Record Collector's Scores

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For 2,518 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. Positive: 1,674 out of 2518
  2. Mixed: 838 out of 2518
  3. Negative: 6 out of 2518
2518 music reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Still Life of Citrus & Slime
    There is plenty here to remind you of their previous triumphs, as well as those of similar labels such as Estrus and Crypt.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wesley Stace's John Wesley Harding
    Like its clumsy title, this release finds itself falling between two stools; stuck in mid-Atlantic, perhaps. It does have its moments, but may fail to win new converts.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Under Cöver
    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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Happenings
    True, the stoner-rock Passengers interrupts the flow - but not for long. Ironically, it makes for Kasabian's most epic album since Empire 18 years ago. [Aug 2024, p.104]
    • Record Collector
      • Posted Jul 15, 2024
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    New Arrangements and Duets
    Here's he's reimagining his own work, and not necessarily the best known. [Dec 2024, p.98]
    • Record Collector
      • Posted Nov 19, 2024
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Parallel
    Little here quite matches the inquisitive methodologies of Allison's Consciousology, but this like-minded pairing's double vison is a beguiling place to lose yourself in. [Feb 2025, p.102]
    • Record Collector
      • Posted Mar 10, 2025
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lionheart
    If her more country rock-slanted work for Mount Moriah could be read as a measure of that distance from her roots, Lionheart closes the gap. By trawling her Appalachian background’s feelings, beliefs, experiences and details, McEntire has reclaimed country music for her own personality.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No Luscious Life
    Golden Teacher aren’t quite there yet, just missing a tune or two that really defines what they do. They haven’t produced something that is manages to simultaneously play to their strengths; as catchy as opener Sauchiehall Withdrawal, as rhythmically engaging as the West African-inspired Diop, as pumping as Spiritron.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Finding Shore
    If you sometimes miss Tigers’ unruly improv-tumult, the pay-off is an album of poised beauty with its own pocket-universe logic, exemplified by the softly searching communion of synthetic/organic sounds on Marsh Chorus.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Keep Me Singing
    The tracks drift by like soporific imitations of past glories--for the most part there’s nothing especially wrong with the songs, they just sound as if they could have been composed using a Van Morrison Song Generator.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Egypt Station
    So, yes, good album, with some obligatory pratfalls, very few longeurs and several quality flashes of the innate melodic gift that, after all, put him precisely where he is. During those best bits, the “he’s 76, after all” qualifier becomes utterly redundant.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Future Politics
    The overall feel is accomplished and often catchy, but it’s not as intriguingly esoteric as some material in this vein.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Disappear
    We Disappear is the brashest, most mainstream-sounding alt-rock record The Thermals have pulled off to date. It rarely pauses in its pursuit of hook-laced, punk-pop anthems such as The Walls and the bittersweet Thinking Of You, but it sounds especially jubilant on the best of its Grim Reaper-related numbers, Hey You.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Little Neon Limelight
    While slightly inconsistent--perhaps the result of having four different singers – overall, this is a record full of hope and sadness and all the space that lies in between.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Black Hours
    While we should never compare a solo artist with their band’s work, when the template they’ve already set over the years is so very strong, and when they don’t at any juncture try to reset it, the feeling of missed opportunity is perhaps potent and hard to escape.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    What Do We Do Now
    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
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Do To the Beast
    At just 10 songs Do To The Beast is concise and enjoyable, but doesn’t have the cohesive energy and poetry of its predecessor.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bugbears
    This is effectively juxtaposed with ominous understatement, and the shifting moods, combined with varied instrumentation including harmonium, banjo and electric piano, make for an intriguing, satisfying listen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Luxury Alone
    On this latest effort, Edwards conjures echoes of various esteemed mongers of sweet-melodied sadness but never manages to equal their miserable majesty. At the same time, he fails to stamp much of his own individuality on the collection.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Choreography
    He has certainly struck gold. This is out-and-out the best pop release so far this year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wizard Bloody Wizard
    Conceived in antithesis to the tediously technically proficient metal that’s abundant these days, EW’s ninth album takes joy-doom to another level. Their riffs match the fuzziness of their weed-fogged minds.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Musik Music Musique 1979: The Roots Of Synth Pop
    What stands out most from this time is the sense of possibility and spirit of adventure. [Feb 2026, p.96]
    • Record Collector
      • Posted Mar 6, 2026
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    For The Recently Found Innocent
    While a far from conventional listen, this may still be Presley’s most accessible album to date.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dusk
    Dusk goes nowhere, basically. It ambles, seems happy to hide behind the sofa, but is charming, feels totally complete and when it ends you feel the urge to hit repeat. Again.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hypnophobia
    Though it may take several listens before you realise how comprehensively it’s seeped into your pores. It’s a subtly fetching, minor-chorded, soft-pop sepulchre, conveyed with stealth and tranquilly defocused implication, as opposed to sturm und drang.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Summer 08
    So the album remains a solo project, despite the welcome input from Robyn on Hang Me Out To Dry. The duet hints at how human Metronomy can sound when more life is squirted onto their palette.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Raft
    Cooper ventures further out, navigating abstract naval routes plotted by lonely hearts and plagued by daydreams, his tides of burbling static and deftly deployed lap-steel influenced by the solitary missions of real-life sea salts such as Vital Alsar and William Willis, their adventures a certain metaphor for Cooper’s own singular musical path.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Encore
    The Specials remain adept at appropriating the songs of others to further fuel their message.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Enter Now Brightness
    Imaginative, reflective and confident, complemented by Thomas Healy and Samuel George Taylor's empathic production work, there's fine songwriting here. [Mar 2025, p.105]
    • Record Collector
      • Posted Feb 24, 2025
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mellow Waves
    Opener If You’re Here is a perfect encapsulation of his art. Languorous, gentle, slightly off beat, its discordancy is offset by gorgeous harmonies sung with customary fragility by Oyamada. The rest of the album rides his well-established line between indie and electronica, with the quirk-heavy Sometime/Someplace and Helix/Spiral--a neat take on krautrock by way of Stereolab – providing the highlights.
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