DIY Magazine's Scores

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For 3,422 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.9 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Superbloom
Lowest review score: 20 Let It Reign
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,498 out of 3422
  2. Mixed: 911 out of 3422
  3. Negative: 13 out of 3422
3422 music reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Praise of Shadows
    While at times he toys with jazz (‘Velvet Dreams’ and ‘Oil Slick’) these moments are fleeting enough to be endured, safe in the knowledge that we’ll be taken back to the fluffy R&B dreamland before long. Sunday nights might never be the same again.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Woman
    After such a long time away, ‘Good Woman’ finds The Staves rejuvenated and inspired, treading new ground while retaining the identity that made them so loveable in the first place. For all the trials bestowed upon the trio in the past few years, they emerge positive and victorious, changing and creating music on their own terms as echoed on closer ‘Waiting On Me To Change.’
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Medicine at Midnight
    With sticky melodies and a spring in its step, ‘Medicine At Midnight’ is an experiment that pays off, simultaneously adding a new shade to their sound and injecting a dose of fun and escapism when we need it most.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shyga! The Sunlight Mound
    Unperturbed by overkill, the anthemic choral hooks and supercharged production values deliver a thrilling spectacle, even if the band are yet to realise their inflated ambitions.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For the First Time
    Black Country, New Road’s seriousness and determined intellectualism is sometimes to their detriment.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Uppers
    TV Priest's debut is good but not necessarily enough to poke through the maelstrom quiet yet.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    OK Human
    It’s the same melodies and patterns as the group have long favoured, but even the potentially cringeworthy ‘Screens’ (a song about, of course, how we’re all glued to them) barely raises a shrug when surrounded by such luscious, bombastic sounds. By focusing on minutiae, too, what is ostensibly a lockdown album (hello, reference to Zoom interviews) avoids cliche.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Not Your Muse
    Her raspy tones give way to huge notes, effortless in their delivery. No moment feels forced or out of place.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead Hand Control
    Packed full of bright ideas and moreish hooks, ‘Dead Hand Control’ is a hopeful document about finding peace in your relationships and immediate surroundings, even when the world is on fire.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Collapsed in Sunbeams
    ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’ is an excellent character study, of both Arlo herself and the people who orbit around her.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    On All Fours
    The quartet’s ability to instrumentally weave among each other has always been one of their great strengths, and here (with the addition of new bassist Holly Mullineaux) the band sound more unified than ever, able to spin strange sonic tales all the better as a result. A triumph.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ongoing Dispute
    This is no blistering return, but a pleasant one nonetheless. Fuzzy and frustrated, much like its title, the tension throughout ‘Ongoing Dispute’ frequently threatens to bubble over into fury, but is always brought back.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hope List
    Backed up by powerful guitars and soaring vocals, their brand of intense but atmospheric rock feels rejuvenating - and is perhaps even a tonic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last Exit
    In places, they can be a little too on-the-nose - ‘Till We Meet Again’, for instance, literally has some Lynchian ‘ethereal whooshing’ whistling away in the background for much of it, at least before a freewheeling guitar solo salvages proceedings - but ‘The Last Exit’ is largely worthy of the cultural touchpoints it so proudly nods to.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cooler Returns
    If ‘Football Money’ was a full-hearted paean to the likes of Pavement and Archers of Loaf, then ‘Cooler Returns’ is the sound of Kiwi Jr moving forwards, planting their own flag in the power-pop ground.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Isles
    Never overstaying its welcome, and always intriguingly structured, the lights might have come up, but the Belfast duo want to remind us that the memories and communities aren’t going anywhere.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Two Saviors
    A feather-light collection of alt-country, packed with pedal steel, lilting melodies and Buck’s own evocative Texan burr.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Demidevil [Mixtape]
    Ten tracks of orgasm-loving, empowering anthems, that pack a punch musically as well as lyrically, what’s not to love?
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drunk Tank Pink
    The latter half of the record segues together without pausing to come up for air - and you can bet your bottom dollar that once ‘all this’ has blown over and live music returns, these tracks will come into their own. Until then, crank up the volume and stomp around your prison cell.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Suckapunch
    A melting pot of the band’s real-life influences - with more elements of dance and hip hop thrown into their rock hybrid than ever before - this is a version of You Me At Six we’ve never seen before, and it’s certainly bold.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Spare Ribs
    Not one for anyone who’s not already won over by the pair’s particular charms.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Petrichor
    ‘Petrichor’ is a passion project, all about indulging the kinds of whims that don’t fit the Hawk and a Hacksaw mould. On that front, she’s succeeded.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear
    The result is a collection of biting, esoteric hymns that readily combine the earthly and the cosmic.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Welfare Jazz
    Come LP3, maybe they’ll reinvent themselves as a more wholesome proposition; for now, ‘Welfare Jazz’ stands as a document of a band that are perhaps more in limbo than they might first appear.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    McCartney III
    Adding another installment to a successful legacy is always a risk, but with ‘McCartney III’, all the icon’s beloved songwriting quirks are out in full force. A more than worthy third prong of the trilogy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Bastards
    Though a round-up such as this technically shines a light on a group of tracks that, at their simplest, weren’t good enough to make it onto a studio album, ‘Little Bastards’ doesn’t feel that way.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    evermore
    Whether it matches up to its self-proclaimed sister record or not, 2020 has seen Taylor Swift deliver over two hours of the most relatable stories in contemporary pop. There are lyricists and there are storytellers, and in a year of uncertainty and inconsistency, Taylor Swift has emerged as the most assured songwriter of her generation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    White Pony (20th Anniversary) [White Pony x Black Stallion]
    There are occasional flickers of inspiration - see the maximalist rework of ‘Elite’ from Blanck Mass and the minimalist ‘Teenager’ that Robert Smith contributed - but otherwise, you have to hope that everybody involved enjoyed putting Black Stallion together, because it ain’t much fun to listen to.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Will Always Love You
    The band’s trademark sampledelic sound provides a tasteful glimpse of the familiar, while also sidestepping overt pastiche, remaining consistently fresh throughout.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Burrows
    The Leeds-based group’s long-delayed debut might not offer much in variety (in short, if you’re into a combination of those groups’ [Gengahr, Bombay Bicycle Club or alt-J] sounds, you’re going to love it), but in our current long, dark winter nights there’s a nostalgic tint to the songs on offer, whether the bassy synths of the title track, or folky ‘Smorgasbord’ that hits right in the warm and fuzzies.
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