The Observer (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,617 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 37% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Gold-Diggers Sound
Lowest review score: 20 Collections
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,231 out of 2617
  2. Mixed: 1,368 out of 2617
  3. Negative: 18 out of 2617
2617 music reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mood Valiant
    All their little watermarks reappear. We get irregular time signatures, birdsong and other found sounds; long, wordless passages and tricksy skits; and an intoxicating confidence in their arrangements.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Home Video
    Nothing else on Home Video can match this intensity [on "Thumbs"], but Dacus’s writing retains its forthrightness throughout.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep
    Most of the sounds here are mellifluous, with ample space given to heavenly backing vocalists on the more heartfelt songs, like the standout Hudson Mohawke co-production Free Ride.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Path of Wellness
    On one level, it’s just like old times, with the Lennon and McCartney of the guitar underground strutting their off-kilter stuff. ... But ironically for an album made in 2020, the record stumbles most when it tries to deal head-on with the times of its making.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Man Made
    Atmospheres, healing and processing society’s messages are the point here, rather than hits. But Wells doesn’t lack for tunes, which ebb in and out.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Soberish
    Musically, this is unforgivably mediocre. A memorable chorus will occasionally appear from nowhere, as on Hey Lou (and Soul Sucker wins points for its unexpected nod to Blue Boy’s Remember Me), but for the most part the coffee-table pop on offer here is remarkable only for being so forgettable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When Smoke Rises
    Mustafa’s delivery hits a bruised place somewhere between 21st-century folk and bereft R&B.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Waves Pt. 1
    When Kele does sing, his magnificently anguished yelp is mostly stilled. There is far too much spoken word. This scattershot approach just about worked on his previous album, 2042, but this has neither its visceral immediacy nor the wild, unhinged invention of what he does best.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Medieval Femme
    Apart from the more contemporary dystopian digitals of Golden, the feel throughout is ancient and enigmatic. But these lute tones and classical Arabic music figures are rendered digitally; the cloister garden is an interior dream-space.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Be Right Back [EP]
    Admittedly, these are songs that didn’t make the cut for Smith’s next full-length album, due out in 2022. Still, Digging’s angsty 80s pop rock energy and Bussdown’s (featuring rapper Shaybo) subtle dancehall beat are nice enough to rewind, proving that this is more than just an ephemeral work.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fat Pop, Vol.1
    Weller seems incapable of releasing a downright bad album at the moment, but this isn’t one of his best.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Build a Problem
    Standout tracks such as Special Girl, with its intricate percussion, offer an insight into the intriguing, playful sonic flavours Clark could be exploring more thoroughly.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life by Misadventure
    At 14 songs, however, the album soon starts to sag, with Graham’s approach to emoting – ie sing louder – eventually overwhelming the weaker songs. ... It’s in the smaller moments that Graham seems most comfortable.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bright Green Field
    Bright Green Field has a hurtling energy, each song shifting restlessly, repeatedly in style and pace. It’s a shame, then, that the vocals of drummer and lyricist Ollie Judge so often pull it back to earth.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kôrôlén [Live]
    A special evening, but one containing both chasms and confluences.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Battle at Garden's Gate
    They are at their best on their more epic material, particularly Broken Bells and eight-minute closer The Weight of Dreams, which moves up through the gears from an acoustic intro to a brilliantly overblown Jake Kiszka guitar solo. Elsewhere, however, the material is more pedestrian, and the quieter moments don’t always sit well with Josh’s vocals (default, indeed, only setting: a histrionic screech).
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection
    Although any art with the word “selfie” in it can feel trite, this moving collaboration really hits its stride on the final track, where White introduces a sense of bass threat, rolling drum patterns and uneasy chimes, and Holley decrees that growth is imperative.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lei Line Eon
    Iglooghost’s formerly punishing BPMs give way to atmospheres and tracks – such as Light Gutter, featuring a female vocalist called Lola – that might be mistaken for actual songs.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Still Woman Enough
    With just one new song – the title track, a gutsy bawler with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood – the rest is a spirited if not subversive amble through her back catalogue and some old-time country classics.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    As much as you want to applaud this idiosyncratic soul outing, the straightforwardly acoustic, demo-grade Fallin’ is probably the record’s most lapel-grabbing moment.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    When You See Yourself
    After a partly successful reboot with 2016’s Walls, they attempt to build on that for their eighth album by using the same producer, Markus Dravs, but there’s only so much he can do when the raw material he’s working with so often falls short.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harlecore
    Harlecore is big, dumb escapist fun with – as no one says any more – a massive donk on it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Ferneaux
    A product of lockdown isolation, it comprises two lengthy soundscapes that blend his trademark layers of coruscating noise with sounds found on his travels over the past decade. Set out of context, these field recordings become for the most part wilfully abstract and very much open to interpretation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Open Door Policy
    The quieter songs don’t always burn so brightly. Here, there can be a fine line between balladry and pedestrianism, but the listener is never far away from a killer lyric.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    MUSIC: Songs from and Inspired by the Motion Picture
    Taken as part of Sia’s own unfolding character arc, songs like Courage to Change have their moments, but it’s hard to dispel the discomfort surrounding the entire project.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On All Fours
    Some of this magnificently sullen band’s edges have been filed down; their strides into left field could have been more decisive.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Not Your Muse
    As middle of the road as this singer undoubtedly seems, there is, however, much to commend her debut album, Not Your Muse – a gutsier, wiser and more elliptical set of songs than may at first appear.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Palberta5000
    The scrappy underdog bite of, say, their quarter-arsed, one-minute cover of the Bee Gees’ unimprovable Stayin’ Alive is swapped for a swathe of toothless tunes neither cool nor commercial enough to satisfy hardcore fans or find an entirely new audience. The band’s mayfly magic endures, though, particularly on The Way That You Do’s ragged clarity, the hypnotically repetitive Big Bad Want or live favourite Corner Store.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nobody Is Listening
    Nobody Is Listening doubles down on this expertly cultivated, look-but-don’t-touch, this-far-and-no-further brand. The good news is that, as an artist, Zayn keeps refining. The songwriters may be many here, but the songs suit him more and more.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Two Saviors
    Two Saviors has a wonderfully loose feel. Meek’s gently enunciated vocals, delivered with all the urgency of Kurt Vile awaking from a nap, are backed by a band that knows how to keep it simple, Mat Davidson’s pedal steel and organ from Meek’s brother Dylan giving proceedings a timeless country feel. This lack of immediacy is a double-edged sword, however: too often the songs are so laid-back that they slide out of focus.
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