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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Familiars
    The ambitious arrangements that separate this band from their moody contemporaries can actually make the album feel too emotionally intense for everyday listening.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Animal Ambition: An Untamed Desire to Win
    An album that’s bogged down by a rapper--and production--stuck in the middle of the last decade.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lazaretto
    It’s odd that he doesn’t mind how much he’s starting to sound like the Black Crowes. Still, overall quality remains high, making this a more solid listen than some White Stripes albums.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    In the Lonely Hour
    Its formulaic songwriting and middling, lite-pop arrangements seem more concerned with top 40 appeal than with maximizing the richness and openness of his voice.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If Anything
    Riveting, memorable, substantial stuff that’ll make you sit up and listen, and possibly wear you out by the 11th song.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Letter Home
    The songs are old, and the album sounds really old.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fire Within
    The few folksier, guitar-plucked numbers, however, are a touch formulaic and over-familiar.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sunbathing Animal
    The album’s last bit kind of peters out, but what comes before it is amusing and fun.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beauty & Ruin
    On his latest release, his driving, hook-laden punk rock is as precise as always.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Glass Boys
    It’s softer, but it’s nice to see a band unafraid of mellowing.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse
    Carey’s back to adding her sparkly touch to summer-ready pop tunes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Feast of the Broken Heart
    It’s a formula to be sure, but Feast’s main delights are its textures and songwriting.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Changing Light
    While clearly her most varied album to date, it still sounds decidedly Mirah: DIY folk singer/songwriter of the 90s with that heartbreaking voice and a knack for killer guitar melodies.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Illmatic XX [20th Anniversary Edition]
    Illmatic is timeless because of Nas’s introspective, hyper-detailed approach to his daily life--even to moments that don’t seem particularly notable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do It Again
    It’s the middle songs that are most immediately enjoyable.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Are We There
    She gives everything, and it’s impossible to be unmoved.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Friendly Bacteria
    Too bad that so many of the instrumental tracks are pleasant but forgettable downtempo jams that dilute the impact of the highlights.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
    The half-hour run time makes the relentlessly cerebral approach more palatable, though the ending feels a bit too tidy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Conflict
    Pallett’s inventive textures lend emotional weight to some of the deliberately mundane lyrical details, so the album is at once beautifully ethereal and painfully real.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Someday World
    Someday World is an fully realized blend of electronic and acoustic sounds that elevates the mundane, austere details in the lyrics into a state of ecstasy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lithium Burn
    While angular, skittering tracks like Stutter and album opener Haircuts/Uniforms add post-punk energy and experimental variety to the album, they also kill the mood.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ghost Stories
    We all love to revel in a real tearjerker (Someone Like You, anyone?), but these whiney odes are heartbreak songs minus the heart.
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Xscape
    The songs are all totally enjoyable, even the schmaltzier ones like Loving You, inspiring toe-tapping and appreciation for Jackson’s phenomenal vocals.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bermuda Waterfall
    He’s a self-proclaimed lover of Cyndi Lauper and a proud balladeer with a knack for writing glimmering melodies.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Women
    The novelty disco elements are balanced by enough rock-solid grooves that the cheesier moments don’t stink up the whole thing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shriek
    Wasner’s vocals seem more confident and assertive now, as if she’s come of age. Still, there are moments on Shriek just yearning for a clever guitar melody or screeching solo.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rented World
    The Menzingers haven’t necessarily mastered the grown-up punk formula, but they’re certainly maturing with each new release.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Asiatisch
    Asiatisch mixes repetitive industrial noises, poetry samples, Asian synth motifs and vaguely menacing atmospherics into tepid, listless and melodically bland soundscapes that serve the concept more successfully than they do the listener.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    III
    Instead of imitating the manipulated loops of funk drummers that defined earlier rap, they make references to the more robotic feel of contemporary drum machine beats, which, combined with their nods to indie rock, puts them in a category all their own.
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