The Wire's Scores
- Music
For 2,617 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
51% higher than the average critic
-
7% same as the average critic
-
42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
| Highest review score: | Spiderland [Box Set] | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Amazing Grace |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 2,167 out of 2617
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Mixed: 430 out of 2617
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Negative: 20 out of 2617
2617
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
“Dreamfear” sticks to the artist’s more conventional penchant for collage-style dance music. .... “Boy Sent From Above” is less convincing, clumsily layering Auto-Tuned vocals over the kind of schmaltzy synth one might hear in pop outfits like Yazoo. [Mar 2024, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Mar 13, 2024 -
- Critic Score
The music is gentle but ominous, and it’s hard to be sure which impression they want to linger. “Read The Room” and “Teleharmonic” are more conventional rock songs; the former in particular could have come off any 21st century Radiohead album. [Mar 2024, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Feb 8, 2024 -
- Critic Score
This is an overgrown jungle of music; ideas bury one another, making it all the more striking when a pure, clean line manages to weave its way through the tangle and rise, like a flower turning to face the sun. [Mar 2024., p.46]- The Wire
Posted Feb 8, 2024 -
- Critic Score
“Airavata” falls into kitsch, with Atwood-Ferguson on electric guitar and violin/viola. The album’s often better than that, however. .... In all, a mixed picture. [Dec 2023, p.42]- The Wire
Posted Nov 15, 2023 -
- Critic Score
Atlas is entirely ambient, a slipstream that moves in slow motion using dense atmospheres to confuse the listener, who is only momentarily permitted to take a specific position. The closing composition “Earthbound” guides us back towards the ground, but any sense of spatial awareness is already too skewed and you are left to wade your way through the remnants of sonic fog. [Sep 2023, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Sep 22, 2023 -
- Critic Score
“Playing Chess” brings us to a smug, detached and ever so slightly creepy close. Big set pieces aside, however, there are gems aplenty amid the dross, from his rapport with Burna Boy on the menacing “Masculine” to a rare moment of meditative vulnerability wondering “Crazy how a murderer used to be a cuddler” on “Comeback”. [Oct 2023, p.60]- The Wire
Posted Sep 6, 2023 -
- Critic Score
If narcoleptically bland neo-soul is your bag, you’re in luck. A parade of guest singers and rappers do nothing to inject any interest. [Sep 2023, p.69]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2023 -
- Critic Score
If Magic 2 reveals that Nas can definitely still rap, it also continues his unfortunate run of uninspiring production choices. There are enjoyable moments, like the 50 Cent assisted “Office Hours”, the ominous string driven force of “Motion”, and the mesmerizing penmanship on “Slow It Down”, but overall the album falls short for an artist of Nas’s stature. [Sep 2023, p.68]- The Wire
Posted Aug 8, 2023 -
- Critic Score
A definite mixed bag, Pink Bikini is best when its songs feel fully formed in their own right, rather than semi-scripts set to music. [Aug 2023, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Jul 18, 2023 -
- Critic Score
The results are a little underwhelming. Lyrical themes are repeated throughout the album and the feeling that something is missing compared to the projects that came before is hard to ignore. This might be due to having become accustomed to hearing Mike as part of a duo; but also that since 2012 he has been rapping over El-P's beats, which are a big part of RTJ's appeal and an effective platform for his vocals. [Aug 2023, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Jul 13, 2023 -
- Critic Score
This is pleasant but forgettable music, dissolving the instant it hits the eardrum. [Jul 2023, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Jun 7, 2023 -
- Critic Score
The closing title track is a full ten minutes of ethereal synth drift. Tucked between these are a couple of neat facsimiles of the kind of mellow handclap bounce heard on Dance Floor Corporation’s scene-setting 1990 Ambient House compilation. But there are some clunkers too. [May 2023, p.54]- The Wire
Posted May 17, 2023 -
- Critic Score
Let’s Start Here has a middlebrow sensibility, with plenty of grooves Calvin Harris would approve of. Its best moments come when he unleashes his oddball trill, an evocative sound that bland sentiments like “So surreal, the vibes I feel” can’t quite diminish. [Apr 2023, p.68]- The Wire
Posted Mar 28, 2023 -
- Critic Score
Optical Delusion’s seven different guest vocalists yield wildly differing results, ranging from hits to misses. [Apr 2023, p.67]- The Wire
Posted Mar 28, 2023 -
- Critic Score
93696 is their sixth to date and, in many ways, it still sounds like music made to illustrate a theory. [Apr 2023, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Mar 22, 2023 -
- Critic Score
The pattern repeats elsewhere: the big showcase tracks like “Never Forget” and “Let Me Be Great” sag a little under the weight of their pomposity, where deep cuts “Imposter Syndrome” and “IDGAF” just get on with showcasing her untouchable cool. [Nov 2022, p.73]- The Wire
Posted Oct 5, 2022 -
- Critic Score
He raps in a stereotypically ‘white’ voice shorn of regional inflections, and the contrast between his deadpan vocals and the beats ranges from startlingly imaginative (the hammering blapper “Fundrazors”) to anodyne (“Indifferent”). [Sep 2022, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Aug 17, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Best not to think too deeply about it. [Sep 2022, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Aug 17, 2022 -
- Critic Score
It’s a shame the tracks are so short – after a while it all starts to feel frustratingly sketchy and cramped. [Sep 2022, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Aug 17, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Danger Mouse constructs decorative, melodic beats that don’t really bang, resulting in a hazy, slightly funky and psychedelic quality reminiscent of late 1960s pop. ... It’s frustrating to see him [Black Thought] shut off that aspect of his creativity in favour of “bars as hard as Angola’s”. ... Cheat Codes is compelling enough, but one wonders where it’s all going. [Sep 2022, p.42]- The Wire
Posted Aug 17, 2022 -
- Critic Score
The long germination period of the project is an indication of the duo’s perfectionism, which unfortunately results in songs that are overworked to the point of blandness. [Aug 2022, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Jul 13, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Introspective, emotionally charged pieces such as “Father Time”, “We Cry Together” and “Savior” provide high – or jarring – points on the record, but elsewhere there are periods of lull absent on previous efforts. ... As sonically impressive as his latest album may be, his approach to the topics under discussion doesn’t feel sufficiently thought out. [Jul 2022, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Jun 15, 2022 -
- Critic Score
The issue with Pusha’s fourth solo album isn’t his insistence on portraying a heartless American striver as if he’s the rap game Al Pacino – it’s that he’s unable to consistently conjure the menacing intensity that enlivened his work with with twin brother Malice as Clipse. [Jun 2022, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Jun 14, 2022 -
- Critic Score
While 2016’s Painting With was a jumble of interesting ideas lacking direction, Time Skiffs is the opposite: a paint by numbers indie pop affair completed using a quirky palette. While paring down to a more focused format is welcome, the music is suffocated by anachronisms, both within AC’s own and wider pop contexts. [Feb 2022, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Jan 25, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Ping-ponging between krautrock, deep funk, free jazz and pre-techno synth workouts, they could have easily released it as three short, more coherent LPs; some credit, at least, ought to go to Soul Jazz for indulging them in these spartan times. [Jan 2022, p.72]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Having all this material together is bittersweet – rather than four distinct sets, couldn’t these styles have been brought together in a more innovative way? Arca’s work is invariably surrounded by much chatter about disrupting musical forms, but four albums divided into four distinct moods feels like an unusually conservative vehicle for her ideas. [Jan 2022, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021 -
- Critic Score
They have edited a tightly bound collection of six monstrously loud tracks with titles like “Cuts On Your Hands”, “Starres” and “Dark Inclusions” that read like they have been torn from some eldritch book of spellcraft but are in fact informed by the cosmos and attempts to make contact with alien intelligence. Unfortunately any insight regarding this is hidden behind the pleasingly crushing avalanche of guitar shrapnel, thundering bass and percussion that muzzle Baker’s already clouded vocal. [Jun 2021, p.54]- The Wire
Posted Dec 22, 2021