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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ape In Pink Marble
    Ape In Pink Marble may not quite measure up in quality to Mala, but it is definitely a fruitful album by one of the most respected musicians in the business.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1-800 Dinosaur Presents Trim
    The real power of this album is not only the showcasing 1-800’s collective musical prowess and their ability to mix and merge genres and style effortlessly to create music that sounds like nothing that has been released commercially in recent month, but of Trim’s vocals. Throughout the album he is the glue that holds everything together.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If You See Me, Say Yes
    An endearing, very likeable record indeed, and a confident first entry under the Flock of Dimes handle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Head Carrier
    While Head Carrier may right some of the wrongs of Indie Cindy, it still remains a distinctly average affair from a band once considered the best band on the planet. Too often this sounds like a younger band's best impression of Pixies, or worse, a parody of themselves.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Big Mess
    Big Mess is hardly much more than ten stabs at reclaiming a relevancy that was only marginally theirs to begin with.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Corpse Wired for Sound
    The band have retreated back to their pre-4AD line-up and reined in the overtly pop instincts of After the End, instead content to needle at a single idea in the hope of coaxing something memorable.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heads Up
    Warpaint are nothing if not ambitious, which is doubly proved on Heads Up.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chapter and Verse
    To give The Boss his due credit, the progress leading up to his debut album could not be better fleshed out.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Had a Dream That You Were Mine
    The one-man band that is Rostam Batmanglij enjoys co-billing status here as the pair deliver a follow-up that goes bigger and better in the way that a worthy sequel should.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mount Ninji and Da Nice Time Kid
    The album, while inevitably stuffed with humour as per the MO of any good rap set, is as dark as coffee, especially as it comes to its close.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Live at the Hollywood Bowl
    What Live At The Hollywood Bowl, and its parent movie, shows us is their primal power. The sound and the fury (not to mention the banter) that conjured a roar unheard since, both on and off the stage.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Sun's Tirade
    The Sun's Tirade is a good hip-hop album, especially for a chill summer's day.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Stage Four
    Stage Four is quite possibly Touché Amoré’s best album yet. They have once again one–upped themselves into crafting a fierce record which would do all their families proud.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pretty Years
    Despite a noble resume, no other album comes closer to capturing the true essence of their onstage presence.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Songs from the Pale Eclipse
    Distinctive in style and sound, particularly Hecksher's drawling vocal and JC Rees expedient guitar surges, it's a record that pulls no punches in execution or delivery while conveying some of the most heartfelt lyrics Hecksher has ever penned.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    KoKoro
    Kokoro is a small but significant treasure that is full of compassion, and the so-called ‘selfie’ generation would do well to pay heed to it.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Complete BBC Sessions [Remastered]
    The improvement in sound quality on the re-release is remarkable; the songs, incredibly, sound even meatier and more imposing now. ... The nine 'new' songs, which comprise disc three, do feel a bit like fan service for those who were upset 19 years ago at the absence of the ‘Sunshine Woman’ sessions.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Skeleton Tree
    Whatever one makes of the songs presented here, at least we should all be able to agree that another addition to Cave’s legendary, beyond comparison catalogue is in itself enough of a reason to feel very satisfied.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    AIM
    There are only fleeting glimpses of brilliance on a long-player littered with ideas that never seemed to get past the kernel stage.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shape Shift with Me
    Here, Laura Jane Grace is emerging from her shell, grasping her icon status with both hands and speaking up for what she sees as a largely invisible, voiceless group of underdogs. And it doesn't get much more punk rock than that.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    High Anxiety
    The tracks' durations are, to these ears, not wisely distributed and this is possibly the album's biggest drawback.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Preoccupations
    The band transcend their obvious influences: the recording is far heavier and denser than anything they're referencing, the songs more abstract and feral, the vocals surging with an unknowable American passion that sets them apart from their Brit influence.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Acoustic Recordings 1998-2016
    The songs are little self-contained vignettes about various characters and their journeys, resembling campfire or drinking songs. Some are really bland and instantly forgettable, others--really poetic and imaginative.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sunlit Youth
    For all the globe-trotting that went into the album, this is a band that--perhaps more than any other at the moment--innately sound like and capture their Californian home in all its beautiful complexity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Splendor & Misery
    The problem with clipping. is that they sometimes seem to have an unusual idea of what makes good hip-hop. Sometimes it feels like the purely hip-hop side-project of a dodgy rap-metal group circa 2003.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Same Language, Different Worlds
    The resulting work, and meeting of two minds who admire and compliment each others creativity, is something of rare, imaginative depth.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Weird Exits
    It’s probably not the album in the band’s considerable catalogue that’s going to convert the unconvinced--it’s a bit too uneven to be considered for that position--but, for the first time in a while, Thee Oh Sees have their eyes fixed firmly on new ground.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here
    It may eschew the rough edges of their earlier records, and adhere to the templates the Fannies have used since Songs, but when you’ve got the formula just right, and have the songwriting chops of three of the finest melodic songwriters these isles have to offer, then the result cannot be anything less than sheer joy in the here and now.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Astronaut Meets Appleman
    There is an effortless vibe to Astronaut Meets Appleman can only be gained from a career doing your own thing and not caring about chat places and record advances. Anderson appears to be happy in his skin and has crafted nine songs that reference his past, but also hint to his future.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Schmilco
    [Nels Cline's] noodling is nice and all, but it’s akin to casting Jason Statham in an ITV period drama. Worse still is the treatment of Mike Jorgensen, who has such an instantly recognisable sound on the keyboard; I genuinely don’t know if he is even on this record. Some nice fluttery percussion on ‘Quarters’ aside, the brilliant Glenn Kotche barely is.
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