Mixmag's Scores

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For 450 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 77% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 20% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.6 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 79
Highest review score: 100 Xen
Lowest review score: 50 The Mountain Will Fall
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 396 out of 450
  2. Mixed: 54 out of 450
  3. Negative: 0 out of 450
450 music reviews
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    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take Flight
    It’s so absorbing that, by the end of the two-hour odyssey, you’ll be left wondering where the time went. Splendid stuff.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rationale
    While ‘Loving Life’ channels Jermaine Jackson’s ‘Do What You Do’ but takes it to church rather than the charts. 'Fast Lane’, meanwhile, drives straight to the pop pulpit with a chorus Jim Steinman would be proud of.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen
    A brilliant, breathlessly exciting, sunshine-dappled album of melodic, electronic alt-pop.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jessica Rabbit
    Energetic, endearing and still unlike anybody else, Sleigh Bells continue to unapolegtically pummel your senses.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Levitate
    Edited to its very essence, the album is only 36 minutes long, but sometimes that’s all you need.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Taste
    Should I Remain Here At Sea? and Taste stand as proof that "Mastermind, Islands" should be Thorburn's lead credit. [No. 131, p.57]
    • Mixmag
      • Posted Jun 1, 2016
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All That Must Be
    The music is more emotive, the confidence sharper, the production bolder. ... All That Must Be is going to be lodged into key craniums for the rest of 2018.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Other People's Problems
    The results are atmospheric, rough around the edges but captivating, unique and extraordinary.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ex
    It’s an altogether different beast: a gigantic, wondrous thing to get lost in.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Every Now & Then
    The key, though, is that each track will slot effortlessly into their famously hypnotic live shows.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow
    The debut album from mysterious group Babyfather features bucketloads of frontman Dean Blunt’s devilish humour. But like all the best satire, it’s also steeped in grit and realness.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Piano
    It’s just him, a piano and a bunch of songs (some original, some standards), and they feel so raw that listening to them borders on the uncomfortable.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    II
    It drifts from merely being waftily pretty to really elegant to sublime and back with the greatest ease, which can be frustrating--but those sublime moments are enough to make you come back for more.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kinshasa One Two
    Opener 'Halo' finds Albarn at his melancholic best, while 'K-Town' demonstrates a vitality that often seems missing from African music in its WOMAD-friendly guise.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Half of Where You Live
    Set them around rhythmically experimental dance tracks (‘An English House’, ‘Community’) and you have intelligent evolution.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fading Love
    Sometimes it's slick, sometimes it's heartbreaking, but it definitely sounds like it'll suit a festival scenario with lasers on lock... and it's definitely the sound of an artist finding themselves.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jamie Lidell
    While 2010’s Compass--produced by Beck, and festooned with stellar guests--was about electronic folk and scuzzy pop, this new record’s got the funk.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Predicting Machine
    The sound of a master at work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Restless Spheres
    Mixing organic instrumentation, such as the ethereal guitar of ‘Vision Trail’, this album laces its cuddliness with melancholy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Automaton
    ‘Superfresh’ is less than the sum of its disco parts, though, while the less said about ‘Hot Property’ the better. But it picks up with ‘Something About You’ and ‘Summer Girl’, while ‘Carla’ is an electro-funk classic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Electric Lines
    On Electric Lines, the fine moments are bountiful.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home
    Overall, the hybrids hold together: as their No. 1 single ‘Feel The Love’ has shown, this may well be an experiment with the mainstream that pays off big time.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Square One
    The cuíca-driven balearica of ‘K16 del 1’ and avant-disco drive of ‘On U’ are standouts on an album of psychedelic grooves and tribal rhythms that unfurl with shimmering intensity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Keychain Collection
    The Keychain Collection is a sensuous LP of love songs and well engineered instrumentals.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tracer
    Nick Weiss and Logan Takahashi's second coming finds the youngsters exploring a more symphonic sound.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With Love
    The results are like a retrospective charting 25 years of innovation in UK club music.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    99 Cents
    The whole album drips with Caribbean zest, the tropical bounce of 'Can't Get Enough Of Myself' and the pumping 'Rendezvous Girl' balanced by eccentric slowies such as the oddball power ballad 'Run The Races'. There's plenty more too, candied but with class and pop bite.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Parallels
    It eventually drifts into spaced-out blissfulness on the final four tracks, bringing a melodic ear-trip to a close.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alpha
    Trippy instrumental ‘Traanc’ is probably the most quintessential Audion track, while ‘Destroyer’ and ‘Sucker’ scream Circoloco 2016 until their production lungs run out of steam.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pure, Beyond Reproach
    There are no beats, just dynamic peaks and troughs, and the hugely textural and evocative results are unsettling yet absorbing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lady
    It’s sassy, saucy, sexy and attitudinous, and though you’ve heard a lot of it before, Lady hits the spot more often than it misses.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Road, Vol. 1
    Like the sprawling city it celebrates, The Road: Part One is endlessly eclectic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ultra
    This is the record Zomby’s always promised to make, and it’s everything we could have hoped for.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Justus Köhncke & the Wonderful Frequency Band
    Get ready for shimmering, disco-dipped house and digital soul, long German titles and impish unconventionality.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mungodelics
    An album of magic and wonder from the mystical mavericks of Norwegian disco.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Human Energy
    It’s hugely fun and definitely full of Human Energy, ensuring that it’s an album well-named.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Discreet Desires
    It may sound dark, cold, gothic and rough around the edges compared to software-produced music, but these sounds have proved over the decades that they will set your synapses alight with delight.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time Team
    Dive in and experience Slugabed's amazing imagination for yourself.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)
    Most electronic acts, when asked to sound-track a film, dump pop sensibility in favour of atmospherics, but we're happy to report that, as astute players for over a decade, Air have gone the other way: to the moon and back.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Remember
    Bolder and with increased confidence, I Remember sounds more succinct and complete than 2013 debut ‘Body Music’.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wraetlic
    This is a largely dejected and sombre affair that is perhaps only for those of a darker disposition.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Semicircle
    Brighton six-piece The Go Team! imbue Semicircle with the high-octane vibes of a marching band taking on block party jams, Northern Soul and cutesy indie pop. It might sound crazy, but it works beautifully.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silhouette
    Like a warm embrace on an icy morning, the pair’s captivating harmonies come together effortlessly on debut album Silhouette.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Songs
    Mostly it's party music, pure and simple.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Anything In Return
    Soulful, grown-up, dancey synth pop is hard to do well, but Toro Y Moi nails it.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mister Mellow
    Our only gripe is with its brevity--29 minutes is too short.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yoyogi Park
    There are certainly moments of huge elegance and even dancefloor nirvana here, but the rigidity seems to stifle some of the magic in comparison to the album’s predecessor.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Queen of the Wave
    All in all, hugely ambitious enjoyable fun.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Altar
    ‘Love Sick’ is filled with sensual longing and ‘Mind Games’ screams out anger over crashing synths. ‘Trainwreck’, meanwhile, is an instant banger with Banks’ aggressive lyrics structured around trap-infused production. Elsewhere, though, soul-baring ballad ‘Mother Earth’ and stripped-back closer ‘To The Hilt’ are more easily forgotten.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Love's Legal
    With no twee gimmicks, vibrant colour and bold substance are present in spades, resulting in an album that’s nothing short of a masterclass in left-of-centre dance music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pretty Ugly
    It's rare an album creates a world so weird yet so coherent and absorbingly musical, but DVA has done it here; the only reasonable response is to take a deep breath and dive in.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ghostory
    Fun, if a little two-dimensional.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Clay Class
    It can be difficult listening, but stick with Prinz's half-spoken vocals and Horn's snaking basslines, and your reward is an album of raw, rhythmic energy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Future Brown
    As culturally diverse as it all is, it’s the tonal depth of the assembly that creates an engaging synergy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    News from Nowhere
    This album trades in bleakness, but there’s beauty in it.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    DJ-Kicks
    Opener ‘Miami Theme’ sets the tone, Erika Janunger’s voice floating over brooding piano chords, like a Lynchian club scene.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Musique de France
    Whether it’s in the tribal drums, sensual vocals or huge range of instruments, you’re unlikely to hear a more diverse collection of music this year.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Modeselektor Proudly Presents Modeselektion, Vol. 2
    Slightly dark and just a little experimental, this is quality, innovative, of-the-moment dance music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Further Ahead Than Today
    His new LP feels like a return to the resonance of his earlier work.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unpatterns
    Absolutely sterling work, very possibly the most consistent album yet from the duo, and not a star guest in sight.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Value
    If ‘Safe’ was Visionist’s “personal portrait of anxiety”, then ‘Value’ is his awakening.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    II
    Iif you’ve got a predilection for Vampire Weekend’s baroque alt-pop, Tame Impala’s psychedelica or the hazy bombast of M83 you’ll find this a comforting, welcoming destination.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Untogether
    Put intellectual conceits aside and Untogether’s dense, throbbing undercurrent, a soundtrack to some alternative dancefloor, proves alluring.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Woman
    Woman is a really good record and an accomplished, confident body of work, but it may leave those hankering for something with more venom feeling a little impatient.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Glow
    Laced with menace and atomically sonic, this second coming is nothing short of a masterclass in dark craft.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Love
    Hard Love is easy to adore. [No. 139, p.61]
    • Mixmag
      • Posted Feb 14, 2017
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Voyager
    As it is, the high points still make this essential, but shorn of a few tracks, this album would be so much better.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Orbit
    Thankfully, it doesn’t veer too wildly from his solo work, as Man Duo dive into shuddering Krautrock rhythms, slow-burn electro and stoner synth-pop.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Livity
    Zombie Zombie are clearly aiming for the lysergic head as well as the ecstatic feet and the end result is an organic concoction that doesn’t disappoint.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sum/One
    Still puzzling, but for the most part very lovely.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    1983
    It may not be as groundbreaking as Kölsch's debut album, but it still hits all the right notes. Fans will be chuffed to bits with this.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ice on the Dune
    It’s like the best bits of MGMT, The Scissor Sisters and The Sleepy Jackson rolled into one.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Between Places
    A charming, optimistic LP, delivered with a smile.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Confection
    At points it’s utterly lovely--you can’t beat the combination of strings and Tony Allen’s drumming--but at others it’s slightly silly.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black is Beautiful
    Black Is Beautiful is nigh-on indescribable--in a very good way.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No Compass Will Find Home
    A charming, understated record.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They!Live
    An album that is as melancholic as is it banging.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Addison Groove Presents James Grieve
    He’s a soundboy at heart, so you’ll hear bass-propelled elements at play (dewy jungle breaks, grimey synth stabs, low-end bumps, the no-bullshit patter of MC DRS), but ‘Presents James Grieve’ is all about exhilarating propulsion and the power of drums.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Otherness
    If you’re looking for a new album with real depth to play on repeat, with horns, pianos and cowbells to spare, this is it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Truth Is a Beautiful Thing
    The bona-fide future-classic ‘Oh Woman Oh Man’, the soft-focused but laser-guided balladry of ‘Hell To The Liars’ and ‘Rooting For You’, and the title track are as good as anything on their debut--and in ‘Non Believer’, they may well have written their finest song yet.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    3.5 Degrees
    He's hijacked techno, destroyed its propulsion, and created something intriguingly spaced out.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    EVE
    Eve is no ground-breaker, but Booka Shade’s solid reputation remains safe.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rennen
    It’d be nice to hear voice and production crack and cut loose even more--but he’s heading in the right direction.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We the Generation
    We The Generation is full of catchy, radio-friendly earworms tailor-made for maximum impact at their blistering live performances.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Steam Days
    It's certainly more nuanced and wide-ranging. It's all the better for it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Asiatisch
    If you stop trying to hear it as grime, and listen to it as a sci-fi movie of an album, a classy electronica dream journey through a high tech Orient, then that gloss becomes a strength, and it really does stand up on its own.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Season High
    [The first track, "Celebrate" is] a stunning start--and thankfully, the songs that follow are just as strong.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Out of the Black
    [Ridha's] third studio album is a reliable journey into thrashing, powerful and industrial electro and techno.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome to Mikrosector-50
    The tomfoolery may alienate some listeners, but across all genres of music, few concept albums have been crafted with such a level of infectious invention.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Luke Vibert Presents UK Garave, Vol. 1
    All the samples and rhythms here you’ve heard a million times--but somehow, with this weirdness and his sheer panache as a producer, Vibert creates brand new rave dynamite, guaranteed to get dancefloors sweat-soaked and maniacal.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic Hour
    Smoky, slow- paced, disco soul with Bee Gees-style falsetto harmonising, it's the type of grown-up pop Scissor Sisters can pull off like few others.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Artificial Sweeteners
    "If in doubt, smile and dance" is the agenda.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Melt
    They forge a magicalworld of trippy vocal electronica.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sir
    The whole album drips with a palpable sense of lust and intensity.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wait 'Til Night
    It’s another LP from the Londoner exploring sense, sexuality and seduction, picking up where her 2012 debut ‘Playin’ Me’ left off.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Mountain Will Fall
    There are a few tracks (including the two straight-ahead rap tunes and haunting closer ‘Suicide Pact’) where he does actually let the groove unfold naturally, but that just makes even more frustratingly clear how much better the rest of this record could be if only Shadow would just ease off on the tinkering and fidgeting.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breakthrough
    For all its varied elements is all too clearly the expression of the demented but coherent vision of one man. You will find no better way to fry your mind this year.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Two Vines
    There remains something unknowable about them; their presence is always somewhat enigmatic, served only by the gilded sheen of their music which remains ornate but, crucially, as approachable as ever.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    MST
    Atmospheric, intriguing and emotional.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My House From All Angles
    My House From All Angles, comes some 27 years after his first effort. Almost nothing has changed in the interim: it’s all about drum machine, acid riff, repeated vocal, the odd disco loop--job’s a good ‘un. Kids a third of Dunn’s age go mad trying to create retro house, but he does it effortlessly, because it’s all he’s ever needed to do.
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