The Wire's Scores
- Music
For 2,880 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
51% higher than the average critic
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7% same as the average critic
-
42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.8 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
| Highest review score: | SMiLE | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Amazing Grace |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 2,405 out of 2880
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Mixed: 455 out of 2880
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Negative: 20 out of 2880
2880
music
reviews
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- Critic Score
When the singing’s done the guitar returns, its tone so stretched and distorted that you can’t quite tell whether it’s purging or celebrating the lyric’s outcome. Are the voice and guitar together or not? It’s complicated.- The Wire
Posted Apr 5, 2018 -
- Critic Score
Gat is a gnarly and thoroughly exciting guitarist, and somehow Universalists is aberrantly gorgeous and totally fried. [Aug 2018, p.68]- The Wire
Posted Jul 26, 2018 -
- Critic Score
“Stir The Sea” coasts on a choice yowly blues metal riff, but teased out slow jams like “Arcurlarius – Burke” are equally their forte. The vocal resemblance of Brian Markham and Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood helps crystallise a bubbling under comparison with the latter, although Dommengang aren’t in The Puppets’ league when it comes to ingenuity or, frankly, personality. [Aug 2019, p.64]- The Wire
Posted Jul 11, 2019 -
- Critic Score
Balancing the 31 minute title song is “Heart And Soul” – another surprise, in that it’s contemplative and piano based, written by former bassist Derek Spaldo, who, for geographical reasons, has largely taken his leave of the band to make way for Andy Cush. It’s the epic title track that carries the whole thing though, making One Step Behind another step beyond for these Peoples. [Oct 2019, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Oct 17, 2019 -
- Critic Score
The tracks swim in their devotional depths and become new platforms for meditation and transmission. The compositions are exquisitely suited to convey the confusion and wonder of life’s early years. [Jun 2024, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Jul 24, 2024 -
- Critic Score
It's ["Ghost Net" is] the uneasiest thing that The Necks have done in years, and its duration of 74 minutes is long enough to wear down both resistance and acceptance. .... The other disc-long performance, "Rapid Eye Movement", is far more approachable.- The Wire
Posted Oct 13, 2025 -
- Critic Score
Tower Block is easily Lawrence's best record since 1992's Back In Denim. [Nov 2025, p.61]- The Wire
Posted Oct 16, 2025 -
- Critic Score
“Simon Says” and “Pimpin’” prove she works well with Juicy J as long as he stays away from the mic. But “Hood Rat Shit” is the real highlight, a moment where for all the gory details her glee is more Dennis The Menace than Lil Kim. [Aug 2019, p.68]- The Wire
Posted Jul 11, 2019 -
- Critic Score
The band’s template has barely changed over those years but that isn’t to suggest a lack of artistic growth. “How Deep It Goes”, the opening track from their tenth album Let It All In, is a prime example of their peculiar progression as it exudes the reassuring warmth of California songsmiths of yesteryear yet still somehow manages to wedge a wash of icy interplay between Huemann’s guitar and Matthew Pierce’s synths smack dab in the middle of the track. [May 2020, p.48]- The Wire
Posted Apr 28, 2020 -
- Critic Score
From the bottom of a spring-reverb well, Harris strums mournful, incoherent songs like "Vital" and "being Her Shadow," but intersperses them with creepy textural mood pieces. [Feb 2013, p.50]- The Wire
Posted Feb 15, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Sometimes the album feels more like a document of studio experiments than a collection of fully realised, narrative-driven compositions, but they remain remarkably effective at imposing similarly conflicting emotions on the listener as on Herndon's avatar.[Dec 2012, p.65]- The Wire
Posted Dec 7, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Protect Your Light, recorded at the late Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey, is the group’s warmest work yet. [Sep 2023, p.57]- The Wire
Posted Sep 20, 2023 -
- Critic Score
Along with the usual guitar/bass/drums/vocals, the group have added vibraphone, theremin and back-up singers, a move that has significantly enhanced their sound and bolstered the sci-fi boogie that rolls through the songs. [Nov 2022, p.70]- The Wire
Posted Oct 5, 2022 -
- Critic Score
The duo fashion a collection of bright funny and often extremely beautiful songs that bristle with invention. [Aug 2010, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Oct 21, 2010 -
- Critic Score
In the best way, Barber and Pearson distil their knowledge and experimentation into something which sounds like the raw essence of a musical personality [Aug 2008]- The Wire
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- Critic Score
Where the jazz content is foregrounded however, the music is less convincing. ... Garcia’s tone bears more than a passing resemblance to Kamasi Washington’s, with a similar paucity of harmonic complexity and grandstanding solos conveying an earnest seriousness that mistakes widescreen emoting for genuine emotional content. [Sep 2020, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Nov 6, 2020 -
- Critic Score
McCartney’s infamous whimsy tempered by his refreshed penchant for odd sonic detail (the spectral guitar tangles that trail through “Find My Way” for instance) and an aged voice whose natural erosion is more feature than fault. [Feb 2021, p.58]- The Wire
Posted Apr 6, 2021 -
- Critic Score
Almost every track has a fearsome radiance to its high end and even in those parts without drums or squared off structures, the surges of sound recall collective dancefloor ecstasies. [Dec 2015, p.44]- The Wire
Posted Dec 16, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Spellbinding throughout, this music may invite you to check out of the world, but only long enough to help you recover and face it again. [May 2019, p.48]- The Wire
Posted May 20, 2019 -
- Critic Score
Some will delight in her richly creative studio experiments, while others may find it too vague and discursive, despite several strong cuts like "Devotions" and "Think About It/What U Think?". [Dec 2025, p.63]- The Wire
Posted Nov 14, 2025 -
- Critic Score
As it is, it's a new Godspeed album and it's a good one, but when you have set your standards as high as they have, it can only seem like a failure. [Nov 2012, p.59]- The Wire
Posted Dec 7, 2012 -
- Critic Score
So many groups enthused by punk's initial promise have done little more than dance around in its corpse. Sleaford Mods have managed to animate its ghost. [Jul 2015, p.52]- The Wire
Posted Jul 27, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Like Portishead, this album may very well achieve background ubiquity, but that should not be allowed to obscure the strangeness and currency of this record. [Mar 2011, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Apr 28, 2011 -
- Critic Score
IDLSIDGO is monumental in its willingness to just be a great rap album. [May 2015, p.59]- The Wire
Posted May 15, 2015 -
- Critic Score
He has the knack of E-40, of Slick Rick, of George Clinton, for whipping up ugly shit with infantile rhyme to make it taste like candyfloss. On “Outside!”, he turns “Who want to die” into a sprightly singalong. The cheer proves to be a cover for both an experimental edge more disruptive than that of Some Rap Songs and a hefty impact when Vince does finally start to crumble. [Feb 2019, p.56]- The Wire
Posted Jan 25, 2019 -
- Critic Score
What on the record might be the magnified pop of dust and surface scratch, here could represent imperfections on a cosmic scale--the debris of space and time, swallowed and digested. Where Basinski succeeds is the tone he adopts; rather than the heavy dread of inevitable supermassive doom, these sections are somehow wide-eyed and full of slowly drifting wonder. [Mar 2019, p.49]- The Wire
Posted Mar 7, 2019 -
- Critic Score
One can’t help but be in awe of the production mastery on display and the confidence with which Matmos have turned a man’s creative remains into a freshly expressive musical instrument. [Jun 2022, p.51]- The Wire
Posted Jun 14, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Armed with limited instrumentation and Knapp’s understated vocal, the album’s seven tracks take on a form of storytelling, made alive with synthesized fluttering bat wings, bouts of sax squall and sinewy electronic backbeats. [Jul 2022, p.53]- The Wire
Posted Jun 15, 2022 -
- Critic Score
Only time will tell which albums will ring out as genuine artefacts and which will be revealed as little more than sound and fury, signifying nothing. [Apr 2017, p.46]- The Wire
Posted Jun 2, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Rampen feels more expansive than much recent output – it’s certainly longer, but its panoramic character is neither purely durational nor new for the band. Their affinity for a kind of psych folk balladry has been clear since at least as early as their covers of Lee Hazlewood’s “Sand” (1985) and Bonnie Dobson’s “Morning Dew” (1987). Rampen calls both to mind, but the work it’s most consistent with is 1996’s Ende Neu, an album of latent possibilities in the pit of a creative block. [Jun 2024, p.48]- The Wire
Posted May 14, 2024