New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

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For 6,299 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Lowest review score: 0 Maroon
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,466 out of 6299
  2. Mixed: 1,680 out of 6299
  3. Negative: 153 out of 6299
6299 music reviews
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    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Smoke & Mirrors
    For the most part it's clear that the New Zealanders have lost what sense of direction or purpose they had left. [7 Oct 2006, p.39]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Superwolf
    Full of sombre, skeletal and obliquely confessional songs, it's a crafted collection with ruminations on sex and loss. [5 Feb 2005, p.50]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Artificial Sweeteners
    Their attempts to assimilate their record collections often fall between two stools--unlikely to do the business on a dancefloor or spirit you away at home through the power of its sequencing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    V
    The result is not just unimaginative and lyrically anodyne--it’s boring.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Those The Brokes
    There are four or five genuinely decent songs on here - but ultimately, as a whole it just feels a little too worthy, a little too overwrought, and a little too formulaic to be worth the 64 minutes and 32 seconds of your life.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    This Is...
    Good moments include the drama-packed ‘Just Another Night’ and the fun pop of ‘On A Roll’, but neither resembles the formulaic trash cluttering the rest of the record.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Ascent
    Only the LP’s soaring ‘Intro’ hints at greatness, and despite the raw talent on display, the dose is diluted and the sum total falls short.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pacifica
    It’s not awful, just bland, and lacks the bite that electro-pop records need to be lifted out of the purgatory that is mediocrity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Within and Without
    Within And Without hangs oppressively, saved only by fleeting moments of clarity like the title track's stabbing outro, or the jump-rope glitter that opens 'Before'.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Feedback
    Ho-hum. [22 Jul 2006, p.39]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel
    The album itself reveals she’s also got a penchant for exhuming the sickly-sweet memory of Minnie Riperton’s ‘Loving You’ and setting it to 17 different slow jamz drenched in studio gloss.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dumb Luck
    'Dumb Luck' will numb the pain for an hour, but you'll be buggered if you can remember anything about it afterwards.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ashes Grammar
    Not quite Animal Collective or Stereolab, but at times sounding like an Ibiza chill-out album, there are hot flushes of brilliance here but they are few and far between.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Piramida
    Destined for the 'obscure, kinda interesting' slot come end-of-year list time.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Devil You Know
    They do their best to distance themselves from Actual Sabbath, but too often it’s by slouching through their Satanic netherworld, Dio’s cabaret bludgeoned down by lurching riffs and over-egged orchestration.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Asiatisch
    Asiatisch, however, is even more pretentious [than two previous EPs], pairing instrumental UK grime with Asian flourishes to explore the relationship between the west and China.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Hyperactive Workout For The Flying Squad
    Sound[s] pretty much the same as they did a decade ago. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]
    • New Musical Express (NME)
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Why Bother?
    Unless you're a fan, the title says it all.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In Light
    While their love of premeditated spontaneity might be admirable in jazzier quarters, in reality it means that almost every song on their debut is marred by sudden changes in time signature, key and genre.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Quixotic
    'Quixotic' is doomed to be a record that has dinner parties nodding in mute agreement at its quality. Albeit half a decade ago.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White Pepper
    It's frustrating to see them pissing around like South Park's Matt and Trey, when they can produce something as genuinely affecting and pure pop as 'Stay Forever'.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    TV en Français
    Despite the presence of ex-Razorlight man Andy Burrows on drums and extra songwriting oomph, their latest offering feels like another exercise in anonymity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fever
    Yet it’s also a record that’s in denial of things like the atomic bomb, IBM, the internet and the fucking millennium. And that really is the true spirit of nihilism, no matter how well you dress it up in your parents’ rags.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
    Musically, Madness still trade in pub singalongs powered by ska rhythms and music-hall jollity--but the jollity feels forced, and Suggs’ tired vocals suggest a man going through the motions.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Harmonium
    Admirable, if not necessarily lovable.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Jet Black
    It all just cries out for a little more oomph.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Voyager
    Ultimately, the pop sheen Adams applies on The Voyager is at odds with Lewis' songs. By always opting for directness, he's failed to let her do justice, musically, to the darkness of her inspiration.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    King For A Day
    It's guiltily satisfying in a bearded, nodding sort of way, but there's little to grab on to in such an ironic hall of mirrors.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Pinkprint
    After 64 minutes of the same, it all starts to feel like a bit of a grind.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dancer Equired
    Where the first four records (and particularly the Matador releases) sounded like a band fighting for their lives – or at least pretty keen to make you listen – this is the sound of a band struggling to muster the energy to go on.
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