Record Collector's Scores
- Music
For 2,550 reviews, this publication has graded:
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51% higher than the average critic
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5% same as the average critic
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44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
| Highest review score: | Doctrine Of Love | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Relaxer |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,695 out of 2550
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Mixed: 849 out of 2550
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Negative: 6 out of 2550
2550
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Forgiveness Is Yours is without question the band's best album to date, full of surprising diversions and even more surprising musical ideas that sometimes border on the sophisticated. Even though there's little uniformity, it hangs together nicely and is always intriguing, like a series of vignettes or short stories. [May 2024, p.104]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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There's a floating eeriness to The Night Sky while near-title track Traveller Of Time & Space is a dreamy, wistful wonder. [May 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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On their 15th attempt, producer James Ford rides the faders and filters to shape Chris Lowe's synths into the perfect balance of modernity and timelessness. [May 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Hutchings fashions a series of pastoral soundscapes dominated by breathy flutes. It's not all a case of sonic stasis and folky bucolic minimalism, though, as Body To Inhabit proves, lit up by rapper Elucid's verbal fireworks. [May 2024, p.105]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Congo Funk! Sound Madness from the Shores of the Mighty Congo River (Kinshasa/Brazzaville 1969-1982)Another crack compilation from Analog Africa. [May 2024, p.99]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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While older and greyer, Les Savy Fav's fun, raucous and occasionally silly sound remains largely intact. [May 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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The more the album continues, the more these become influences absorbed and owned, the sound of a band not so much reinventing as realigning themselves. [Apr 2024, p.100]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Frontwoman Beth Ditto, as close to a truly classic soul singer as alternative music has served up in the 21st century, is on sumptuous form, at turns forceful and tender as she contemplates love and self-affirmation. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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It's a sleek, hypnotically danceable collection of nicely-crafted tunes; a pan-Afro-pean pop record undercut with electronic ingenuity. [Apr 2024, p.102]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Wherever you listen, ideas accrue: given a gleaming production by Tunng's Mike Lindsay, Springs ... contains outsider art-pop multitudes. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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It's an often dense listen, but with enough light and shade to ease the passage of its makers social conscience lyrics. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Their legs haven't gone entirely, but this feels more weathered warhorse than Warhol. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Her music and mesmerising voice also alight upon jazz-folk (Get Wise), sparse rock (Blood Bond) and orchestral indie-rock (Desire Path), building a positively cinematic collection which speaks softly but firmly of the state of the world today. [Apr 2024, p.105]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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It's the sound of an endlessly curious mind in love with the possibilities of sonics and melody and a very welcome reinvention. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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The result, which she deemed an "experiment in collaboration", is Lenker's most relatable to date. [Apr 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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At times it's near pure pop--the slow, echoing Queen Of Hearts and the synth sensations of Honey while Superstar sees the voice soaring above an electronica rhythm. Self Love is a blistering guitar rocker while the near five-minute title track switches from balladry to boisterous roars. A fitting finale. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Neither classic comeback nor addled disaster, it's hopefully a stepping stone to again becoming a functioning exciting live act and more productive studio band. [Mar 2024, p.105]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Overall, the album's sense of play is strong and, like its predecessor, the good ultimately wins out. [Mar 2024, p.102]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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A spare but slippery showcase of spontaneous-seeming instinct. [Mar 2024, p.105]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Their seventh effort might start with short, low-key ballad Bluebird but that turns out to be a complete misnomer for an album chock-full of effervescent indie anthems and buoyant guitars. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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While there's no shortage of ideas buzzing around these tracks they often have a tendency to come across as incomplete; meanders down sonic and lyrical avenues that fall just short of feeling whole. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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It rattles along at a fine old pace, awash with cheek and charm, and is genuinely touching on paean to lifelong friendships The Lads. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Their 19th studio album captures the dynamism of Firepower but tweaks the structure a little so that the material is no less heavy but is perhaps less predictable. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Krieger still has an ear for organists, and moody interplay with Ed Roth, as on the track Samosas & Kingfishers, remains his comfort zone. More genteel than their name would suggest, The Savages are nonetheless consummate players, with textured grooves at their dexterous fingertips. [Mar 2024, p.104]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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The brisk Don't Forget You're Mine harbours a dicier wake-up call ("A good slap is what you need"), though the Wurlitzer-enhanced La Nageuse Nue reunites with The Choir to advocate "a cleansing": becalmed advice for a troubled world on a coolly composed album of healing and harmony. [Mar 2024, p.105]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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From glam-tinged art-rock to spellbinding chamber-soul, this ever-elegant examination of the heart and the mind is like Bukowski rifling through priceless musical boxes and releasing a thousand hummingbirds. .... Magnificent heaven. [Mar 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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The bleakness can be oppressive but as Wolfe sings of "wings on our lungs" on the hymnal Place In The Sun, her voice takes flight with commanding power. [Feb 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Between fleeting romances and the railroad, the result serves robust snapshots of self-discovery in resilient motion: nodding to the climax of Titanic in closer Ogallala, The Past ... clings to life in the face of loss. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Testing her vocals as much as her songwriting, Howard emerges as one of the boldest talents around. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Loss Of Life feels more at ease with itself. Happily, though, none of this comes at the expense of the band's exploratory urges. [Feb 2024, p.102]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Wherever you listen, these are some of the loveliest examples of Lytle's wryly empathetic story-songs yet, with widescreen closer Nothin' To Lose teasing at potential future attractions. Long may his wav roll. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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The rhythm guitars remain acoustic and there are country-style embellishments from piano and pedal-steel players. The overall impression, though, is that the circles in the Venn diagram of Mascis' solo and Dino works are overlapping more than ever. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Wall Of Eyes sounds like a band going from strength to strength. [Feb 2024, p.100]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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As with his previous albums though, GRIP most impresses in its introspective moments (Spades, Lucky Me) -- perhaps next time we'll get the morning after album. [Feb 2024, p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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An album which is surely his most innovative and creative yet. Heavy but easily accessible. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Her evocative vocals are stunning, heard on tracks such as Strange Delights and Finding Mirrors. Just occasionally, her voice and harp are too submerged, notably on Through The Din, where the rhythmic groove feels overwhelming. However, the glorious instrumental Cloudbreath blends the album's rich components brilliantly, as do the next tracks, Garden and Into The Sun. [Feb 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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They're good at what they do but when songs like Double Negative kick in, those with older record collections might find their hands instinctively twitching towards their Wire LPs. [Feb 2024 p.103]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Songs here frequently unsettle, like the hypnotic Where The Bough Has Broken or the sinister Blood Orange. At times, it's a little too abstract and difficult to connect to--perhaps because of how personal this feels to Woods. Nevertheless, you'll still enjoy losing yourself in this vast, enigmatic world. [Jan 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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It's a hell of a noise for just three men to make with SLIFT effortlessly achieving white knuckle transcendence across eight very long tracks. [Jan 2024, p.99]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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An ambitious record that highlights the impressive originality of her ever-evolving, emotionally raw songwriting talents, and which deserve boygeniusesque levels of success. [Jan 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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At their best when the music fires along to match Chubb's lyrical catharsis, Sprints occasionally falter when the pace drops: even Chubb sounds anonymous among Literary Mind's more considered atmospherics, while Shadow Of A Doubt promises to build to a crescendo that never quite arrives. [Jan 2024, p.101]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Not quite the music one might expect from the California coast where Segall grew up ... in fact, wildly at odds with just about anything. [Jan. 2024, p.99]- Record Collector
Posted Jun 10, 2024 -
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Paul Weller’s electric autumn that began with 22 Dreams effortlessly continues, and this may be the best instalment yet.- Record Collector
- Posted May 23, 2024
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As he goes on to dig into toxic masculinity, his own ageing process and urban isolation (on the striking Safe & Well), Malcolm Middleton’s music is masterful, a combination of dense electronics and angry guitars which perfectly meet the mood of a fiercely current album.- Record Collector
- Posted May 20, 2024
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This album is a spirited, catchy, poignant return, yet it’s also the most affecting record about grief since Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree.- Record Collector
- Posted May 15, 2024
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One suspects Gibbons agonised over every word and note on Lives Outgrown, but the result is an album to fall deeply in love with. If you allow them to, these songs will envelope your soul.- Record Collector
- Posted May 13, 2024
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Most of this collection, however, offers fleeting impressions rather than signed-off, finished portraits. .... For Broadcast’s true believers, this is an essential and edifying experience, casting its own spells.- Record Collector
- Posted May 8, 2024
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A Dream Is All We Know flows seamlessly, with no snags disrupting its mellow mood-tapestry, right up until final track Rock On (Over And Over) throws us a curveball by actually glamming out, Bolan-style, as if to say, “Here’s what you thought we were about”. Superb.- Record Collector
- Posted Apr 30, 2024
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While One Deep River is unlikely to make many new converts, it will more than satisfy his loyal army of fans.- Record Collector
- Posted Apr 24, 2024
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- Record Collector
- Posted Apr 9, 2024
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The record doesn’t break any new ground, but it walks familiar paths with confidence.- Record Collector
- Posted Mar 27, 2024
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- Record Collector
- Posted Mar 27, 2024
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It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.- Record Collector
- Posted Mar 1, 2024
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Tracks such as Psychedelic Orgasm and It’s Dark Inside embody the claustrophobic and saturnine atmosphere on what is essentially an underground hip-hop record made by an inveterate envelope-pushing postmodernist.- Record Collector
- Posted Mar 1, 2024
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At their strange best, they sound like Radiohead with an ABBA obsession. A special album from a special band.- Record Collector
- Posted Mar 1, 2024
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The album certainly wears its influences on its (parka) sleeve but does so while maintaining a freshness and uplifting charm that carries the songs as they zip along. Putting the somewhat clichéd lyrics aside – although it’s not as though listeners generally flock to Liam Gallagher for Significant Meaning – there is plenty to savour.- Record Collector
- Posted Feb 27, 2024
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- Record Collector
- Posted Feb 20, 2024
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While Tangk may bring us a more compassionate, empathetic version of the band who seem to be trying to find something that resembles peace after years of tumult, they still haven’t quite lost their punk spirit.- Record Collector
- Posted Feb 12, 2024
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The re-ordered track list reflects what had been noted in the MPL archive. At first it may seem like another money grab, before steadily, something rather beautiful emerges.- Record Collector
- Posted Feb 8, 2024
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- Record Collector
- Posted Jan 31, 2024
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The opening Angel’s cavernous bass is a clarion call for Sisters Of Mercy fans pining new material, yet Sickly Sweet and Dream Of Me are simple, spiky pop made distinctive by Julie Dawson’s slow-build guitars. As singer, Dawson channels a quiet despair in the more vulnerable Nosebleed, but it’s the defiant full-throated charge elsewhere that’s likely to see NewDad emerge as festival favourites.- Record Collector
- Posted Jan 24, 2024
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A fraught album that reaches out furiously for release, forming a push-pull of pressure and release around the band’s defining attributes: Tucker’s tumultuous vocals and Brownstein’s livid guitar.- Record Collector
- Posted Jan 16, 2024
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- Record Collector
- Posted Jan 4, 2024
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Latest must-have. .... Not only are most of these renditions drastically different to the originals, Young blends one reimagined song into the next without any pause, producing less of a medley than an epic, multipart ballad. When he’s gone, none will replace him.- Record Collector
- Posted Jan 4, 2024
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Fifty years on and 50 tracks that never falter in their blistering energy and humour.- Record Collector
- Posted Dec 7, 2023
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Up has always deserved more love and, 25 years on, this remastered anniversary edition, which adds an enjoyably relaxed live set, gives us a chance to hear it with new ears.- Record Collector
- Posted Dec 5, 2023
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This is breathless in its intensity, an hour-long triumph up there with anything they’ve ever done, tales of the world today united amid the brooding shadows of a Victorian musical hall stage. That’s life, that’s madness… and it truly is the Madness we know and love.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 30, 2023
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- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 30, 2023
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He channels snippets into new compositions played over an 808 with some rudimentary vintage synths, evoking memories of his teenage past sitting alongside a radio with fingers tentatively poised on play and record.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 15, 2023
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Not just a compilation, not even just a big compilation, The Roaring Forty is a moving trawl through the life and times of an extraordinary artist who has never stood still.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 15, 2023
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The bulk of the previously unheard material mainly comprises Prince’s original versions of tunes he gave to other artists. .... D&P showed how Prince could still work his magic while operating in narrower artistic parameters. This wasn’t the grandiose vision of Purple Rain or Sign O’ The Times but rather revealed Prince operating in a new guise, as an artisan who was tuned into the pop and rap zeitgeist.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 7, 2023
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Embryonic versions of …Summer Lawns cuts are especially revealing, rough clay immediately prior to moulding, while the live material plays up her strengths as an easy communicator of often obtuse ideas.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 7, 2023
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The Stones are the Stones; a law and legend unto themselves, with nothing more to prove and no need to compete with the latest crop of young turks who covet the crown but know they’ll never wear it. Hackney Diamonds sparkles brightest when it touches base with bygone precious gems.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 7, 2023
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Accentuate The Positive’s lively mix of swing, jump jive, R&B and classic rock’n’roll constantly plays to the singer’s strengths as a thoughtful, inventive interpreter.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 2, 2023
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There will be few debut records as accomplished or thrilling as Los Angeles in 2023.- Record Collector
- Posted Nov 2, 2023
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It may occasionally sound warmly, comfortingly like the past, but this is an album with its mind fixed firmly on the future.- Record Collector
- Posted Oct 27, 2023
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A mixed (body) bag it may be, but Danse Macabre is a fiendishly fun collection that only the undead would remain unmoved by.- Record Collector
- Posted Oct 26, 2023
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Anderson says the album’s 10 songs form a loose narrative of journeys and experiences coming to an end, yet at the same time Pearlies points to a bright and fulfilling solo future.- Record Collector
- Posted Oct 19, 2023
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Cosmic art country (Infinite Surprise, Pittsburgh) and skewed power pop (Save Me, Evicted) dominate, but most impressive are Sunlight Ends and A Bowl And A Pudding, moments of experimental beauty at the core of a constantly surprising album.- Record Collector
- Posted Oct 18, 2023
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The 1970-71 period was arguably The Who’s, and Pete Townshend’s, most creative, and its celebration is to be welcomed at – almost – any price.- Record Collector
- Posted Oct 5, 2023
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The country-rock songwriting tones of Tired Of Being Alone and Falling Into The Sun are rich and expansive, the themes of finding comfort and purpose in middle-age – whether through rekindled romance (I Left A Light On, I Will Love You), artificial means (Self-Sedation) or self-reflection (Middle Of My Mind) – ring true, and big emotions continue to be captured, seemingly without effort, on their canvas.- Record Collector
- Posted Sep 21, 2023
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Black Rainbows magnificently roars around garage rock, jazz and even, on Erasure, Black Flag hardcore. Better still, Before The Throne Of The Invisible God is a heavenly soul-psych masterpiece, equally Sly Stone, Prince and Billie Holliday. It’ll continue to uncover fresh layers of magic for years, while being enticing from the off.- Record Collector
- Posted Sep 14, 2023
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Throughout the curation of his archives, all but two of these recordings – that slower Sedan Delivery and the regretful Too Far Gone – have already been released elsewhere, across original albums and newly restored collections, making this official Chrome Dreams an exercise in fan service that would have been a worthy Record Store Day title – or, we hope, an indication that the Archives Vol III box set is approaching.- Record Collector
- Posted Sep 7, 2023
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- Posted Aug 28, 2023
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Across the years, the album has often been discussed in terms of its proto-Britpop ‘moment’. But it holds up superbly freed from that context as a deeply distinct and thrillingly flash statement of what Suede do, creating its own world while doing practically everything it can to grab the attention.- Record Collector
- Posted Aug 21, 2023
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The result is a beguilingly inquisitive album, its meanings and methods nurtured into rich, sun-blushed blooms.- Record Collector
- Posted Aug 16, 2023
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The Ones Ahead is billed as his first collection of new music in nearly 20 years, but it feels no less vital or inventive than his most celebrated work.- Record Collector
- Posted Aug 16, 2023
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The past might be an albatross around Lydon’s neck, but he demonstrates superhuman strength at times, achieving lift-off in a way that nobody was really expecting. If the end of the world is nigh then PiL are going out with a bang.- Record Collector
- Posted Aug 10, 2023
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The second half is a striking electronic makeover: the Baxter Dury-ish title track and the Prince-like S&M cosplay electro-strut of the sultry Goddess Rules are joltingly un-Dexys. If the premise is laid on a bit thick – Rowland never does things by halves – at least torch song My Submission is the most beautiful thing Dexys have ever done.- Record Collector
- Posted Jul 26, 2023
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The passion in ANOHNI’s voice lifts meandering mid-album cuts Can’t and Scapegoat. But the Marvin Gaye-indebted Why Am I Alive Now is the standout.- Record Collector
- Posted Jul 20, 2023
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With expressive restraint, key collaborators John Parish and Flood utilise instruments and field recordings to tactile effect, while leaving room for Harvey’s voice to resonate. The results hold their folk-horror secrets close and harbour dark suggestions on investigation.- Record Collector
- Posted Jul 19, 2023
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While this is a deeply personal work whose soul-searching recalls the defences-down honesty of Blur’s art-rock masterpiece 13, it’s emphatically not a solo album… Though it could be a duo album. One of the most touching elements of The Ballad Of Darren is hearing Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon singing together.- Record Collector
- Posted Jul 19, 2023
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Lyrically, Chatten’s world is still tumultuous, yet he’s learned to coat it around a romantic, less uptight sound. Hopefully Fontaines D.C. can carry some of these moods forward but, whatever happens, this is a superb interlude.- Record Collector
- Posted Jun 28, 2023
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This collection is called Smash for a very good reason.- Record Collector
- Posted Jun 22, 2023
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In the Shadow Kingdom, the smooth seduction of I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight comes out downright lusty, while the jinking melody of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ebbs and flows here, seemingly dragged by swollen waves of sound. Some lyrics are subtly changed, others are turned on their head – the devotional To Be Alone With You transformed into something dangerous and desperate (“What happened to me darling, what was it you saw, did I kill somebody, did I escape the law?”).- Record Collector
- Posted Jun 21, 2023
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