Clash Music's Scores

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For 4,443 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 58% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Dead Man's Pop [Box Set]
Lowest review score: 10 Wake Up!
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,788 out of 4443
  2. Mixed: 624 out of 4443
  3. Negative: 31 out of 4443
4443 music reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Before We Forgot How to Dream
    Mostly, Before We Forgot How To Dream reads a little like a portrait of Bridie's hero Joni Mitchell as a young artist: irreverent, observational and soulful.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When the Night Comes
    The upped slickness does mean the album offers little in the way of the provocative, though, so you may be disappointed by Breakage's leniency, and a wrath that's merely implied.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Before The World Was Big
    There is more than enough emotional sensitivity available between the duo without resorting to being just like everyone else, and for that reason (amongst many others) this fragile, coming-of-age album should be celebrated.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Multi-Love
    Multi-Love undoubtedly reveals Unknown Mortal Orchestra's willingness to reinvent and innovate, yet it's still beset by some of the difficulties that have featured in their previous work.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Loin Des Hommes (Far From Men) [OST]
    The understated nature of the score makes it doubtful this will bag many awards or turn many heads but, never mind: grab some headphones and enjoy the ride.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1000 Palms
    The bottom line: if you're looking for an intelligent summer record then hit download immediately.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Born Under Saturn
    For a band consisting of four members, Born Under Saturn is both remarkably adventurous and eclectic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Entanglement
    As much as this collection of instruments can so often deliver the hair-raising tricks we expect, these pieces feel more resonant, more entrenched. The surface level thrills are there, but the impact lingers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fading Love
    Fading Love feels like a transitional phase in the producer's journey, an accomplished springboard to launch a more definitive statement of intent next time round.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dumb Flesh
    It would be wrong to say that this is an enjoyable album, but it is rewarding in its own way.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Choose Your Weapon
    The album's weakest points come in the shape of some unnecessary interludes that only act as murky limbos between its better parts.... Other than that, Hiatus Kaiyote have put together a project that is both vibrant and uninhibited in its nature.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Where the Wild Things Are
    The band's fondness for over-long outros means that it occasionally drifts, where a tighter edit would have made it soar. But for the most part this is an entrancing album of spectral lullabies.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Peanut Butter
    Producer MJ (of Hookworms fame) and the band intended to strip things back and become more economical with their sound. While they certainly have achieved this, in this instance it has arguably starved the songs and disallowed them the space to breathe.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    California Nights
    Far from a departure, it's more the continuation of a recurring theme--but one that isn't half bad at all.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Waterfall
    The music has stark contrasts that work well to portray the emotions of singer Jim James.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cherry Bomb
    If anything, the album is held back by his ambition--imprudent testing falls short of his usual standards. There are lessons to be learned here, and as a document of Tyler's growth, this may well be looked back upon as a watershed moment.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Past, The Present, The Future
    The Past, The Present, The Future has rebooted more of the bad tropes from that era than the good.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Darling Arithmetic
    Darling Arithmetic finds O'Brien continuing to fashion his sound in this cherished manner, the tales he spawns both introspective and impressive.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Men Are Black Men Too
    Mad and all-consuming, this is music for disillusioned youth with enough wry wordplay to back it up. In all its angst and menace, you can't help but feel liberated.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living Fields
    A notable and accessible triumph.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Not Real
    Not Real proves a fun set--but whilst you can't help but admire Stealing Sheep for evolving their sound, with a few track tweaks it could have been an evolution which went so much further.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Magic Whip
    Shorn of expectation and match fit in the middle of a long tour, four friends found each other again.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ludaversal
    It's a microcosm for the muddled thinking that holds Ludaversal back.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Claustrophobia
    It's almost a back to basics approach.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Same As You
    With Polar Bear being fully paid-up jazzers, there's more of an understanding and utilisation of dynamics, which add to the pervading mood, yet the overall feeling is one of ennui.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Culture of Volume
    A broad, diverse and enriching album, the ten tracks which make up Culture Of Volume are each distinctive but seamlessly connect and click together to produce a piece of work that will both delight and enthral.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kintsugi
    Kintsugi hits hard due to its lightness, its bitter heart shrouded in soft arpeggios and catchy riffs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Don't Like Shit: I Don't Go Outside
    It's clearer now than ever that Earl Sweatshirt doesn't care for your expectations, and that he's at his brilliant best when refusing to cater to them.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Froot
    Diamandis is using her music to discover who she really is. That said, by the end of Froot, we're still none the wiser.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Scene Between
    The Scene Between is a happy remedy to a cynical industry and scary, un-groovy world. One listen and you'll be transported back to your teens--when some sunshine and a little dance would cure all.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dream a Garden
    It's an optimistic, romantic and frequently lovely record.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chaos and the Calm
    This is an album of genuine intent, full of poignant reflections on romance, hope, fear, the past, the present, and the future. It’s got heart. And that’s enough for starters.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If I Was
    Overall this is an album to be enjoyed in its entirety and proves a much more rewarding when doing so. Grab a comfy chair, wait for dusk and lose yourself. You won't regret it.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
    Half of the time Barnett, sounds like she isn't even trying, shrugging out moments of brilliance with ease and nonchalance. Whether she sits and thinks or sits and does nothing, it would appear the results are still golden.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    For All My Sisters
    The band's insistence on shouty, over-the-top moments like 'Pacific Time' or 'Mr. Wrong' still grates, but this is offset by the likes of 'City Storms', 'Summer Of Chances' and 'Different Angles', which possess some of the most urgent pop hooks and catchy anthemic choruses The Cribs have ever delivered.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Brava
    A blunt genre deserves a blunt assessment so, for what it's worth: in reflecting his mixtape interests, Brodinksi is well on his way to mastering one of the year's most disposable albums.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell
    It's heavy, but so very beautiful.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Goon
    Goon is not perfect, but it's the imperfections and the straight honesty that bleeds through it that make it so appealing.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strangers to Ourselves
    His inspired wordplay is consistently great and occasionally brilliant.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Another Eternity
    With more revealed in every listen, Another Eternity shows that there's much more to Purity Ring than initially meets the eye.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Soft Control
    Soft Control is a carefully crafted debut that comes from a very real place and shows what can be achieved when you keep pushing forward.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    LateNightTales
    It's a real labour of love where every track has not only been meticulously thought about and placed, but it's clear that Hopkins has thought tirelessly about how it fits into the wider picture of the collection as a whole.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Late Night Endless
    Two years spent reconstructing and re-dubbing has clearly paid off for the pair; an essential for all the late-night dub heads out there.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Yaya
    It's an eclectic mess that, when performed with such a light touch, just gels.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Short Movie
    A commanding and sincerely fascinating listen that stands tall in a catalogue already awash with magic.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Policy
    Although there's nothing exactly groundbreaking here, Policy packs plenty of personality and attitude.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Race for Space
    The Race For Space has its mis-steps, but most importantly it shows that Public Service Broadcasting aren't a one-off novelty act, and that there's mileage in their approach.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shedding Skin
    Don't be surprised if Ghostpoet is on Mercury minds once more with this excellent effort.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chasing Yesterday
    The most impressive thing about Chasing Yesterday is the playfulness that’s woven throughout it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seasonal Hire
    Always respectful of the traditions from which they emerge, Steve Gunn and the Black Twig Pickers are happy to less these sounds evolve exponentially into stunning, unforeseen vistas. A real gem.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If You're Reading This It's Too Late [Mixtape]
    At times the lyrical component can leave you cold.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everything Ever Written
    A warm, endearing release, Everything Ever Written is a bold and profoundly independent return.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Love You, Honeybear
    It never rests and never tires.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dance Mania: Ghetto Madness
    Some of Ghetto Madness hasn’t dated well, yet elsewhere it’s upfront and out the gutter stature gives prudes and purists the finger.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gandadiko
    The land may not currently be fertile in terms of crops but it certainly is in artistry, as there is a wild eclecticism and experimentalism here that touches the soul.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments, Pt. 2 [EP]
    After such a long break between official studio albums from the annointed one, it's nice to see that he's still shaking things up--not just giving us what we want.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Modern Nature
    Modern Nature is a significant step forward for a band dogged by being seen merely as Britpop survivors that have never really moved on. This is evidence that they truly, distinctively have.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kitty, Daisy & Lewis The Third
    It is an unequivocal triumph, standing boldly as their most diverse, beguiling and impressive release to date.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Miscontinuum Album ( Fiepblatter Catalogue #3)
    Asymmetrical and pitched up and down at any given moment, Miscontinuum is an unwavering data stream whose moments of relative clarity still press on your temples like a tightening vice.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Theory of Everything [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    A stirring accomplishment.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Animism
    Indulgently arresting stuff.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apex Predator - Easy Meat
    It’s a perverse and challenging listen that makes very few compromises. But the album is also both intensely lyrical and supremely musical--and it plays out in a way that is designed to be perversely uncomfortable for the ears.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vulnicura
    Like all Björk albums before it, Vulnicura is the work of many but the vessel, really, for the voice--and everything that means--of just one persistently empowering talent.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Else Matters
    The Russian five-piece move so defiantly through their debut the resulting radiance sings of a group unshackled by their limited means.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music and Words
    A bizarre little record, Music And Words was seemingly kicked off in 2007. With a seven-year gestation, it would be nigh on impossible to maintain a full sense of coherency, but the twin artists just about manage it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chromatics
    It’s about love and life and happiness and positivity without being the slightest bit sloppy. It’s the perfect accompaniment to bashing away the January blues and starting 2015 with a smile on your face.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ghost Culture
    From the flicks of tousled hair and being pale and away with the fairies, the end product sounds more masterful and comfortingly in control than other fashion zeitgeists and angular pouters with every listen.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Moonlight
    A curious oddity, Moonlight indicates that there’s far more to Hanni El Khatib than meets the eye.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    No Cities to Love
    It immediately stakes its claim as the rock album of 2015.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On Your Own Love Again
    On Your Own Love Again is a timeless record by a remarkable talent only just starting to show what she can do.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Viet Cong
    The result is something that sounds mechanical and generally detached from emotion.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ratworld
    The speed-rock splendour of ‘Lowtalkin’’ put to one side, the band’s career prospects and longevity probably lie in the strained emotional hypnotism of the more muted, more self-conscious moments.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fantastic Planet
    A strange brew of instrumentals both delightfully becalming and playfully boisterous.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
    Since that reboot 12 years ago, they don’t really know what they want to be. So they try all things, and only succeed at some.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Pinkprint
    For the most part, though, this seems like a step in the wrong direction: a Nicki Minaj album from somebody who’s thoroughly fed up of being Nicki Minaj.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Matador
    The anthems are still here, rest assured; they’re less obvious, but definitely no less compelling.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
    One of the songwriter’s most overtly gorgeous works, it finds Panda Bear easing into new ground while maintaining his near effortless melodic touch.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Islands
    An awesomely designed underground rising.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Balcony
    While there’s nothing particularly original or ground-breaking about this debut, CATB is a band that’s mastered the art of writing tunes that connect with an audience, and at a time when commercial rock is, apparently, at a particularly low ebb, that could serve them very well.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Black Messiah
    Despite the elongated nature of its creation, Black Messiah is a fluid, confidently cool piece.... A real showcase of his incredible talent.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hallways
    Hallways demonstrates great writing, clever concepts, varying flow patterns and a solid ear for organic production--all of which nudges the boundaries without straying too far away.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Monuments to an Elegy
    It’s the ninth studio album to bear the Pumpkins brand, and probably the seventh that wouldn’t find a single track making most fans’ side-of-a-C90 best-of. But it delivers what it promises: songs by Billy Corgan that sound enough like the ones you recall loving as a teenager.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Adrift
    While it may not quite measure up to their very best work, this is still utterly unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Petals Have Fallen
    An album of consistent high quality and endearing personality, Petals Have Fallen might have missed the deadline for a 2014 Mercury Prize nomination, but with ‘Dead’ and ‘Everybody Down’ making this year’s list, it’s worth popping a tenner on this exceptional LP matching their shortlist status in 2015.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SUCKER
    This collection’s predecessor, 2013’s ‘True Romance’, showcased an artist willing to take on the pop world. Sucker finds that same, singular performer rewriting the rules entirely, never mind breaking any, and beating pop at its own game.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shaken Up Versions
    Shifting their past into their present, this intensifies retrospective beats with the primitive passion that’s always been at their core.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rock or Bust
    Sure, it's not all killer.... But still, this is AC/DC: an unstoppable volcanic force, a group that seems to weather every obstacle placed in its way.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Clark
    Fragile yet utterly destructive, this wolf in sheep’s clothing will hurl you five ways and leave you hovering over a bleak abyss. In a great way, obviously.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chubbed Up +
    Serious though he may intend to be, through the combination of Williamson’s Mr. Angry rants and Andrew Fearn’s tinny keyboards, Sleaford Mods do have a tendency to sound like a bit of a novelty.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Natural Selection
    Solid if unspectacular then, yet you’ll find that, much like when in high school, it’s always worth checking out the Art Department.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alone For the First Time
    It’s a sad record, but one that envelops you in a warm hug, wipes your eyes and plays with your hair.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sound of a Woman
    It’ll definitely prove a little too keen on mid-1990s house beats for younger ears, but it’s a sure-footed statement of intent from a top newcomer amongst 2014’s pop crowd who, on this evidence, is going to contend for further number ones in the coming years.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Palme
    The result is utterly stunning.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sirens
    In general Sirens is listenable and catchy, only it plays to an unexciting scene that is largely turning (like the victims of a Gorgon themselves) stagnant.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Endless River
    As an album in its own right it is terrifically tedious, 40-something minutes of mindless, meandering muso-muscle flexing with a never-more-limp ineffectiveness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Seeds
    [Seeds is] not up there with its makers’ very best releases, but a welcome indication that they still absolutely mean business.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    DSU
    This is enduring evidence that the purest, most interesting music inevitably comes without hefty production or marketing budgets.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vapor City Archives
    Not quite as developed or controlled as its parent album, ‘Vapor City Archives’ underlines the sheer creative nous running through Machinedrum right now.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Demo
    Imperfect, but still as absolutely bloody essential as the best of Fugazi always was.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sonic Highways
    Eight songs, many of which feel too long; recorded in eight cities that don’t really leave their unique mark on the sonic side of the experience; each with a guest who is, at best, an apparition dancing in the shadows of the spot-lit stars; yielding eight largely forgettable arrangements that won’t make a dent on any fan’s all-time top 10.
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