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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fundamental
    For every moment of cynical dance pop genius, there's a dull midtempo dirge bereft of decent hooks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Father Creeper
    The compelling collision of a pop sensibility with organic guitar riffs, dystopian digitalism and sharp wordplay plays out like the score to a musical set in 2012 Soweto.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Interstellar
    Ditch the padding and Interstellar could be a flawless EP.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    awE naturalE
    Though the overall groove ("Don't funk with it," they advise on QueenS) is freewheeling enough to avoid being preachy, awE naturalE is implicitly political.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Total Time
    The Toronto trio's idiosyncratic blend of psychedelic rock, techno, industrial, New Age and cosmic folk has solidified into a sound that's unmistakably their own, and that doesn't depend on the theatricality of their live show to work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silencio
    Musically, songs are altogether pleasant, ranging from languid to downright danceable, with undercurrents of the German art pop that influenced much of the 'Lab's sound.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard
    Otherworldly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drifters/Love Is the Devil
    Slowly unfolding ambient pieces still display a gritty, second-hand quality, but that fits the vibe of the record: never-ending travel, where the only constant is loneliness.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tales of Us
    The pair typically alternate between sexed-up dance-pop and psychedelic ambience, but Tales Of Us is their most pared-down effort in the latter category.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Latin
    It's a great album to trance out to, but not as memorable as we'd hoped.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hypercaffium Spazzinate
    No matter how sobering Hypercaffium Spazzinate gets, Descendents keep things light by playing these wistful, grown-ass songs like teenagers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Parallel Play
    The result isn’t quite on a par with their best work, but it’s nothing to scoff at either.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dark Bird Is Home
    Dark Bird Is Home sounds carefully constructed, and Matsson keeps things simple rather than making easy moves toward a grandeur that could bury his songcraft.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Infinity On High
    It requires a certain level of self-denial to hate Fall Out Boy, as in, "No, I don't like huge hooks, soaring choruses or wild-eyed expressions of youthful ambition." If so, congratulations, you're 800 years old. Or a Joanna Newsom fan.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The North Borders
    The music sounds slightly repetitive on its own, so he’s smart to collaborate with vocalists.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Is Your Love Big Enough?
    Essentially, Is Your Love Big Enough? is a restrained, technically proficient showpiece for a gifted artist.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Documentary 2
    Sequels rarely outdo the original, and despite The Game naming Kendrick Lamar his successor years ago, The Documentary 2 and 2.5 prove he's far from over.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us
    Death Vessel have come up with a uniformly bland set of delicate ditties for Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us that are lightly strummed in a way that’s so frightfully fey, it could make José González want to rip Thibodeau’s guitar from his hands and smash it against the wall John Belushi-style.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Minus 5 [The Gun Album]
    The quality of the compositions is consistent and the album has an overall stylistic coherence that makes the Minus Five sound very much like a real band. Now, if he could only figure out how to make it rock, he'd be onto something.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Life Death Love and Freedom
    Those who’ve come to associate him with theme songs to bad car commercials should check his reawakening on this late-career turnaround.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Golem
    It's a trip, a varied one with heavy/light and ugly/beautiful balances in perfect moderation.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hour of the Dawn
    While it would have been more interesting if Goodman had channelled her punk roots more consistently, Hour Of The Dawn is full of the catchy songs she’s known for.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Physical World
    Sebastien Grainger’s vocals show the benefit of spending the last few years touring with quieter bands, and listen closely for the subtle analog synth touches Jesse Keeler’s added behind his trademark wall-of-fuzz-bass sound.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    808s & Heartbreak
    Many will hate it, but those willing to give it a chance will be impressed by the naked humanity West reveals. He’s gone way out on limb, and for that alone it deserves open ears.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rock or Bust
    They certainly keep up appearances on their 15th album, their troubles not for a second interfering with these 11 songs, the longest of which lasts three minutes and 41 seconds.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pay The Devil
    It's obvious Morrison was going for an early-50s throwback vibe, complete with oohing chorus singers and a forthright pedal steel twang, but it comes off more like a western-exotica caricature than the genuine article.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mess
    The album feels less ponderous and more balls-out than its predecessor, but the band hasn’t stitched up its maniacal tendencies into commercial pop either.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Long.Live.A$AP
    A macabre mood keeps it cohesive and lends a cinematic quality, kind of like the A$AP Rocky Horror Picture Show.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Built on Glass
    However varied the influences, there’s one thing the songs have in common: they all make you feel some type of way.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    4 Your Eyez Only
    On Immortal, he tackles paranoia and police brutality in ways that are both heartbreaking and bluntly nihilistic, while Foldin Clothes is a blissful and unapologetic diversion into domesticity ("I never thought I'd see the day I'm drinking almond milk"). Elsewhere, his earnestness comes off as unwieldy in moments that precariously sit on the cusp of sleepy sentimentality.
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