The Quietus' Scores

  • Music
Select another publication »
For 2,374 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 61% higher than the average critic
  • 8% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 76
Highest review score: 100 Promises
Lowest review score: 0 Lulu
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,109 out of 2374
  2. Mixed: 244 out of 2374
  3. Negative: 21 out of 2374
2374 music reviews
view
per page
    • 73 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    WE
    It opens with a piano motif that could’ve come straight from Chris Martin’s candle-scented fingers. The matching vocals are so annoyingly whispered, they practically qualify as ASMR. Halfway through, the song changes tack and starts courting the modern market for anxiety pop. ... More specifically, it makes you think, “Does this sound like a needy Mercury Rev, a ham-fisted Grandaddy, or Wings without the easy-going self-awareness?
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Innocence
    Built around harmonies that only siblings seem to muster, there is a neat balance struck between angry noise from self-enforced isolation and a pastoral quality that strikes into the heart of America in a direct bloodline from CSNY and The Band.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    45
    At its heart 45 is a fun album with a serious message. At times it feels like the album Prince might have made after watching too much Veep. The downside to 45, as with Trump’s whole administration, is that after a while the joke starts to wear a bit thin and you just need a break from it all.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Souvenirs
    Although Souvenirs is a daring record, there is a feeling that the Pale Blue Eyes’ fantastic spacecraft is suspended in the air before the real take-off. Perhaps, they are about to define the direction for the creative journey. Would be great to see them reaching for upper regions of space.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Body Complex
    From the unidentifiable and minimalist object on the cover to the track titles referencing interior design and architecture, via the very makeup of each track, Body Complex feels like a journey through a space both public and internalised.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Weather Diaries
    Going Blank Again was the sound of Ride discovering the sort of band they wanted to be, turning on the afterburners and leaving their contemporaries behind. Weather Diaries picks up the story from there. The forecast is bright--expect sunshine and the odd hurricane.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Burnt Up on Re-Entry
    Frightening though some of these passages are, the effect is not all hard going. The power of space is writ large everywhere on Burnt Up On Re-Entry, the giddy weight of infinity, the feeling of soaring transcendent journey and ego death--it's all rather exhilarating stuff, especially on a cold January evening.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Closer Apart
    While their evolution in favour of modern soul perhaps won’t fill as many dancefloors as their earlier releases, Closer Apart is one of the most life-affirming and addictive records of the year, from a collaboration that truly justifies its existence.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Minus
    Minus is a statement of intent from an artist who has found his voice and shaken off his past.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    AVTT/PTTN
    Musically, it’s a travesty. .... Little glimmers of Mike Patton’s personality do, accidentally, seep in. His campy performance during ‘Heaven’s Breath’ lands somewhere between Alice Cooper and Nick Cave.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Soul of All Natural Things
    It's a boldly contemporary record whose wily 70s spirit isn't lost amid the fuzz.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mykki Blanco Presesnts C-Ore
    The artists on C-ORE complement one another in that they share a certain darkness and an interest in digital experimentation, but their voices and methods are distinct, ensuring the album is defiantly unpredictable.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There Is No Year
    Algiers will always be big, bold and unapologetically earnest and while you’d stop short of saying something like they’re a vital band for our times, it’s good to have someone around who cares for them as much as they do.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bears for Lunch
    The burst of creativity and songwriting that came out of the reunion has its plus side, but it's by no means the necessary listening the band once was.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Allah-Las
    With little meat on the bones, it's difficult wrap your jaws around and as those occasional deep-filled prog wig-outs keep slipping away, they provide a glimmer of hope, but the doses are far too small and far too measured to have any real effect.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love Over Will
    Love Over Will offers a techno release beyond the noise, one that wrestles with vocal placement and layers chaos into algorithms and filtered metrics strung out in evolving time.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    One Day All of This Won't Matter Any More
    They might need to be a little more consistent to make that one stick, but if they're up for it, One Day All Of This Won't Matter Anymore is a decent launch pad, proving they've the confidence to mix it up.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    La Di Da Di
    Their sound now possesses a withering, caustic wit instead of a joyous, ostentatious cackle, and the suspicion is that it's only the start of an enticing middle chapter. We'll see better still from them as they develop.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brute
    Despite the forcefulness of its concept, Brute thus often feels less like music of protest than music of exhaustion, confusion, and diffuse rage. This can make for an oppressive and tiring listen, but at best its effect is unsettling, and suggestive of traumatised detachment--a familiar enough reaction to the barrage of grim reports that make up the daily online news churn.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Paracosm
    Paracosm deserves to be praised and enjoyed now, not in 20 years' time. He's not quite cracked it, but it's a big step in the right direction.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Resistance Is Futile
    This is not the Manics’ best album, but it is one of their most charming. As a document of where they stand it is endlessly fascinating.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    West of Eden
    West of Eden is a flawed album, a patchy album, and an album with some really bad lyrics in it. But nonetheless a very fun record. It might lose its magic quickly, as most of the thrill comes from the band’s willingness to skip from genre to genre, but every so often you can forget the flaws and get lost in the many worlds it tries to create.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fall To Pieces
    I feel as if it’s mostly the gathering of pieces for a record that was being constructed prior to a tragedy, with the grief itself manifesting in the abandonment of that work and this half-complete thing we get instead. Tricky is a shadow of his former self, playing the role of a shadow of his former self, which was always a selfhood in shadow.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    TFCF
    TFCF is undoubtedly a record for recalibrating Andrew's personal and sonic compass but, rather thrillingly, suggests that despite the realignment, great things lie in the future.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Violet Flame
    Moreso than 2011's Tomorrow's World, The Violet Flame is an accessible blessing for longtime fans and curious newcomers alike.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Through the Out Door [Remastered]
    Though Plant and Jones kept their ears to the ground with what was happening on the musical landscape, some of the efforts on the album have dated horribly.... But there are documents of true greatness contained here.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Mood Fool
    I’m all set to say that Good Mood Fool is my favourite Temple-related record since the HWGM debut.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shulamith
    Shulamith is by all means not a bad album, providing just enough thrills and spills to warrant repeated plays. But by expanding and deepening their sound palette, Poliça lose out on some of the original charm that helped make them unique.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sing to the Moon
    The album--an immaculately drawn piece of jazz-inflected pop--is loaded with such originality that Mvula's carved out a niche of her own in 2013's musical landscape.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Romaplasm
    On Romaplasm, Wiesenfeld seems to have finally made something that could pass as a pop record, exuberant in both its content and execution.
Page: