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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    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heard It in a Past Life
    Her percussion is often mesmerizing, the glue holding it all together. It’s all cinematic in a broad sort of way, the kind of album you can put on and walk through the streets, imagining how the movie of your own life would unfold. Thematically, it swerves through early 20-something existential angst in a rather predictable and trend-chasing way, which starts to lag and feel samey in the album’s second half.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pollinator
    It’s far from a perfect record, but it’s their best in years.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    One Second of Love
    She may have gone a little too far toward conventional pop, and not all of it rings true.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Thing Called Divine Fits
    It's hard to shake the notion that the songs are leftovers from the songwriters' other bands.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sun Leads Me On
    Half Moon Run's embracing of bands they love (Radiohead, large swaths of Montreal's breakout mid-00s scene) make much of Sun Leads Me On sound familiar. But it's not so bad to be visited by old friends.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ratworld
    Throwback factor aside, there is a lot of shameless fun on offer, though little imagination. But what they lack in originality they make up for in hooks and enthusiasm.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Next Day
    Pop music is never a purely cerebral exercise, and despite its intriguing concept, The Next Day is woefully short on anything to sing along to.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Black Light
    Album highlight Paper Romance's pulsating, danceable track makes up for the tedious rock-bottom rock-out Look Me In The Eye Sister.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blacc Hollywood
    Wiz has never shied away from top-40-baiting tunes many rappers eschew, and he’s crafted a few more on Blacc Hollywood with varying degrees of success.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All The Lost Souls
    The songs are ridiculously catchy, albeit predictable and overly comfortable in that 70s folk rock vibe he loves so much.
    • 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.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revelations
    For the first time Audioslave sound more like a cohesive unit than a product of two groups spliced together.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    T.I. Vs T.I.P.
    T.I. vs T.I.P. suffers from its star's inability to commit to character.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Murs For President
    His major-label debut after years on Def Jux feels status quo for the most part, and new labelmates will.i.am and Snoop only dilute his product with lazy cameos. But there’s still much to admire about Mur’s campaign to turn on some heads.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Deserters
    The album is laden with a nostalgic longing that’s never as compelling as the cinematic leanings.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Forcefield
    It’s a collection to bob your head and sing along to, something that will never go out of style.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Peanut Butter
    A sameness runs from track to track--brisk tempos, mid-range key, the loud/soft thing--but if you take time to work out the lyrics, you'll be rewarded with intriguing surrealism, goofy fun (no surprise considering their band name) and, on incendiary pop-punk Psykick Espionage, a welcome dose of badassery.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life On Earth
    The result is a very quiet record (possibly reflecting her admittedly timid nature--stage fright was once a big problem for her), but one that rewards a close listen.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Testing
    There’s something bewitching about this free-form section of Testing, but there’s still that feeling Rocky's stylistic adventurousness--however appealing--is overwhelming lyrics and flows that aren't as ambitious as the production.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Metal Moon
    When the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach works best, Metal Moon sounds like little bits of all your favourite records glued together into one mutant disc.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Show Your Bones
    It's time to move some units, so quirky's out and tunefulness is in.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Recovery
    Two fundamental problems: he's got an incredible amount of energy, raging away in the high-pitched voice that Eminem haters can't stand, with little to say that he hasn't already said before; and the beats are often middling.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Little Pop Rock
    Fans of the Mary Chain's Suicide-meets-Shangri-Las hijinks will have an immediate connection to Sister Vanilla's sweetly sinister sound, particularly when Jim or William steps up to the microphone to add his droning vocals.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Good Girl Gone Bad
    A fairly satisfying collection of disposable pop R&B.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The King Is Dead
    It's a solid album with strong production and songwriting, but it won't blow any minds.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Food
    A couple of songs sound like Much More Music hits (Breakfast, Forever Be), but a few genuine surprises--the Simon & Garfunkelesque cover of Labi Siffre’s Bless The Telephone, the slow-burning Floyd and country-rocking Friday Fish Fry--demonstrate Kelis’s deft versatility.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Am a Problem: Mind in Pieces
    There's relative lack of confrontational left turns and endurance-testing meltdowns, which might divide long-time fans over whether this is Wolf Eyes' most boring album or their most "mature."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gang Of Losers
    The Dears' biggest coup with Gang Of Losers, though, is Lightburn's newfound ability to express his own sturm und drang through varied delivery rather than just a bloodcurdling caterwaul.
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