Classic Rock Magazine's Scores

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For 2,212 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 2212
  2. Mixed: 338 out of 2212
  3. Negative: 11 out of 2212
2212 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Through the Out Door [Remastered]
    Listening to the earlier mixes accompanying 1979’s In Through The Out Door (7/10) is to be transported to an alternative universe where songs named Blot, The Epic and The Hook (I’m Gonna Crawl, Carouselambra and All My Love respectively) jostle with a scruffier, rambunctious Hot Dog and a sparser In The Evening, the drone intro truncated and Jones’s synths high in the mix.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coda [Remastered]
    Coda itself a contractual hotchpotch of career-spanning outtakes, is the only reissue given the three-disc treatment, with a total of 15 extras as disparate as the album itself.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pete Townshend's Classic Quadrophenia
    A classical version of a rock album only reveals how tonally conservative rock is (formally, Quadrophenia’s compositions would have sounded hidebound in the late 19th century), while at the same time revealing classical music’s inability to convey the electric volatility and the spine-tingling, physical frisson that’s unique to rock.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Little Victories
    As a compendium of rock styles, it’s hard to beat--maybe that’s what they mean by Little Victories. But it’s all quite characterless.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dark Matter/Dark Energy
    Wild, weird and wonderful, Dark Matter/Dark Energy is a lysergic punk triumph.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Currents
    With Parker’s voice haloed in reverb, some of it sounds great, especially eight-minute epic Let It Happen and the gorgeous ’Cause I’m A Man. But quite what his regular audience will make of this change in direction is another matter entirely.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mutilator Defeated at Last
    A rather fine rock record indeed.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Music in Exile
    Songhoy Blues bring a joyful defiance to Music In Exile that transcends the language barrier.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pan
    Here, White Manna have created grown-up lullabies of the most primal kind.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bleeder
    Bookended by the glorious, galloping sludge-fest, Bridgeburner and the Dio-era, Sabbath-indebted doom-laden title track, the likes of Soft Spot In My Skull and the pummelling 1000 Mile Stare prove that this is much more than a vanity project and it’s as thrilling as anything they’ve put their names to in the past.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Back To Basics
    Taken overall, it does gather moss, but that’s to be expected from a man of his vintage.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Still
    The best moments here find Thompson more restrained, particularly the sinuous, fingerpicked beauty of Beatnik Walking and the rueful, all-acoustic Josephine.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is the Sonics
    While nothing quite matches the brutalist stomps of your youth, there’s a savage intensity at work here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Black Age Blues
    There’s a warm, fuzzy familiarity to Goatsnake’s doomy, bluesy sound, with Stahl’s stirring, soulful vocals always elevating these southern gothic rumbles above the mundane, not least on the striking and rather beautiful seven-minute closer A Killing Blues.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Monsanto Years
    If you fancy being barked at by a grizzled campaigner about pesticides and sea pollution over three-chord sludge and ragged-glorious guitars, then you’ll love what Young and co cook up here. If not, stick to Harvest.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Better Than Home
    Her heart is laid bare in a manner that just manages to avoid becoming cloying.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Motorcade Amnesiacs
    Though the record’s real strength is the deft vocal interplay between Elsenburg and Jana Carpenter, who imbues things with a new sense of depth and, on Chasing Horses and the achingly lovely Tyrekickers, a nuanced sensitivity.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Restless Ones
    They’re a light-footed prospect, made still more intriguing by Erika Wennerstrom’s curiously detached vocal.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rose Windows
    This is certainly a dead weird album; it may improve with time.
    • 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
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sub-Lingual Tablet
    Another adequate but inessential album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    FFS
    A brilliant record, combining as it does the herky-jerky, febrile near-hysterical wit of Sparks with that of Franz Ferdinand.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kablammo!
    A bit of filler, but mainly killer.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last of Our Kind
    The Darkness’ return to form is a welcome surprise in these apocalyptically drab times.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Drones
    Great in parts, but flat and clumsy in others, Bellamy’s bid to become more serious appears to have stunted what he does best, which is operatic excess fuelled by volcanic emotion.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heavy Blues
    Resolute if hardly revolutionary form. [Jun 2015, p.96]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 22, 2015
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    American Spring
    A slick, punchy production gives some pop momentum to Justin Sane's vocals, but it's when the songs are carried by his guitar that American Spring sounds ready to bloom. [Jun 2015, p.92]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 21, 2015
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dungeon Golds
    The Minus 5 remain a star-heavy Trojan horse for McCaughey's songwriting. [Jun 2015, p.97]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 12, 2015
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    + -
    At last, a Mew album as essential as it is deeply odd. [Jun 2015, p.97]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 12, 2015
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If I Kill This Thing We're All Going to Eat for a Week
    There is skill on display, but the album is unlikely to progress beyond background music. [Jun 2015, p.93]
    • Classic Rock Magazine
      • Posted May 12, 2015
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