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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White Wilderness
    White Wilderness feels like a record that could have become a compelling collection of wonky strum-along pop songs with imaginative and colourful instrumentation, but ultimately it's indebted to an over-complication of ideas in a collaboration that struggles to flourish the way it should do on paper.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Search of Elusive Little Comets
    Little Comets have some energetic hooks and straight-to-the-point post-punk choruses that would make many of the resident bands in their native North East proud. There just isn't quite enough to get carried away about.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Love
    This is an engaging, rewarding listen that promises great things in the future from our four heroes.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Golden Age of Knowhere
    The album is largely stuck analysing lost feelings and past regrets, when it would have been much more entertaining if it focussed on living for the moment.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Computers & Blues
    Computers and Blues, ultimately, just passes the test with a studious recount. It is neither atrociously bad nor staggeringly good: no stand-outs, no teeth-clenching clunkers. It is just okay.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dynamite Steps
    As a collection of songs and sentiments there is a nagging sense that Dulli is revisiting old haunts. Yet it feels reassuring, as Dynamite Steps continues the resurgent course he's been treading in recent years.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    What Doesn't Kill You, Eventually Kills You
    Really guys? Next time, try a bit harder.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jonny
    If gentle psych-pop is very, very much your thing, you may fare better with Jonny, but otherwise the overriding impression the album will leave you with is that it would have made a really strong EP with some judicious pruning.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
    Whether this is a better record than previous Mogwai releases is hard to say categorically, but it is certainly bolder and braver than what came before it. Yet equally, it is the same trademark moves and subtleties that will make and just as rewarding of repeated listens as its predecessors. Mogwai have released another jumper, but not quite like we know it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Songs
    Ultimately, it's an enjoyable record, but one that's more likely to point you in the direction of their original influences than achieve notability in its own right.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In the Cool of the Day
    For all the nostalgia and bland meanderings it is worth visiting this record for the closing tracks alone--but you might not want to come back too often.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Talk About Body
    Talk About Body is so ridiculously accessible musically, that audiences dancing along to MEN's absurdly addictive pop songs are likely to be blindsided if they ever listen carefully to the lyrics.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Big Roar
    As a complete body of work, the album stumbles in very few places.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Guider
    Guider is an intriguing, viscerally stirring study in contemporary post-punk that holds attention like a fox in a headlight beam.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier
    It feels like there are more synthetic things of interest here. There are significantly less organic things--lyrics, sentiments, meaning--that will keep you coming back.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Let England Shake
    It is a record marked by a weary wonder at the departure of something huge from the world – Victorian invention and enterprise, the ages of steam and discovery, the impossible cruelty of empire, all fading into a half-remembered dream.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Anna Calvi
    What Calvi's debut is a mixture of sprawling guitars that teeter somewhere between Tortoise's mathy noodlings, Deerhunter's brownish hue, Hendrix's fade outs and Howling Bells' shimmering grunge-gaze.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Zeroes QC
    Suuns don't need to be a Queens of the Stone Age, but they have the potential to do more than just throw a cool clutch of songs together.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Broken Dreams Club
    It's a scatterbrainedness that makes Girls endearing and frustrating at the same time, and it's pertinent to remember that Elvis Costello often sang about more than just girls. Still, it's hard to begrudge a band their niche when they do it so well.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hotel Shampoo
    From start to finish, the melodies are sweeter than sugar, the music bright and sparkling, with Rhys' charming falsetto resting on top.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Violet Cries
    Whichever road they happen to tread next, it'll be worthwhile following in their footsteps.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Golden Worry
    As a body of work, Golden Worry is a fine representation of Thank You mk. II that allays any fears their fanbase may have had about the band seeking more commercial pastures with their new drummer.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kudos
    Kudos doesn't so much follow on from the ragged density of songs like 'Mt. Kill' and 'Dickshakers Union' off their debut EP, but actually illustrates a band who've developed both a sound and identity all of their own in the process
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zonoscope
    Sure, there are those who might be after an In Ghost Colours part two who might be alienated by this album's evident ambition, but for most of us, this is going to be a serious upping of the game.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Seefeel
    Despite this not quite equalling the dizzy heights of their earliest recordings, there's an adventurous slake in its dysfunctional make-up to suggest this won't be the last time we hear from its evasive creators.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics
    As an entity it's perhaps best seen as the siesta to Landscapes' nocturnal astral tryst – lighter and less intensely psychedelic, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deerhoof Vs. Evil
    If familiarity breeds contempt, regularity breeds complacency, and Deerhoof's prodigiously consistent output should not overshadow how precious they are.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cloud Nothings
    It may not be a timeless classic - much like a lot of his immediately great yet throwaway peers - but for all Baldi's youthful exuberance, he's proven himself an honest and remarkably mature set of hands.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Train to Paris
    While the context may be different, Last Train to Paris suggests that, despite all the reality show-making, fashion designing, acting, inexplicable-name-changing, vodka-promoting, dressed-in-all-white-partying, skeet-shooting-with-Kevin-Spacey (probably) and all the other activities that make up a day in the life of Diddy, it's likely that he really does, and it shows.
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