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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Council Skies
    Council Skies is guaranteed to make the old fans feel right at home.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nine and a Half Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970's and Early '80s
    It's all as ludicrous, graceless and unlovely as the "sport" it hymns, yet there's an anachronistic boot-boy charm to Haines's depiction of the milieu that's genuinely affecting, as well as amusing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take All My Loves: Nine Shakespeare Sonnets
    All in all, a difficult task accomplished with no shortfall of style and invention.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Locked Down
    The result is a dark, steamy sound that comes crawling from the Louisiana swamp like a mean-tempered 'gator.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    But Here We Are
    As a tribute, and a farewell, it could hardly be better.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twerp Verse
    Their latest effort is a much-welcomed return to form.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The King of Limbs
    The King of Limbs sounds like the bastard offspring of dubstep and Nico Muhly, the brilliant composer whose string and choral arrangements inhabit the open spaces between contemporary classical and art-rock.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zeros
    Zeros is the sound of an artist pushing his creative development, and enjoying himself as he does so. Exciting stuff.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Traveling Alone
    Traveling Alone sounds like her best album yet.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yungblud
    Harrison has a knack for narrative and a snagging vocal that lifts potential mediocrity of this vibe into a warmer and more engaging experience. He’s at his best at his most British, when he channels the conversational intimacy of The Streets’ Mike Skinner.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Caer
    Caer shows that Twin Shadow’s limitless approach to pop suits him just fine.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alone Aboard the Ark
    To the delicate folk of their earlier work has been added a robustness that takes the Brighton-based six-piece in the direction of Blur.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stone Rollin'
    With Stone Rollin', he broadens his outlook to take in various other R&B styles, without shifting more than a few years either way.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fall To Pieces
    Tricky plumbs the deepest fathoms of despair. But from that he’s created something beautiful. This is one of his best, and truest, albums.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
    The only constants are Albarn’s drowsy presence, shuffling through songs as if shot in the neck with a tranquiliser dart, and the stout melodicism that makes …Strange Timez the finest Gorillaz album in a decade.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mars
    [Title track "Mars" is] a rare misstep on an album that looks to both East and West, and reaches simultaneously into the past and the future.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Citizen Zombie
    The Pop Group’s signature mode of deviant funk, with dub effects and tangled guitar distortion wielded with razoring disregard for polite taste, is still disconcerting and the focus of their anger is still sharp, albeit refracted through allegory and apocalyptism.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    False Alarm
    On False Alarm, though, they offer something that proves they’re still worth paying attention to.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The House That Jack Built
    Imaginative and innovative in equal measure.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hackney Diamonds
    A late-career Exile on Main Street? Their best since the Seventies? Arguably, but such hyperbole undeniably rests on the broad shoulders of the seven-minute “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”, the album’s spectacular spiritual crescendo.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
    By reflecting on the personal issues that first inspired him, Murdoch has reminded his band what they’re made of and sparked a loving surprise: their most expansive, exquisite mission statement since 1998.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sawayama
    Rina’s mini album may have marked her out as one to watch, but SAWAYAMA stakes her claim as one of the boldest voices in pop today.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Playing Robots Into Heaven
    Blake clearly revels in the invention and freedom of the exploit. “Fall Back” comes across as a very organic, found-sound kind of ambient concoction, as if someone has worked out how to recycle DJ software out of firewood and hemp.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the Rainbow Rain
    He sounds cleansed of old complications.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    More
    More accomplishes in just three songs the transition between fan-settling familiarity and creative advancement.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Serpentine Prison
    To these ears, album closer “Serpentine Prison” bears an uncanny – if stripped-back – similarity to “Friend of Mine”. But for the most part, this is a Berninger record, and it’s very good.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Last Man Standing
    Backed by a band who vigorously play to his timeless strengths, he sounds as sprightly as ever.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cults
    Hip young American male/female duo Cults look to classic 1960s pop history for the 11 bite-sized pop nuggets of this impressive debut.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To the Sunset
    Musically progressive, it’s Shires most ambitious work to date; nasty, stomping Southern rock sits next to poppier fare and several moments of quiet introspection.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Soul of a Woman
    Throughout, Jones’s characteristic optimism holds true, in songs such as Binky Griptite’s latter-day civil rights anthem “Matter Of Time” (“It’s a matter of time before justice will come”) and especially Crispiano’s “Come And Be A Winner”, whose light country-soul stylings and rhythm guitar seem to channel Curtis Mayfield.
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