The Telegraph (UK)'s Scores

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For 1,238 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 77
Highest review score: 100 Hit Me Hard and Soft
Lowest review score: 20 Killer Sounds
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 882 out of 1238
  2. Mixed: 354 out of 1238
  3. Negative: 2 out of 1238
1238 music reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Viva Las Vengeance
    A fun, enjoyable vessel that spotlights a magnetic talent. The music might not entirely be Panic! at the Disco’s own – but like fellow Vegas bigwig Elvis, that’s clearly no barrier.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Holy Fvck
    Holy Fvck sounds like a genuine attempt to deal with a troubled adulthood and leave the past behind.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    RZA Presents: Bobby Digital And The Pit Of Snakes
    For the Wu-Tang purists, twitchy for a return to the raw Only Built 4 Cuban Linx sonics, the music here isn’t exactly going to quench your thirst. But it’s further proof that what the RZA truly savours is stepping outside of his comfort zone, and it's a relief to once again hear a little weirdness in rap.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Unwanted
    Unwanted calls to mind a Jacqueline Wilson novel transposed into an LP format, its 12 songs relentlessly circling over ‘difficult emotions’ – awkwardness, rejection, and, yes, it’s okay to express your anger. And these, of course, are well-worn teen-pop topics already.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 2
    A hazy collection of groove-driven vocal tracks featuring singers and rappers.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All 4 Nothing
    All 4 Nothing ultimately fails to expand his sound.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Surrender
    The album feels longer than its 12 tracks, and frequently verges on overblown. But perhaps that’s the point. Surrender leans so hungrily into its sonic vision of maximal catharsis that the album soon embodies its title – and propels you into doing the same.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Give or Take
    Give Or Take presents Giveon as an undeniable talent who isn’t inclined to go deeper than his comfort zone for now; he coasts quite sweetly, between heartache and humblebrag.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    18
    An uneven yet entertaining album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Other Side of Make-Believe
    The Other Side of Make Believe scarcely risks driving away disciples. Nor does it cravenly go after fresh converts.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hellfire
    While still manic in its tempo-changing lunacy, Hellfire is more approachable and organised, as the production by sometime Björk engineer Marta Salogni asserts a certain order amid the vari-speed chaos.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beatopia
    Ballads like Ripples and Lovesong barely make a dent, although the bossa nova lilt of The Perfect Pair and pop beat of Tinkerbell Is Overrated fare better. Matty Healy of prominent labelmates The 1975 co-writes a couple of tracks, but his influence overwhelms the album’s delicate palette.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gemini Rights
    On Gemini Rights, his second solo album proper, Lacy returns to a familiar well of sexy debauchery and smooth licks, while unpicking the emotional aftermath of a recent break-up.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dear Scott
    Shackled by its own turgid competency, Dear Scott fizzes with all the life of a demo tape recorded in a local community hall double-booked with a bingo night. No matter how loud you turn up the volume, it still sounds quiet. It sounds uncomfortably naked, too.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Used to Think I Could Fly
    McRae is primed for success, though, and while her songs can verge on self-indulgence – there’s a fair amount of navel-gazing at play – they’ll surely speak to a teenage audience. This is well-made, ear-wormy pop music, guaranteed to hit a nerve.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Live at the El Mocambo
    This is the Stones’ 12th live album. Do we need another one? Not really. Live at the El Mocambo is one for dedicated fans and completists, but it’s a fascinating snapshot of a band in transition – and great fun.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How to Let Go
    The album retains the competent aura of Sigrid’s debut, if not always its punch. Her unrelentingly talented vocal performances on tracks like piano ballad Last To Know strip her back to the artist before the fame, the artist at her piano at home in Norway. But high-octane pop remains the place where she really shines.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alpha Games
    Alpha Games should please their established fanbase, but Bloc Party still sound strangely ambivalent, trapped between the visceral thrill of lean, modern guitar music and their doubts about its form and function.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Serpentina
    SERPENTINA isn’t a coherent whole but rather a doggerel and ill-considered mishmash of disparate parts.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mainstream Sellout
    Mainstream Sellout portrays MGK as a victim of success; it gleams like a fancy ornament on an industry merry-go-round – then the music hits you, not with a roar, but a very loud meh.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oochya!
    The songs themselves may not be complex but the simple and sincere emotions expressed on anthems such as the chiming indie epic Forever, the rip-roaring AC/DC-style rocker Running Round My Brain and the Rod-Stewart-flavoured piano ballad Every Dog Has Its Day carry a potent weight of feeling and offer euphoric release.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jacob's Ladder
    As always with Mehldau ambition often tips over into pretentiousness, but one forgives him because there’s a real musical sensibility at work.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Donda 2
    The most disappointing thing is how thin much of Donda 2 sounds, how messy and badly structured the songs are, how few pop hooks or memorable melodies it conjures, and how weak and repetitive West’s rhymes often are.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Night Call
    The don’t-bore-us, get-to-the-chorus model followed by the top half of Night Call works fine when taken in pieces, or as the beat-driven soundtrack to a gym workout. But it frustrates and alienates in its album sequence. Yet, Night Call delivers in affirming Olly Alexander as an artist capable of connecting with a varied, multi-generational audience.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Voyage
    When the harmonies blend and Andersson’s piano rings out, it sounds enough like Abba to have hardcore fans tossing their feather boas in the air. But the dancing queens have lost the spring in their step, and the result is out-of-time rather than timeless.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Future Past
    Everything on this flashy, melodramatic album punches its weight. If it had come out in 1985, it would have ruled the world.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music of the Spheres
    There have been many great sci-fi concept albums before, but Coldplay’s offering is not so much about exploring the outer limits as continued world domination. It's Zippy Starburst and the Earworms from Marketing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How Beautiful Life Can Be
    This appealing set of 12 short, sweet, heartfelt songs rattles along with gorgeous vocals, silvery guitar lines and perky bass and drum rhythms, stirring a jaunty singalong spirit of friends on a mission. But if the Lathums truly aspire to be the indie voice of a new generation, they are going to have to sharpen their quills or invest in a rhyming dictionary.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Donda
    He is, it is true, a singular talent and his inner monologues crackle with an undeniable dark alchemy. And yet, like a sermon that goes on too long, Kanye’s stream-of-conscience observations on Jesus, Kim Kardashian and the importance of being Kanye suffer for an absence of breathing space. Full of sound and fury it may be – but West’s latest ultimately lacks direction.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Solar Power
    It sounds utterly gorgeous, and perhaps this laid-back, stripped-down folksy bent is part of a generational pop shift, echoing the intimate minimalism of Billie Eilish – but I have my doubts. ... Lorde’s lyrics are still acute, her singing superb, her songs beguiling, but her perspective has shifted from every-girl outsider to over-privileged solipsist. Solar Power is underpowered and unlikely to set the world on fire.
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