Classic Rock Magazine's Scores

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For 2,213 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963
Lowest review score: 20 What About Now
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,863 out of 2213
  2. Mixed: 339 out of 2213
  3. Negative: 11 out of 2213
2213 music reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oczy Mlody
    A couple of lesser tracks bloat into shapeless abstraction, but overall this is a sonically lavish and formally bold reinvention.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Beat Loneliness
    It's not the most ambitious record in the world - at this stage in their career Bush don't seem to be trying to capture a new audience or to chase the zeitgeist - but I Beat Loneliness does give the impression of a band reaching out to the listeners they know are already there and offering the comfort of emotional understanding and musical familiarity. [Aug 2025, p.78]
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Internationally Unknown
    A quaintly dated second set haunted by cliche. [Apr 2019, p.89]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Mar 11, 2019
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tres Cabrones
    Even as they slip effortlessly into middle-age, their perennial prog tendencies are still evident on the demonic squall of I Told You I Was Crazy and the sprawling, trippy Dogs And Cattle Prods. [Dec 2013, p.99]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Dec 6, 2013
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Machine Kills Artists
    At 17 tracks, it becomes a bit of a repetitive slog towards the end, but it's good to see that this old dog has just as much bite as ever when he strays. [Aug 2014, p. 209]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Dec 18, 2014
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Interview Music
    It's a relief to find this eighth album bounding up to the gates waving some fresh ideas. [May 2019, p.87]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Apr 4, 2019
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hideaway
    An album full of lo-fi pop-tinged melodies sugarcoating a bitter centre. [Summer 2021, p.86]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Jul 13, 2021
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hard Love
    New album Hard Love is altogether more bullish, Showalter unleashing his inner rock beast on a collection of songs that seem to reach for some kind of epiphany through sheer volume.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tea for the Tillerman 2
    Plants such enduring standards as Wild World and Father And Son firmly in the now. [Oct 2020, p.87]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Sep 25, 2020
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Total Depravity
    With Total Depravity, though, they’ve stepped up a level--with co-producer El-P ushering in psych synth squelches and creepy gospel (the epically titled Do Your Bones Glow At Night) and on the magnificent Low Lays The Devil a vintage blues squal equal to the Black Keys.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Aeroplane Flies High [Deluxe Edition]
    Bashed out between gigs, this music is vulnerable and diverse enough to be essential. [Dec 2013, p.108]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Dec 6, 2013
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sub-Lingual Tablet
    Another adequate but inessential album.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Between Two Shores
    Unfeigned and irresistible.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Solid States
    It sounds more like a collection of polished home recordings than a truly coherent band album, but when the harmonies fly and the melodies tumble--as they do on the genuinely lovely Titanic or on the soaring Squirrel vs Snake--The Posies can still reach those old highs.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Down the Road Wherever
    The album is most revealing when Knopfler bares autobiographical teeth. [Jan 2019, p.87]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Dec 11, 2018
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strange Creatures
    Dark, twisted, twisting. [Apr 2019, p.89]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Mar 11, 2019
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Moral Panic
    [Mike Crossey's production] effectively strips them of their core classicism. [Dec 2020, p.85]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Nov 19, 2020
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Come Ahead
    Dud tracks are unfortunate, as Come Ahead does contain some pretty decent music when everyone involved puts their minds to it. But even the album’s title - an old Glasgow colloquialism that basically translates as ‘Yes, I would like to fight you’ – fails to measure up to its intent as a triumphant comeback. Primal Scream: don’t remember them this way. [Nov 2024, p.74]
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eat the Elephant
    Eat The Elephant gradually gains heft while staying intriguingly unpredictable.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    End of World
    Still producing some of their best material. And on this form there's plenty of bite in this cranky old dog yet. [Sep 2023, p.78]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Aug 29, 2023
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Arthur Buck
    A paradoxical mixture of bashed-together informality and studio finesse, a record that seems to evolve as it goes along. [Aug 2018, p.86]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Jul 25, 2018
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Quarters
    While there’s plenty of self-indulgent noodling (God Is In The Rhythm; the final section of Infinite Rise) compensation comes with their adventurous spirit.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon
    While this album isn't quite as impressive as the record in its original guise, it's still an interesting shift in gears by the Mars Volta. [Jun 2023, p.77]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 2, 2023
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My World Is Gone
    My World Is Over proves to be another step up. [Feb 2013, p.95]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Jun 6, 2013
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music Must Destroy
    A rockier proposition, re-channelling the militant, straight-ahead postpunk spirit of 1980, especially on Psychic Attack.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Baby Blue Abyss
    Baird’s weary, almost impassive croon and deadpan humour across both records can’t hide his serious resistance to our self-deceiving, digitally distanced lives.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Settlement
    Cousins is in remarkable voice, his lyrics better than ever. [Apr 2021, p.87]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Mar 2, 2021
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Roadside [EP]
    The Roadside EP is every bit as cool and continues to the unexpected good form that the Rebel Yell legend displayed on his last studio records. [Nov 2021, p.77]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Oct 18, 2021
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    As I Try Not to Fall Apart
    Following the metaverse music hall of Step Outside, however, normal bombastic synthrock service resumes. [Mar 2022, p.81]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted Feb 24, 2022
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    =1
    McBride is no Ritchie Blackmore facsimile, although the chunky opening riff to Lazy Sod momentarily suggests otherwise. Instead he brings relatively youthful energy, and when he lets loose on I’ll Catch You and sizzles his way through A Bit On The Side it’s clear he’s both his own man and the right man. Alongside McBride, the other band members are reinvigorated too. Gillan’s voice is richer than it’s sounded in years. [Summer 2024, p.72]
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