New Musical Express (NME)'s Scores

  • Music
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:
6298 music reviews
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The impressive ‘3.15.20’ [is] well worth the wait.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interspersed throughout are dark, ambient instrumentals ‘Machine Room’, ‘Aluminum’, ‘Waiting Room’ and ‘Voltage’. This adds an extra layer of claustrophobia and menace, but also feels like the band are padding out a very good eight-track album into 12 songs. Still that’s a minor quibble – as ‘Container’ is a masterful statement of intent destined straight for the top of your lock-down dance party playlist.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘After Hours’ stands as The Weeknd’s strongest record in some time.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Extremely moody yet highly groovy sixth album.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ‘A Written Testimony’ is a 39-minute, 10-track project that offers all the usual Jay Electronica tropes: complex rhyming patterns, double and triple entendre, lyrics across various languages laid over psychedelic production with minimal drums. Electronica excels on a technical level throughout. Yet, while this is the most anyone has heard from him musically in over a decade, there’s a sense of reticence throughout the LP.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You get the overarching sense that they are more than a little bored with the current musical landscape and want to inject it with their own restless brand of creativity. If this is art rock, then the Shears brothers have crafted a pretty damn impressive collage.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This effort is a bold step that shows no compromise on the horizon.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Few giant leaps nail the perfect landing, and Morrissey’s two-footer into full-blown electronica stumbles occasionally. But there’s also plenty of reason to hold your political nose and cross the Twittermob line.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is their most convincing and compelling work to date. Amid all the experimentation of this excellent album, The Districts have hit a new, complex and compelling stride.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s a contemplative, conflicted look at modern life and feels relevant in a breathless, always-on society. ‘Sad/Happy’ is bittersweet more than anything – which feels like the truest emotion for this album, one that successfully communicates the modern maelstrom of everyday pain and joy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You never know quite what’s about to happen, but no matter which sonic mask the band slip on, they sound terrifyingly comfortable wearing it. This unpredictability is what makes Code Orange and ‘Underneath’ such a thrilling listen.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ‘Heartbreak Weather’ pads its way through every different phase of relationship-based grief, inevitably letting some moments of catharsis feel more impactful than others. It isn’t an entirely lost cause, but one to build upon for a more inspiring future all the same.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Again, he has made another record that will stay close to the hearts of a generation of rap fans. He is surely our generation’s Lil Wayne.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    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.’
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are moments of brilliance on both records. ... Thematically, ‘Everything Sucks’ and ‘Everything is Beautiful’ fail to deliver anything new.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are moments of brilliance on both records. ... Thematically, ‘Everything Sucks’ and ‘Everything is Beautiful’ fail to deliver anything new.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In some ways ‘Traditional Tools’ is a welcome return to form, but the album isn’t nearly as innovative or as introspective as it makes itself out to be.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The high-tempo, energetic sounds throughout match Ahmed’s razor-sharp lyrics and fast-paced rhymes. The use of South Asian instrumentation – especially the Qawwali harmonies – grounds the production. It takes an unconventional approach, but the ‘The Long Goodbye’ manages to distill complex topics with fervour.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spans a whopping 21 tracks – a length even the world’s greatest artists would struggle to fill without sneaking some sub-par songs in. Which means that lo-fi ballad ‘Julia’ is a little cloying, while the acoustic finger-picking of ‘For Now’ and jazzy guitar strums of ‘Sweatpants’ don’t quite live up to the high standard set elsewhere on the record.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cornershop’s cult is one you’ve either already signed over your seventh-born to or will watch pass you by with a fascinated bemusement.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Despite being a record of two halves, ‘My Turn’ is an enjoyable collection of tracks for his loyal fans. He would do well, though, to stay away from the whiny sounds and rap with a little bit more clarity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Had the stronger songs been contained to an EP it could well have rivalled the extraordinary consistency and thrill of its predecessor – but frustratingly, it falls short.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Conceptually, ‘La Vita Nuova’ is an astonishing feat – but even better than that, it also oozes an intensity of feeling that punches right in the gut.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bentham may have struggled writing this album, but the results exude confidence and ambition. Whilst it draws heavily on the slacker sounds of the 1990’s, Bentham brings the genre firmly into 2020 with her fresh take on what it’s like to create in a time where inspiration can be hard to find.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The more experimental and unsettling elements will reward longtime stans, while recent converts will be just as thrilled with its party-starting exuberance. What’s universally clear, however, is that 20 years into his career, Snaith has found the perfect balance between intimate songwriting and extroverted sonic decisions.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As explorations of pain go, ‘Color Theory’ is as beautiful as it is brave.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ‘The Main Thing’ experiments well without alienating die hard fans expecting more of the same. It’s a more mature and ambitious record; the sound of a band finally out of a rut.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Royce’s 2018 album ‘Book of Ryan’ was always going to be a tough act to follow, but ‘The Allegory’ stands up as an accomplished body of work, packed full of poetic intricacies and life lessons, soundtracked by the sound of Detroit; it will likely end up on the majority of 2020 end-of-year rap lists.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    An album full of big ideas, strong conviction and unguarded emotion, it’s more than worth the wait.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    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.