NOW Magazine's Scores

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For 2,812 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 66
Highest review score: 100 Miss Anthropocene
Lowest review score: 20 Testify
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,287 out of 2812
  2. Mixed: 1,452 out of 2812
  3. Negative: 73 out of 2812
2812 music reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
    Case's overzealous self-production means there are layers upon layers to every track, which sometimes works to her detriment.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Double Up
    Those lyrics may seem slightly ridiculous, but between them and his thinly veiled metaphors for his need to perform cunnilingus (Sweet Tooth), Kelly's originality and talent for making instant club hits is un-fucking-deniable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gliss Riffer
    Energy flows smoothly from frantic sugar-rush highs to subtly beautiful, ambient polyrhythm experiments, and this gradual winding down effectively showcases the full spectrum of his vision. It shouldn't work, but it does.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Waltzed in from the Rumbling
    Every few months, the members would meet up at their studio and play whatever they felt like without the looming pressure of album cycles or release dates. Eventually, these sessions became the basis for Waltzed In From The Rumbling, a record at once thoughtful and unwieldy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bride
    Natasha Khan's fourth Bat for Lashes album is her most mature and cohesive yet.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Flourish // Perish
    Flourish // Perish sounds like an extension of Standell-Preston’s other musical project, Blue Hawaii. In fact, many of the songs could be interchangeable with that project, but this isn’t a fault.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cody
    They’ve become better musicians, better songwriters and better at expressing life’s frustrations without jeopardizing too much of what made them so cherished in the beginning.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales
    Dedicated serves not only as an introduction to a criminally overlooked, pioneering pre-R&R group but also as a reminder of why Cropper remains so well respected.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Name Is My Name
    Plenty of boldface names are assisting here, but with the exception of Kendrick Lamar, who continues his streak of scenery-chewing guest verses on Nosetalgia, they stay out of the way.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mutant
    Whereas Xen had the odd, satisfyingly familiar beat pattern, Mutant is even more punk. It dives headlong into an emotional abyss and proceeds with a rhyme or reason that's up to listeners to determine.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Magnetic Wonder
    He's turned the clock back to the Fun Trick Noisemaker era of playful psychedelic indulgence that was the Apples' stock in trade before the unsavoury aspirations of indie-rock stardom took hold.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Content Nausea
    Altogether, it offers a glimpse of what Parquet Courts could turn into. The future looks promising.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skullsplitter
    When Chenaux alights on something more typically songlike, he sparks both anticipation and memory: an interesting marriage of nostalgia and novelty.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Future Brown
    Sometimes the best music happens when experimentalists indulge their inner pop music fan.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    King Of Jeans
    The sloppy rockers sound frozen in grunge time on their third release, and it works incredibly well for the dipso punks.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Human Energy
    Some Machinedrum fans will find his newfound cheeriness disconcerting, but Stewart approaches the project with so much enthusiasm that it’s hard not to get swept up in the good vibes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Love Deep Web
    Nihilism doesn't even begin to describe the mood created by the skittering electronic drums, uneasy atmospheric noises and MC Ride's manic scream-rapping.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    19
    She’s often at her best alone with an acoustic guitar instead of ornamented with retro R&B references. It’s easy to want to dislike something that the UK press, Perez Hilton and Kanye West are telling you to like, but Adele shows some real talent.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Halcyon Digest
    With every album, Deerhunter strip away more layers of textural ambience and reveal what some fans knew all along: that they're a pop band.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pilot Talk II
    Sometimes a sequel can out do the original. That's the case with Curren$y's follow-up to Pilot Talk, thanks largely to stepped-up production by Ski Beatz, whose beats sound like a minute hasn't passed since he worked on Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Monitor
    Even naysayers can't overlook their second album's intelligence, uniqueness and ambition.
    • NOW Magazine
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vibes!
    Vibes! is a disco-dappled, funk-fuelled electro-pop record. Each successive track brings a new and increasingly surprising 80s or 90s influence.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Stand-In
    Most of the tracks could be singles, successfully marrying a pop sensibility to country twang without sacrificing the best aspects of either approach.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ti Amo
    Ti Amo feels like the kind of escapism Phoenix and their compatriots could use right about now. And the fact that it’s the most summery music they’ve ever made is like a big, red cherry on top.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ultramarine
    The lyrics are earnest as all hell, but only once--on Hard To Tell--borderline twee.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    These Days...
    Ab-Soul is still the third man up in the stacked TDE crew (behind Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q), but this album establishes him as the group’s most reliable Swiss Army knife: deft in a wide variety of sonic and thematic situations.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Michael
    It’s a remarkably consistent dance album in a singles-based genre that usually fails when it comes to full-lengths.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    La Radiolina
    On La Radiolina, an unmistakable molotov cocktail of fierce resistance anthems, Manu Chao continues to do what he does best.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Alchemy Index Vols. I and II: Fire and Water
    Their clear evolution in terms of talent and ability is more than evident on songs like Firebreather and The Whaler. Between that and some pretty sweet packaging and liner notes, this is likely their best to date.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    You can sense that she's still a bit uncomfortable flirting with pop music, and hides the most accessible and melodic songs in the second half of the album. Then again, if you can't deal with a few dissonant free jazz horn explosions, you probably weren't going to pick up this record anyway.
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