DIY Magazine's Scores

  • Music
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:
3422 music reviews
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Formation’s greatest achievement is not just in making a floorfiller record with genuine variety and depth, but that All The Powerful People sounds entirely, only like them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Their sound may have matured, and may be more accustomed to a laconic calmness, but Damage and Joy still burns with purpose and when it throws its punches it lands them with ease.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ‘Raising The Dead’ is a hopeful and tender ode to finding attributes of his late father in his newborn daughter. ‘Wandering Aengus’, meanwhile, is a Yeats-inspired piece of trumpet-covered beauty that sums up the record perfectly--peaceful, lush and well worth the wait.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This collection is his most fully-realised to date, with hooks as the glittering vehicle for tales of a blighted American Midwest.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A planned dalliance, Hot Thoughts reveals its irony: a well-thought rush of blood, a planned frisson. It’s a turn on with limits.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The album’s most engaging moment arrives in ‘A Portrait Of’. Giving voice to anxieties and doubts only to shatter through them with a screaming crescendo of steadfast resolve, this is the sound of Sorority Noise at their strongest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Mind is classic laid-back Real Estate, and while there is comfort in the familiar, at times it can feel a little lax.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Releasing two similar albums in such close proximity might seem like a cynical attempt to double-down on the success of the first, but rather than feel like a re-release thrown together by label execs, these were the tracks as they should be; rich, nuanced, and steeped in major key melodies.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They’re not boasting rock and roll’s supermodel aesthetic for sure, but it doesn’t mean a lot of people wont fall in love with that scruffy rock band next door.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Raging at full throttle, IDLES’ debut is as dirty as it is messy. An exhilarating escape along frenzied rhythms and powerhouse rhythms with a ferocious commentary for guidance, Brutalism is as vital as it is volatile.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This latest effort from Australian trio Methyl Ethel is a lithe, sinewy creature, by turns weighted and buoyant, half darkness and half shimmering light.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are a few duds thrown into the pack--closing pair ‘Into The Sun’ and ‘Walk Out Music’ offer little of interest and ensure the record goes out with something of a whimper--but there’s enough on With You Tonight to suggest Summer Moon might gather something of a cult following.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    At its best, Youngish American exists at the nexus of day-job classics ‘Giving Up the Gun’ and ‘Unbelievers’, offering glimpse of Chris’ massive potential to be an engaging solo star.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cameron may drench his songs in luscious, sweeping strings, but this is more akin to a gritty neo-noir thriller with numerous femme fatales haunting him at every turn.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    While Circa Waves are stepping up, they’re just as confident in stripping things back.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The separate successes of ‘Turn Into’ and ‘Everybody Works’ cement that Jay Som is absolutely a name to know, and this LP in particular proves that in addition to consistent, honest, attention-worthy output she’s also willing to poke around the margins of her comfort zone.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laura Marling crafts yet another hard-to-pin, experimental, statement. A shape-shifting artist who never pauses, the record patters quietly away in a flurry of footsteps and birdsong, as the elusive morning finally arrives.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While opener ‘Name For You’ is catchy, and album highlight ‘Rubber Ballz’ is a foot-stomping earworm, Heartworms largely represents a loss of ambition.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    If Skepta’s ‘Konnichiwa’ was grime’s breakthrough, Gang Signs & Prayer is its blockbuster--an all-encompassing ride through human experience that’ll stand tall for decades.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The lyrics across the course of the record feel less politicised, the characters less personal, resulting in a record that feels both wholly more developed, and ultimately more accessible than the EP it follows.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For better or for worse though, Moh Lhean mostly moves to the beat of its own, strangely laid-back drums. It just would have been nice to have a little more variation buried within those meditative vibes.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If Temples needed to prove that they were more than talented revivalists, then Volcano should silence the doubters. Sure, you’re unlikely to find a Stormzy sample buried within its midst, but Temples’ second statement shows that innovation and notable progress can still sound classic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There’s a sense that nobody’s heart was quite in it which sometimes means proceedings drag on, refusing to invent, refusing to accept that Granddady can be a band who make it. It’s heart-breaking and at times powerfully so, but it also shuns the listener, forcing them to a place where Grandaddy risk drifting once more into obscurity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, these [familiar touches] are huddled together rather than woven throughout the album, breaking the illusion of a perpetual contrast. When Solide Mirage eventually hits its mark though, it’s impossible not buy into Marry’s idea of a changeable album that dreams of unity and addressing frustrations through as many channels as possible.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s an engaging listen and a jarring template that perfectly captures a disquietened and uneasy era.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A witty, succinct debut album.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    While Sick Scenes is a record that questions its authors places in the world in tandem, it’s also one that shows that, for as long as they’re here, Los Campesinos! will always be able to express a certain character type better than most.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rich, imaginative, and more than a little strange.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Tourist isn’t ‘the worst’, but it’s far from the journey its designer hopes it to be.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Why Love Now truly comes to life when the band uses their punishing sound to explore the absurdity of modern masculinity.