The Independent on Sunday (UK)'s Scores

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For 789 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 40% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 One Day I'm Going To Soar
Lowest review score: 20 Last Night on Earth
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 495 out of 789
  2. Mixed: 280 out of 789
  3. Negative: 14 out of 789
789 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Amok
    Yorke's lyrics, consisting mainly of repeated aphorisms and clichés ("A penny for your thoughts", "I've made my bed, I'll lie in it"), don't suggest any great depth.... But the sounds, bringing in elements of tropicalia, Afro-funk and laptronica, with glitches, rainforest sounds and superb analogue-synth squelches (if anyone steals the show here, it's Godrich), mean you hardly notice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gentle Spirit
    Gentle Spirit is impressively inert.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unity Band
    A partial return to top form for the widdly-diddly axe-meister.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blood Pressures
    Nonchalant no more, here they spike their sparse blues-print with humour and humanity, dub grooves and Southern gothic flavours.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do It Again
    “Inside the Idle Hour Club” is the comedown: woozy, wavy, lush, long. Not exactly cohesive then, but hey--it’s a trip.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    An intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Berberian Sound Studio
    As a soundtrack, sure; as a record, one for the completist.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Come Home To Mama
    Venturing further into radio-friendly pop-rock than ever before, her fourth album showcases a strong voice which (unlike brother Rufus) actually hits the notes.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Walking Shadows
    This is a very capable attempt to update that swoonable sound, and the arrangements do offer a few contemporary touches.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Centipede Hz
    Simultaneously the most and the least pop record of the autumn.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales of a Grass Widow
    CocoRosie [is] squat, inventively, somewhere between Fever Ray and Joanna Newsom.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Going Back Home
    It is not a substantial offering, nor does it plough a new furrow--but it is a buzz.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lux
    It's often barely there, notably the final minutes of "Lux 4". This is musical homeopathy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    2
    This one feels much more like a group searching for a sound together, even if the sound once belonged in a Venn diagram linking Led Zep, Deep Purple and Dio-era Sabbath. And it rocks most periodly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Build Me This
    Although it is both loud and quiet, it neither rocks nor swings.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Red, Hot + Fela
    Even though the album comes in at nearly 80 minutes, surprisingly it doesn’t feel too long. This is largely because it doesn’t get stuck in an Afrobeat rut.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Molly Drake
    Drake is revealed as a serious artist whose gossamer-light songs can sound painfully vulnerable, and there's more than a bit of black dog in the poems.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Save Rock and Roll
    Save Rock and Roll features unexpected excursions into rave-pop, and numerous celebrity cameos, but enough airbrushed pop-punk to prove they haven't forgotten which side their bread's buttered.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blues Funeral
    Recorded in Hollywood, which figures - there is a near-visual sense of overstatement to the bleakness.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tooth & Nail
    Just like Levi Stubbs, he can't help himself.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    James Farm
    It's good, but you want to hear them live.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Thyself
    This darkly amusing, awkward yet oddly graceful return of the ostensibly dead, more than measures up.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Triangles, Hate Squares
    Most of LTHS consists of thumping soul-pop reminiscent of JoBoxers or high-energy Hives-like garage rock, and even if it errs on the side of sameyness, it's rarely dull.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tales of Us
    Tales of Us has a stately pace and woozy beauty, with cinematic orchestration of swaying strings over acoustic guitar or mossy cello.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Defamation Of Strickland Banks
    And whaddayaknow, this ugly duckling – out of a hoodie and into a tux – turns out to have a fine white soul voice and has followed a record you couldn't bear to hear more than once with a record you'll want to play over and over.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is Your Love Big Enough?
    Not a perfect debut, but one that leaves you with the feeling that we're dealing with a living, thinking artist here, not just another Brit School waxwork.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love Your Dum and Mad
    Enough promise here to keep listening.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mess
    Liars revel in keeping their listeners on edge and entertained making Mess their most wickedly enjoyable album yet.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rome
    With guests such as Jack White and a surprisingly bearable Norah Jones, Rome makes a fine fist of recreating the elegance of prime 1960s Euro-pop. All good, no bad, and never ugly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Long.Live.A$AP
    Rocky's rhymes are believable when reminiscing about growing up poor.
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