The Independent (UK)'s Scores

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For 2,310 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Middle Of Nowhere
Lowest review score: 0 Donda
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,261 out of 2310
  2. Mixed: 1,019 out of 2310
  3. Negative: 30 out of 2310
2310 music reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alone in the Universe
    This is your echt ELO in all its familiar state of sub-Beatlesy woe.... Whether his form of “properly” meets with your approval will, of course, depend on your capacity to perceive virtue in the familiar and the sentimentally melancholic (and in brevity: Alone in the Universe clocks in at roughly 35 minutes’ duration).
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome To Condale
    Summer Camp's long-awaited debut album seethes with updated teen angst set to engaging electropop grooves.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Muchacho
    Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck augments his usual reedy Americana stylings with some unexpected developments on Muchacho.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon
    A touching, intelligent work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bloodsports
    Producer Ed Buller has given the band a bigger sound that works well on the rolling U2-esque riff to “Barriers”, but parts of the album still sag under expectations.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jaguar
    From start to finish, Monet’s songs deliver mellow yet funky instrumentation, with a hint of glittery disco on the livelier songs. Often, she adopts what would be described as a traditionally masculine gaze: confident, brash, assertive. Monet knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Someday World
    “The Satellites” opens the album with tart trumpets over staccato guitars, “To Us All” closes it with an oceanic excursion. In between are liquid pools of guitar and chattering keyboards.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loney Dear
    An elegant, understated pop masterpiece.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Key Markets
    A resounding, bitter corrective to the pleasureland fantasies of modern R&B pop and the empty braggadocio of hip-hop clichés, Key Markets may be one of the year’s emblematic albums.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elitism for the People 1975-1978 [Box Set]
    Four decades on, it sounds as revolutionary as ever.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bach: Sonatas & Partitas, Vol. 1
    The dazzling deftness of his fingering in the Presto and Double Presto sections evokes a kind of giddy delirium and his feathery technique wrests the tenderest of emotions from the second Sonata's Andante.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rain Crow
    The predatory, hypnotic swamp grooves that have been Tony Joe White’s stock-in-trade throughout his career lend a magical backwoods bayou ambience to the nine tracks of Rain Crow, on which his peculiar songcraft and grizzled Woodbine baritone conjure up gripping regional narratives.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Our Version of Events
    This ability to tiptoe between opposing positions brings a pleasing depth and grain to some of her songs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Golden Ticket
    The unusual alliance of Floridian rapper/singer Eric Biddines with south London groovemaster Paul White brings an engaging, infectious charm to Golden Ticket reminiscent of Outkast and Arrested Development.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Better Tomorrow
    It’s a pretty decent album, with their trademark melange of rap stylings at their most spikily effective, each track switching between self-promotion, street-crime narrative, social commentary and cosmological speculation as different members take the mic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Resistance Is Futile
    No song sounds over-rehearsed, and plenty sound like they were laid down on the first take.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Red Beans and Weiss
    Bohemian legend and walking R&B encyclopaedia Chuck Weiss is on great form on this latest album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    And Nothing Hurt
    Brimming with intensity and the analgesic hypnotism that is Pierce’s signature, And Nothing Hurt would make a suitably majestic final Spiritualized album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Modern Dread
    Glimmers with fantastic, layered production. Instead of merging sounds so they become indistinguishable, each chime, each clatter of percussion, is given its space – as a result the whole album feels remarkably fresh.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home
    Just when you think it's done, it finds another gear through the ingenious addition of a subtle offbeat that kicks the groove up a notch--the kind of sly, brilliant touch that suggests Rudimental are worthy heirs to the likes of Soul II Soul and Basement Jaxx.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    AJ Tracey
    With the help of stellar producers like Cadenza (Kiko Bun), Swifta Beater (Kano, Giggs), and Nyge (Section Boyz, Yxng Bane), Tracey incorporates electronic music, rock, garage and even country on his most cohesive work to date.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eton Alive
    This is a record that expands the idea of what Sleaford Mods could be.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Don't Run
    If you’re looking for smooth guitar riffs and auto-tuned vocals, you won’t find it on I Don’t Run: Hinds thrives on their imperfections and that’s the point.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Screen Violence
    It’s their best album to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lover
    There is a brilliant album among the 18 songs, if only it had been pruned it a little.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cry
    As with their debut, this album feels as though you’re being allowed a brief but intense insight into his self-contained world. Yet the vein of humour that ran through those earlier songs has been replaced by a deeper sincerity.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Deconstruction
    Guilt, sickness, depression and death have their haunting power acknowledged. The optimism of a songwriter who sees the world’s love and beauty through his own sometimes deep pain rarely falters.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Toumani & Sidiki
    Despite the limited instrumental palette, there’s a broad variety of approaches.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    CAN'T RUSH GREATNESS
    Can’t Rush Greatness is a bold statement, yes, but one that Central Cee does, by and large, live up to.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Roaring 20s
    Through 14 tracks, Jordan and Harley offer a fast-talking, witty and well-meaning account of day-to-day life for sharp-eyed British youth.
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