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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Out of It and Into It
    As it turns out, the defining feature of Out Of It... is this lack of a subtle affliction or blockbuster cataclysm with which to gel these 11 tracks together. Dig deep enough and you'll find a sketch of significance, a glimmer of greater worth but it's too ill-formed to really make out meaningfully.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    James Blake
    Boldness, you realise, is not the same thing as greatness, and James Blake is not a great album. It has great moments, some of which hint at possible directions after the dust has settled around this release.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Moonfire
    Boy & Bear sound more like a personality-free replica of a radio-friendly sub-genre of the folk tradition, and fall way short of convincing us that they're the real deal.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs
    There appears to be no point or cohesive structure to it whatsoever.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Messenger
    The result is a collection of workmanlike indie-rock songs that fall some way short of being a good album and a long, long way from being the work of a Godlike Genius.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Drogas Light
    Quite the mess all told.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
    On this record, Yellowcard cover all the same territory as those latter bands, with vague stories of broken friendships, frustrated romances and perfect summers that they'll never get back. Because… you know… growing up, like… sucks. The lack of detail is the problem here.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Man of the Woods
    Man of the Woods is not an outright disaster but it is a significant disappointment--a record too preoccupied with image, volte face and forced “REAL” to fully engage as a coherent piece of craftsmanship.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Manhattan
    It is churlish to dismiss a band after one record, however: there is potential here for so much more. This record, however, is the most irritating one you will have heard in a while.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
    Foo Fighters are now flabby, creaky, and worst of all past it.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    TheFutureEmbrace
    It sounds like Corgan wanted to make a classic eighties 4AD-style shoegazing record, but instead of offering us something swirling and beautiful, we end up with an experience that is simply flat and grey.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Not Real
    Too much of Not Real is nondescript and dull.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Death to False Metal
    There's no doubt Rivers is capable of astonishing creative output, supposedly at one time writing 384 songs in the space of three years. But, just because you can write a song every other day it doesn't mean that each one is worthy of being unleashed on the public.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Send Away The Tigers
    Send Away The Tigers is the bloated swansong from a band that should have called it quits three albums ago.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A Perfect Contradiction
    It’s an album that provides a taste of something familiar, yet somehow flavourless.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    25
    Adele’s repetition is anchored further by some of the least dynamic work of her career. There’s nothing here to rival the playful malice of ‘Rumour Has It’ or the instant hit of ‘Rolling In The Deep’.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    This Machine Kills Artists
    What we’re left with is an 8/10 EP stretched way past the point of interest, five or six songs in you start knocking half a mark off with every fresh coat of same-old. A worthy idea, but one you’ll rarely reach for twice.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Concrete and Gold
    In the end, it’s the lack of direction that’s fatal for Concrete and Gold; at least the last three records, scored through with problems as they were, had a sense of what was driving them, even if it was something as superficial as Sonic Highways’ city-hopping.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pushing The Senses
    I have to accept that the band I once loved is now nothing more than a distant memory. Songs such as 'Tangerine' and 'Crash' have long been replaced by the new sound which owes much more to Keane and Coldplay in their melancholic approach.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Walls
    You really can’t get het up one way or another about a song like ‘Waste a Moment’, which might as well be called ‘Lead Single’, nor can you muster up anything other than a yawn as ‘Conversation Piece’ stretches out like a cat in front of a fire on a cold winter night.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    We Can't Fly
    Along with the deliciously slick 'My Enemy' and recent single 'We Can't Fly' they serve as an exasperating reminder of just how good this album might have been. Instead these tracks merely serve as Aeroplane's black-box, sole survivors pulled from the flaming wreckage.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    United Nations of Sound
    Ultimately, despite some innovation, United Nations of Sound cannot transcend the presence of its architect, who renders half the tracks fundamentally unlistenable with his horrible attempts to play gospel preacher or loverman.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pinned
    The imposed restrictions are evident on this album and the effort to overcome them more so. The result is that tracks like 'Execution' and 'Frustrated Operator' sound amateurish, even awkward, in their extreme simplicity with nothing to mask the mundanity of their composition.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All Delighted People EP
    He's capable of weaving such a compelling mix of avant garde, classical and pop music, but this time the artist's self-indulgence has got the better of him.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Enjoy the Company
    As such, this is largely Southern Rock-lite: it is not brash or brazen--it is uninteresting and tedious.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    New Moon
    With some clear-minded editing, a workable pair of EPs could have been forged from New Moon. As it is, the cumulative effect of lumping so many competing ideas together is a mess. A frustratingly muddled mess.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Origin: Orphan
    The result is an awkward balance of personal exploration which they refuse to commit to, and a relentless chirpiness which is becoming increasingly unnatural.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Encyclopedia
    The Drums have had some personnel changes and are possibly re-finding their feet here, but Encyclopedia sees them badly tangled.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Songs for the Ravens
    With greater vision Sea of Bees may one day become a more substantial proposition, but for now Julie Ann Baenziger's solo project barely papers over the cracks.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Caracal
    The Lawrence bros do pull some new tricks on Caracal. But the album marks the end of Disclosure as a band, and the beginning of Disclosure as a hit-dispensing enterprise that manufactures durable, no-stain, easy-to-clean products to please every audience.
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