Record Collector's Scores

  • Music
For 2,508 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 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: 100 Queen II [Collector's Edition]
Lowest review score: 20 Relaxer
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 6 out of 2508
2508 music reviews
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Songs that are just truly comforting to their core and that make Hallelujah Anyhow another richly rewarding listen.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This doesn’t disappoint. Undoing A Luciferian Towers opens proceedings and wastes no time in transporting the listener into their world.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s a pleasure to report that he’s come up with something much more tangible than a mere phoned-in hash of former glories.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cut Copy need to learn to make music with the reckless abandon of a good night out--at whichever type of club they end up in.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Hiss Spun is easily a contender for her best work.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Part 2’s tracklist does find room for efficient new versions of songs Brix co-wrote for The Fall (LA, Feeling Numb and the enigmatic Hotel Bloedel) but they’re merely the icing on the cake here. Indeed, they’re arguably bettered by newly-minted songs such as the stomping, Big New Prinz-esque Something To Lose; the shape-throwing Damned For Eternity and the psych-pop candy floss of Moonrise Kingdom.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fans of the last LP will not be disappointed--yes, even with the ones that sound (whisper it) a bit too much like Muse. But there’s so much more here than artful innovation.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Singer and band are in perfect synch throughout, the benefits of a lengthy and approaching telepathic relationship obvious for all to hear.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The swaggering beasts of Wall Of Glass and Bold kick it off and Greedy Soul waves a musical truncheon in your face as producers Greg Kurstin and Dan Grech- Marguerat find the jugular on songs powered by riffs, choruses, hooks and lashings of attitude to keep up with their swaggering frontman.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A unique, wide-eyed feeling of awe and wonder underpins all the lush melodies (see I Am Learning), but with The Kid’s lyrics offering a thoughtful counterpoint to all the loved-up ambience.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The understated closer Admiral Of Upside Down is evidence that somewhere beneath all the sonic experimentation he’s inherited at least a modicum of his famous father’s ear for melody.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Colors suffers for sacrificing personality for immediacy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mary Casio is another cohesive collection, glued together by the slightly silly yet still thought-provoking storyline, which regards the life story of an obscure imaginary electronic composer, who is set upon space travel.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Produced by David Foster, it’s largely tremendous fun, even if the path on which it walks is rather well worn.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If you ever liked Spain, Galaxie 500 or Mazzy Star, this is for you. Smoky, reverb-heavy melodies that gently noodle off nowhere slowly, this compilation of released tunes and salvaged demos contains much for the heads.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The album is streaked through with intelligent string orchestrations that don’t feel bolted onto the songs to pad out or prettify them but increase their psychological intensity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Their fourth album’s trembling vocals address mortality, heartbreak, collapse, resilience, different extremities of weather, running to someone and leaving the city at night. Such earnestness is offset nicely by jaunty synthesizer sounds and admirably expressive drum work. It remains unfortunate that Wolf Parade have never reached the fascinating twitchiness of their heroes Modest Mouse.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Part of Death's triumph is its unadornment, which allows the songs to glimmer as rough diamonds.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Angular but well-rounded; Pere Ubu remain as paradoxical as ever.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Truth be told, Strange Peace’s series of succinct bludgeonings are more a case of ain’t-broke-don’t-fix and the appointment of likeminded racket fetishist Steve Albini as producer comes less as a surprise than foregone conclusion.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Though he’s undoubtedly an anachronistic anomaly whose idiosyncratic style (think Tom Waits meets Edith Piaf in a 19th Century music hall) appears out of kilter with convention, he has, nevertheless, produced an essential soundtrack to our times.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Like most covers albums, though, this collection isn’t designed to bear serious analysis, so have some fun with God Save The Queen, Cat Scratch Fever and what have you. The real Motörhead is to found elsewhere.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The songs, all from Nelson’s pen, are what really sells this terrific record, knocked into shit-kicking shape by a drum-tight band who effortless play with delicacy or venom, and all points in-between.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Danilova’s most accessibly gothtastic numbers bear worrying resemblance to a pitch for a songwriting credit on the next Evanescence or Lorde album. Yet there’s no denying that tracks such as Veka and Wiseblood are bangerz of the highest, and indeed saddest, order.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ultimately, The Source, offers indisputable proof that the man from Lagos is thriving in what are supposed to be his twilight years. Like a vintage bottle of Château Lafite, he just seems to improve with each passing year. Long may he continue to do so.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The ambition and scope of these 23 songs is undeniably impressive, Scott still with a firm grip on the country and folk-minded tropes of his best back pages, augmented by (mostly) successful detours into the arenas of soul, funk, even hip-hop.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With enough reference points for old heads to spot and enjoy, but enough invention and melody to stand entirely on its own two feet, To The Bone--with its tales of paranoia and love in the fake news era--is thoroughly recommended.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While it may not be the long overdue and richly deserved breakthrough to a mass global audience, it’s another reassuring set of solidly crafted, intelligent adult pop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Spooky Action is all a bit like an ambitious sixth-form production--and I mean that in the absolute best way--the sheer excitement of experimentation with the requisite chutzpah to banish any gaucheness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In 1983, OMD threatened to derail their career with the defiantly leftfield Dazzle Ships. A sense of that adventurous spirit permeates this 12-track collection but Andy and Paul’s flair for infectious melody actually steers this comfortably away from the chillier extremes of that earlier well-regarded but commercially-limited opus.