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
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Preternaturals is graceful and intriguing, if not vastly pulse quickening.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There’s still plenty to recommend here, but you can’t help but feel that Neon Indian have a top-drawer electro pop record in them, if only they can trim the fat accordingly.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ‘Jaded’ undoubtedly brings with it a glimmer of hope in an album that ultimately comes up short in delivering the fusion of intensity and melody that has served GRMLN so well before.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In a rush to grow up they seem to have left behind some of what made them so excellent in the first place.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is an album with ambition; a sonically sweeping piece of work with big themes and big ideas that can overwhelm you. Just let nature take its course.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    At times the record may not hang together, but it makes up for that in its colour, its audacity, and its unabashed sense of pride at giving just about anything a go.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In a record where there are a minor derivations on a tried and tested formula, 'Still Life' is a major curveball; a high-risk almost jazz-like number that's almost ruined by the strange whizzing noise that could easily be a kazoo teasing its wares throughout.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When they get past their demons, Half Moon Run sit somewhere between accomplished musicians and potential game-changers. Too often they settle into a default mode, rarely hitting the melodic highs of ‘It Works Itself Out’ or the enraged bruiser ‘Consider Yourself’.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There is a lot of polish to Moaning, to the point that it’s carried off almost with a bit of a swagger.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Smith's vocals are spot-on throughout, save for the odd Mariah-esque trickle towards X Factor auditionee theatrics, and find themselves paired with as pitch-perfect a production as has been heard all year.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We may have seen Taylor on far better songwriting form than with ‘The Life Of A Showgirl’, but perhaps now, more than ever, she is making music for herself over anyone else.
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It means that AOKOHIO never quite feels as cohesive as Wolf apparently intended it to be, so it’s a good job that the album’s emotional themes do such a good job of providing a throughline and backbone instead.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are some cringey bits, the title track relying a little too much on well-trodden punk tropes, the vocals ‘Still Breathing’ not as vulnerable as the lyrics might warrant, and ‘Youngblood’ a bit of a mis-step. If punk’s 50th anniversary has shown us anything, it’s that many old rockers grow old, go soft and give in. On that count, if not all, Green Day are faring pretty well.
    • 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
    It may lack slightly in ambition but in terms of fulfilling Plantman's ideology to make gimmick free, classically-tinged emotive songs it does just fine.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On Scatter, Crushed Beaks find their a solid centre, as well as a gift for urgent, spangly melody.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This isn’t the best or the bravest music of her career, but Harvey continues to pave new ground. This time, she takes that responsibility very literally, exploring new places and inviting listeners into her strange universe.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's filled with cool sounds, and makes for an interesting listen, but it’s not engaging. It leaves the listener unfeeling, untouched.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    25
    Despite coming from the same body that houses a personality so unbelievably erratic and off-the-wall in the best possible way, 25 is as straight-down-the-line ‘Adele album’ as it gets.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Granted, it doesn’t always quite connect, and it probably won’t enter the Green Day canon, but it’s a bit of fun all the same.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Overall the album is never really present enough to make an impression, beyond a hazy silhouette in the distance.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The middle run of ‘U Do U’, ‘RH RN’ and ‘Old Flame’ is so mid-paced and lacking in audible spark that it’s as if the record has momentarily dozed off. And for a group who have seemed so overflowing with ideas, so strong in their convictions and so urgently essential, it can’t help but feel a bit disappointing
    • 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.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As a lyrical and moral experiment it’s touching and does what it sets out to; as an auditory experience... not so much.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Suede deserve some credit for being one of the few reunited bands to actually risk their reputation by recording a new album and whilst there is nothing on 'Bloodsports' as gloriously epic as 'Stay Together' or as bat-shit crazy as 'Introducing The Band', it should be viewed as a partial success.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As an experiment, No Grace could go further. But PAWS continue to have fuzz defining their every step.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Notably, the record is without the pair’s usual darkness, but ‘Host’ feels organic and true, like the first day of spring after a winter full of rain.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    They promised a great leap forward, and this isn't it.