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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    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jay II
    The tongue-in-cheekness can create a distance that prevents the songs from hitting hard and/or stirring up your feelings. But you can still sit back and appreciate Arner's songwriting craft, knack for memorable hooks, the intelligent places his songs go to, his and Delisle's harmonic chops and the lo-fi production aesthetic that speaks to a talent for doing a lot with a little.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wild Cat
    If you can deal with the frequent ridiculousness of the songs, Wild Cat is a fun listen. The production is raw enough to approximate their live sound, and more than a few choruses will get stuck in your head. If you’re looking for much more than that, you’re listening to the wrong band.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stars Of CCTV
    These guys are passionate about what they're doing.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rare Chandeliers [Mixtape]
    Rare Chandeliers is both soft-lensed yacht rap and roughneck hip-hop that's as New York as pastrami and Waldorf salads.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blak and Blu
    By trying to please all demographics here, Clark gives little sense of who he is.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Tight Knit
    Vetiver’s 2006 To Find Me Gone found that nice place for campfire listening, but tracks like Everyday and More Of This sound more like background tunes released for the purpose of selling a digital camera or a cellphone with really good reception.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Back
    There are no big hooks, no clear single. Just a boozy-and-woozy late-night vibe that’s pretty damn satisfying.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Junior
    Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge move away from millennium trance tracks like '49 Percent' from 2005’s "The Understanding," and that’s a good move.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Trouble
    Papini’s vocals seem scaled back, too--there’s less energetic chattiness and more silent resignation.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Voices
    Occasionally, the band comes close to falling back into old habits, but with their new enthusiasm for sounding nothing like they used to, they've successfully created an album's worth of intelligent music for the Warped crowd.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Neon Limelight
    Houndmouth resurrect a blistering, off-its-hinges breed of Americana complete with tangible wild heart and soul.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    OST
    Danny Elfman’s Notorious Theme feels stranded between two worlds, while the Legacy remix of 'One More Chance' is a perplexing and disturbing Pro Tools-era creation in which Biggie’s 12-year-old son rhymes back and forth with his father, lewd lyrics and all.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Far
    Every song on this--her fifth--album sparkles with intelligence.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ultraviolence
    Dan Auerbach’s production helps shape that drama, but he’s accurately interpreting her vision rather than directing Del Rey, who suddenly seems completely in control of her brand.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Let's Go Eat the Factory
    While it fails to match their previous hit quotient, it's still a decent listen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dancing With Daggers
    Aside from a couple tracks with standout hooks (Wild Gardens, The Better Plan), their songs are forgettable.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kathryn Calder
    Fun, easy listen? Not so much. But Calder's vocals are too cheerfully bright and the sounds too pleasant for things ever to become a downer.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mr. Beast
    A beautifully tense and thoughtful record.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eagulls
    Singer/lyricist George Mitchell sings clean and fairly melodically, but with convincing disaffection.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Collider
    Often he's trying too hard to be cool, and it's unconvincing. When it does work, the band sounds surprisingly like Broken Social Scene, but with more cowbell.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High Noon
    The songs just have a bit more sonic depth and shine, and the new orchestral embellishments are so unobtrusive you barely notice them.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dillatronic
    You find yourself wishing for even one bonus track reuniting some of J Dilla's alumni artists over an unreleased beat.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    False Priest
    Like most eccentric geniuses, Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes is as frustrating as he is brilliant.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    War Child Presents Heroes
    Overall, the impression is of an assembly-line product manufactured on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Piramida
    By finding the beauty in isolation, Efterklang have made their most triumphant record yet.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hypnophobia
    Lush, focused and well wrought in a way that channels the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow as much as Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup without seeming too reverent about its predecessors or anachronistic in its execution.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hotel Shampoo
    Rhys has weightier material in his body of work, but for sheer pop pleasure this album can't be beat.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bird And The Bee
    Brilliantly catchy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mines
    It's a slow, über-democratic process that, on the band's fourth album, results in sputtering post-rock à la early Flaming Lips that varies wildly from song to song.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cults
    The subversive elements often feel like unnecessary posturing, but the production wisely hides them behind more obvious assets like sunny pop hooks, singalong choruses and Madeline Follin's childlike voice.
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