New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

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For 6,298 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: 4,465 out of 6298
  2. Mixed: 1,680 out of 6298
  3. Negative: 153 out of 6298
6298 music reviews
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    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Wait Til I Get Over
    It’s a record that’ll please newcomers and existing fans alike, but, given the backstory and heart poured into ‘Wait Til I Get Over’, the record existing for Jones feels like a triumph. Whether or not he brings these sounds or elements back to the group is yet to be seen, but this record will shake the walls of Hillaryville and beyond.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Brat and it's completely different but also still brat
    In some ways, ‘Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat’ is a home run for its creator, letting her finish the game on her own terms. She has perfected the art of remixing, keeping the songs moving by giving them a brand new lease of life rather than letting them exist statically in their original form.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Dreamstate
    A complete and resounding success, ‘Dreamstate’ offers one of the most emotionally engrossing collections of electronic music you’ll hear this year.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Never Enough
    The album constantly reaches out to the pop world: exploring how hardcore might form the basis for something technicolour, playful and accessible. That attitude towards the genre, as capable of mass appeal and ripe for experimentation, is what powers this excellent album.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    caroline 2
    ‘Caroline 2’ marks a fully fleshed-out blueprint for a Caroline 2.0: a well-refined octet pushing musical boundaries in their most dazzling release to date.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Need to Feel Your Love
    Energy, desire and that indefinable cool that any great rock band must have burst from every angle. This album feels like a celebration, and Sheer Mag sure deserve one.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Savage Mode II
    As a whole, the album is confirmation of two young artists at the top of their game, watching the landscape unfold from the throne they earned themselves four years ago.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ordinary Man
    For someone who helped to invent modern metal, he’s held a stunning number of surprises up his cloak sleeve (see: a wildly successful solo career and genre-defining reality TV show). This rollicking album is yet another.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Letter to Self
    This is a dynamic album that is reflective of the muddled world we find ourselves in – delivered with a fortifying sense of honesty from an essential emerging band.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Every Bad
    Porridge Radio nail some of music’s hardest tricks – breathing fresh life into indie and making a record that can loosely be compared to other bands in fragments, but also feels entirely their own. ‘Every Bad’ is a breathtaking step up from their bedroom-recorded 2016 debut, ‘Rice, Pasta And Other Fillers.’
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bright Green Field
    ‘On Bright Green Field’, in all of its weird, frantic and fantastic glory, they’ve gone above and beyond.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Happier than Ever
    ‘Happier Than Ever’ fully establishes Billie Eilish as one of her generation’s most significant pop artists – and, better still, does so without repeating a single trick from the debut that turned her life upside down.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Collapsed in Sunbeams
    Parks has a singular talent for tapping into sadness and turning it into something uplifting. ... Arlo Parks may be the voice of Gen Z, but there’s no doubt that this is a universal collection of stories that’ll provide solace for listeners of all ages and backgrounds for decades to come.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Carving The Stone
    His clear-eyed spoken-word and stylish beatmaking, both sharpened since his 2021 eponymous debut, combine for a brutal, complex study of his city. The key to the album’s brilliance is Balfe’s darting between small, succinct portraits, from barflies to beatings.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
    It’s one of the deepest cuts we’ve had from Kendrick. While ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’ showed the world what it’s like to grow up as a kid in Compton, his fifth album serves up vignettes about what it’s like to be a Black adult whose trauma still haunts them.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Love You To Death
    An album packed with shimmering highlights.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hold the Girl
    Genres may come and go, but Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs. The best British pop album of the year.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Skeleton Tree
    No other record released this year will provoke such conflicting emotions in you. Skeleton Tree is both beautiful and harrowing, hard to listen to but even harder to look away from.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Norman Fucking Rockwell!
    Lana Del Rey is large – she contains multitudes, and the way she balances and embodies them on her fifth album is nothing short of stunning.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Supernova
    Rightly championed as a vital new voice in the world of rock, Nova Twins haven’t let any of that pressure get in the way of creating a flamboyant, fantastic second album that’s as playful as it is powerful.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Psychodrama
    In exploring himself on Psychodrama, Dave has produced a masterpiece. This 20-year-old has lost in some ways and won in others, and asks us to listen as he tries to find some answers. The lessons you learn with Dave are sure to live long in the memory.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    First Two Pages of Frankenstein
    This is The National back from their brink and at their absolute best.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Chloe and the Next 20th Century
    Besides its flirtations with big band-style instrumentals, ‘Chloë and the Next 20th Century’ serves as a gorgeously crafted highlight reel of the singer’s many previous styles and guises, rather than a complete reinvention.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Carnage
    ‘Carnage’ is arguably Cave and Ellis’ best record since The Bad Seeds’ latter day reinvention on 2013’s ‘Push The Sky Away’, or maybe even ‘Abattoir Blues’. It’s certainly two master craftsmen at the peak of their melodramatic powers.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Big Fish Theory
    Whatever this is, it’s jaw-dropping.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    AM
    Arctic Monkeys’ fifth record is absolutely and unarguably the most incredible album of their career. It might also be the greatest record of the last decade.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Yesterday Is Heavy
    ‘Yesterday Is Heavy’ is a bold and inventive step forward from an artist who has been threatening to make this kind of artistic statement for some time.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Skinty Fia
    The fight for a better Ireland deserves songs that mirror the depth of the crisis, and in its endlessly captivating glory, ‘Skinty Fia’ rises triumphantly to the task.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    A Comforting Notion [EP]
    ‘A Comforting Notion’ feels urgent and important, brimming with all the promise of the next great cult act.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Take Me Back to Eden
    It’s an ambitious, emotional monolith of a record, with all the hallmarks of future classic status.
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