey Road’s “I Want You”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 13, 2017
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Having spent so long exploring the intensely personal, she struggles here to find the right tone for more public matters.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 7, 2017
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Sleep Well Beast, like all The National’s albums, occupies troubled territory. These are songs about the fleeting impermanence of joy, compared to the lingering bruise of despair, and how hard it is to live in this unfairly weighted emotional space. It’s a struggle embodied in Matt Berninger’s enervated, murmurous baritone.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Sep 7, 2017
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While Martin Simpson’s peerless fingerpicking is in full effect throughout Trails & Tribulations, what’s equally impressive is the way his arrangements reflect the material with empathic sensitivity.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 31, 2017
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Though rooted in familiar influences--“Crossing The Road Material” is like a more anchored Neu!, while “Old Poisons” is old-school psychedelia, with squealing organ and guitar swathed in drums--Mogwai apply subtle details that are unmistakably their own.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 31, 2017
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Too many tracks, however, suffer from a shortfall of melodic potency, and a lack of lateral development, especially in longer pieces such as the 12-minute sci-fi musings of “Black Screen” and the declamatory nine minutes of “How Do You Sleep?”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 31, 2017
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Eugene Hutz’s gypsy-punk combo--a sort of Balkan-American Pogues--functions best here on galloping grooves of fiddle and accordion like the opening “Did It All” and “Break Into Your Higher Self”. But the latter, in which discontent prompts the search for a more transcendent purpose, hints at the cod-philosophising which damages Seekers And Finders.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 24, 2017
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Art In The Age Of Automation finds the group expanding their sound to accommodate strings and horns alongside their core armoury of drums, bass, keys, sax and hang, the latter’s steel-pan timbres pleasingly sprinkled over the slow drift of “Objects To Place In A Tomb” and prominently featured in “Beyond Dialogue”, two of the better tracks.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 24, 2017
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It’s all too controlled and unambitious; and just aping Dylan’s wheeze doesn’t make it any more intriguing.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 24, 2017
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It’s a fascinating journey, presaged by Cluster’s 1974 shift from avant-garde to pop with “Caramel”, taking in the pulsing minimalism of Monoton’s “Tanzen & Singen”, the simplistic electropop of Die Gesunden’s “Die Gesunden Kommen” and the more sophisticated soundscapes of Yello, Vangelis and Klaus Schulze.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 22, 2017
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24/7 Rock Star Shit has to be one of the all-time great rock’n’roll titles; but sadly, lurking behind it is an album which struggles to fulfil such vagabond promise. Rather, it seems terminally enervated: most of these songs have a shrugging, slovenly manner.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 10, 2017
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It’s not a bad album, but you still get the feeling that, as Ryder notes elsewhere, “someone who looks like me is living in my skin”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 2, 2017
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While not entirely successful, this high-level summit meeting of two giant talents from half a century ago confirms that neither of the principals’ distinctive talents has suffered serious decline.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 2, 2017
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Dan Croll’s follow-up to Sweet Disarray suffers from a kind of creeping anonymity: immediately after hearing it, it’s virtually impossible to recollect the salient features of any track.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 1, 2017
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With Golding’s expansive, questing lines riding Boyd’s rolling, polyrhythmic funk, the duo set displays a focused musical intimacy, while the band set is immediately more incendiary, thanks to Parker wailing wild over Golding’s more rooted part in “Valley Of The Ultra Blacks”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Aug 1, 2017
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The EP becomes more industrial as it progresses, with vocal hums, instrumental drones and dark ambiences fractured by progressive dissonance and the occasional brutal howl.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2017
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Musically, you know what to expect when Cooper and producer Bob Ezrin join forces: metal turmoil, churning beats and slashing guitar flourishes, letting up only for Ezrin to indulge his Pink Floyd heritage with the ponderous “The Sound Of A”, with its apt message, “Meaningless noise is everybody’s toys”. Quite.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 26, 2017
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Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s third album as a duo is disappointing, with Heaton’s lack of musical intrigue leaving some of his poorest songs badly exposed.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 24, 2017
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Ultimately these fixings lack the transformative quality to transmute depression into art.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 21, 2017
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 20, 2017
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It’s the overall cool/warm Tropicalismo tone that’s most engaging about Mellow Waves, established through the light accretion of sparse piano, percussion, synth and guitar parts supporting his soft vocal on opener “If You’re Here”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 20, 2017
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The free rein afforded by this latest solo effort renders most of these 15 tracks unrecognisable as songs.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 20, 2017
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Unlike their earlier tyro works, the simplicity is rarely matched by killer tunes on this album, which yokes together the first-ever stereo mix of Wild Honey with a tranche of outtakes and fragments, and an extra CD of efficient but uninspiring live performances.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 12, 2017
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For his debut as Mr Jukes, former Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Jack Steadman uses deftly-applied jazz samples, restoring his youthful interest in that genre after years in the indie salt-mines.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 12, 2017
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Oddly, there’s nothing here from Echo & The Bunnymen, despite the inclusion of borderline cases like The Damned, The Mission and Adam And The Ants, and a host of lesser bands creating the musical equivalent of smeared mascara. But there’s a broad range of tangential directions sheltering under the otherwise welcoming umbrella of Silhouettes & Statues.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 7, 2017
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Rather than the optimistic, outward-looking The Race For Space, on Every Valley he tells the grim story of the decline of Welsh coal-mining, from the title-track’s proud proclamations, declaimed in Richard Burton’s Rushmore rock-face of a voice, through to the poignant conclusion of “Take Me Home”, a Welsh Male Voice Choir’s plea to “let me live again”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2017
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For all the broken dreams, what’s impressive about the album is the way that BSS balance tones, textures and themes.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jul 5, 2017
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Former Only Ones frontman Peter Perrett sounds as languidly wasted as ever on How The West Was Won, though thankfully it’s the kind of wasted that demands the devotion of his sons, both involved in this solo debut, and sparks insights and locutions that enable him to make sense of his life.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 28, 2017
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The results range from the soothing yacht-rock soul of “Don’t Believe” to the soft, weightless folk-soul momentum of “I Would”, which, with its acoustic guitar arpeggios tinted with strings, resembles an outtake from Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 28, 2017
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For all its apparent homogeneity, there’s considerable diversity in approach, with the resonant, vibes-like tones and cyclical guitar waves of “Strand” a continent apart from the shadowy, almost Krautrock manner of “Fog March”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
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His band certainly nails Jennings’ trenchant country-rock tread on the title-track, a warning of the downside of the outlaw lifestyle for which Earle’s joined by Waylon’s old buddy Willie Nelson.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
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Evolve involves mostly devolving back into the hoariest of tired rock cliches (including what sounds like roto-toms), and plodding grimly towards the summer’s festivals.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
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For Together At Last, Jeff Tweedy revisits choice items from his back catalogue in solo unplugged mode. It’s a brave step, given the imaginative depth with which Wilco animates this material, but it does allow the songs’ core characters to come through more strongly.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
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There are a few irritations--I hate the ghastly synthetic-strings sound used on “Da Next Day”, and I hate Adam Levine’s hook on “Mic Jack”, no matter how impressively Patton piles rhyme upon rhyme. The hit cuts, though, are quirky novelties.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 21, 2017
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They’re still sculpted from the same small portfolio of sounds--basically, buzzing distorted guitar riffs and harmony chants borne along on pummelling drum barrages--which tends to impose too narrow an emotional range on the album. It’s like being hectored loudly by a bore.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 14, 2017
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- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 14, 2017
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It’s pleasant enough, though listeners may experience a twinge or two of deja vu.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 7, 2017
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They’re best when they work together, with the charming simplicity of the island-flavoured “Feel About You” and beach-strolling “Red Sun” contrasting nicely with the tart, twitchy urgency of “Too Far Gone”.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 7, 2017
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There are glosses on former glories--“Jamaica Moon” is a patois adaptation of “Havana Moon”, while “Lady B. Goode” involves gender-realignment of Chuck’s signature song--but they’re vastly outweighed by tranches of sloppy filler.- The Independent (UK)
- Posted Jun 7, 2017
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