Drowned In Sound's Scores

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For 4,812 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 It Won't Be Like This All the Time
Lowest review score: 0 BE
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,477 out of 4812
  2. Mixed: 1,220 out of 4812
  3. Negative: 115 out of 4812
4812 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magus
    Thou’s consistency makes their records somewhat overwhelming. Magus’ arrival via Sacred Bones makes it likely to become many listeners’ first Thou album. Whether it is suitable for such a position, given the more concise appeal of the band’s first three full-lengths, is questionable. Nonetheless, much like the question of whether this is the band’s finest work to date, such doubts should not distract from the fact that Magus is a successful affirmation of Thou’s place as being amongst the greatest heavy bands on the planet.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    FLOTUS
    Its great moments really are great, and shouldn’t be underestimated. However, when an album is bookended between two potential song of the year contenders with little to grasp in between, it’s difficult to really get too invested in this record.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    School Of The Flower
    It is a beautiful result that, through the austere and effortlessly enchanting tunes, leaves you feeling the emotion infinitely more than any self-professed ‘emo’ might.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time to Die
    It’s great that Electric Wizard are still around and are still pushing the limits of heavy music--not just for metal itself, but for British metal in particular.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ekstasis
    Although it still occasionally feels like there is something distant about Ekstasis, something yet to thaw (chalk this up to its chilly aesthetic and Holter's wilfully eclectic approach to her art), it is a genuinely enthralling listen.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Angels & Devils
    Despite the dualistic structure of Angels & Devils, the album’s two halves are never in opposition to one another; its vocalists all equally damned, equally resilient to their fate.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Celebration Rock
    The sheer energy pouring from this record is breathtaking: not until the very final song ('Continuous Thunder') does Celebration Rock's sense of acceleration cease.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Epic
    This is wonderful stuff.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
    Erykah might have mellowed out, but the lessons from last time round have been learnt, rethought and reapplied. This is a record that confidently stands alone as brilliant, yet remains an equally perfect companion to a modern classic.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harmonicraft
    It's not a monumental leap forward from the band's previous work, but Harmonicraft displays the signs of consistent refinement and revels in that fact.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Aviary
    The mayhem, the confusion, the hysteria, Holter has learned to embrace all of it, and by reflecting it honestly in her music, she has shown the rest of us that whilst we live in alarming times, empathy and love continue to stand strong. Aviary will be a challenging listen for many, but its message needs to be heard.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Live at the Cellar Door
    Live At The Cellar Door is a treasure chest that holds the glowing embers of a brilliant, already burgeoning career.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Patch the Sky
    Patch the Sky is undoubtedly the record of someone not only haunted by their past but also the continuing difficulties faced in the present, but it is also a stunning example of Bob Mould’s resolve and ability to channel life, death, love and failure into two sides of meaningful and melodic music.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turn Out the Lights
    Turn Out the Lights is far from a happy album, but my word, it is riddled with joy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    July
    July is a grown up album--but it’s not a cleaned up one: Marissa Nadler may flirt with the sun now, but still articulates the dark like no one else.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Y Dydd Olaf
    This is music that the listener can plunge into and summon up her own images and sense from.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Clark
    This really does come very close to the top of the pile. An essential opus from a truly essential artist.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
    My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky sounds more like the essence of Michael Gira than the Angels Of Light ever did, and ought to also serve as another broadside to the idea of reformations being inherently grubby and uncreative ventures.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hinterland
    While Campbell's music hasn't done a complete U-turn and embraced sonic maximalism, the nine tracks on Hinterland benefit from greater depth, evident on even the sparsest cuts.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Looping State of Mind
    This is Willner's finest record yet, a composition of effortlessly gorgeous, technically fantastic, genuinely awe-inspiring music.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dose Your Dreams
    A record this willing to go the absolute distance to challenge expectations yet entertain and move so consistently should equally be heralded in such high regard [as Screamadelica], which in time, this will.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Hate Music
    Superchunk have made a record that ties experience to the present, instinct to wisdom, youthful vigor to aged knowledge, everything in the world to a passion for music.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hospice
    Hospice is an album of white walls, long desolate passages, and sudden blitzkriegs of high emotional drama – it’s not always comforting, but the players are hyper-attentive to the nuances of each note and lyric.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Don't Want To Let You Down [EP]
    I Don’t Want to Let You Down as a whole serve only to fuel, rather than dent, the anticipation that Are We There rightly stoked.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Sorrow: Reimagining of Gorecki's 3rd Symphony
    Stetson is stepping it up a notch; inexplicably adding drama to the music that is already steeped in powerful emotional sensations.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Tempest
    The coherence of Tempest is the hypnotic key to its charm.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blunderbuss
    This is a hard, dark, inventive record that strongly suggests that give or take an imaginary sister and some fiddles, Jack White is pretty much the same boy we've always known.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Light Upon the Lake
    Pleasant but forgettable-in-the-long term albums are, after all, a dime a dozen. But this does stand out as one of the best.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love
    You know those radio jingles in which they stick a bunch of current tunes into a big-beat mess? This has the same effect – a whizzbang confectionary, serving more to advertise the band’s back catalogue than to be any kind of durable document.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Until the Quiet Comes
    He is, however, a radiant example of an artist with the ability at his fingertips to close the schism between the true avant-garde and the leftfield mainstream, and in this respect Until the Quiet Comes is the record to date we'll most likely crown his masterpiece.
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