Boston Globe's Scores

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For 2,093 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 66% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 City of Refuge
Lowest review score: 10 Lulu
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,670 out of 2093
  2. Mixed: 412 out of 2093
  3. Negative: 11 out of 2093
2093 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Majesty Shredding
    The volleying guitars of "My Gap Feels Weird" and friendly ferocity of "Rope Light" signal a group with the same playful spirit that made its best work roar (see: 1994's "Foolish"), but with refreshed energy from a nine-year nap.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All I Ever Wanted
    No matter the stage of the romance, it's always DEFCON 1 in Clarkson-ville. And on All I Ever Wanted, out Tuesday, that melodrama translates into a delightfully incongruous good time.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Family
    Richard’s “One Life at a Time” is roots-rock for the barroom, and Linda simply shimmers on the folk lament “Bonny Boys.” Kami’s buoyant “Careful” proves she’s the pop singer of the bunch. Zak gives “Root So Bitter” some pluck and pickup, while Jack’s “At the Feet of the Emperor” is a sumptuous instrumental. Teddy steals the show with the title track.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tha Carter III
    That said, it's not an instant classic, but it is the best rap album since Kanye West dropped "Graduation" last year.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Told You I Was Freaky
    While memories of the accompanying visuals of the jokes from the series helps, it is by no means strictly necessary to enjoy the humor and musicianship of Freaky.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2
    Rapping about how well you rap is both stubbornly old school and totally meta. It's also a form of hip-hop Darwinism, as the Beastie Boys, now in their mid-40s and still one step ahead of trash-talking competitors, demonstrate to the fullest on their eighth studio album.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sleep Well Beast
    There may not be any moments of dramatic catharsis to compete with “Sea of Love” or “Mr. November,” but the band’s gift for slow, sad beauties (“Nobody Else Will Be There,” “Carin at the Liquor Store”) remains undiminished. Even as they tinker with their style, The National can’t help but sound like themselves.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Colors
    If Beck is Generation X’s answer to David Bowie, then “Colors” is his “Let’s Dance”: an intentionally lightweight, enjoyable mid-career effort with one eye on the dance floor and one on radio playlists. Whether it returns him to his former hitmaker status remains to be seen, but “Colors” definitely succeeds in putting the spring back in Beck’s step.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turn Out the Lights
    Aching, vulnerable, and unsparing in detail, her creations invite you to listen with your whole self and feel along.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Things That Can't Be Undone
    For all the lyrical power of those songs (and others here), the album’s most affecting moment may be its most plain-spoken: At the set’s end, Lund shares a song about a young niece who died of cancer, “Sunbeam,” that brims with quiet, heartfelt beauty.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I'm New Here
    The album is very much a producer’s piece, all layers, overdubs, and effects. Yet the swirling miasma of sound wholly suits Scott-Heron’s mood, which is angry yet humble, and even more his voice, which is rich and intent as ever.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Volume X
    Trans Am has proven more complex than most critical reductions would suggest, and its 10th album plays like a highlight reel of the band’s best facets.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Grief
    Overall, in fact, the music on Good Grief isn’t as expansive as was “Wildewoman.” But it still comes across that way thanks to Wolfe and Laessig, who infuse their performances with a joy that’s almost unfettered, even when wallowing in pits of sorrow.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bloodsports
    Decade-long hiatus or no decade-long hiatus, Bloodsports finds Suede in exactly its element.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Woman
    It’s a roller coaster, to be sure, but it’s one that Olsen controls with a steady hand even as she sings for her life.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revelation Road
    Slow, spare, and offhand, the song ["I Want to Go Back" ] admits to the restlessness that has led the gifted 42-year-old through many unpolished musical shifts, and it epitomizes the decidedly secular, deceptively low-key revelations on Revelation Road.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At My Age
    The album traverses Ray Charles-like country soul, smoky late-night jazz, lush Western swing, and even a bit of Rockpile-style rockabilly.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Puberty 2
    The album is simultaneously beautiful and shocking, its razor-sharp originality infinitely relatable.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Islah
    The album doesn’t shy from its broad ambitions, offering a glossy club jam (“Kno One”) and an after-hours groove (“One Thing”), tracks that require Gates to ease back his flow and craft a knockout hook to carry the song, something he also does on the anthemic “2 Phones.” But as a lyricist, Gates is closer to Ghostface Killah or Beanie Sigel.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Invisible Way
    The Invisible Way is as spare, heavy, and lovely as anything Low’s ever done, but it feels essential; there’s an extra beauty to the bleakness of these songs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rest in Chaos
    After an all-covers debut, this second album is a major step forward.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Walk Through Exits Only
    Despite his place among metal royalty, Anselmo remains a convincing outsider, partially because he doesn’t exclude himself from his own rants.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lese Majesty
    While there are songs of undeniable artistic invention (“Dawn in Lexor,” “#CAKE”) there are also moments of ostentatious indulgence, intellectual handstands that feel like ends in themselves. But then, that’s always a hazard with a band this original and audacious.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Country Funk II: 1967-1974
    Finger-lickin’ good.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Epiphany
    While the material is strong, this is all about Michele's stylish but subtle vocalizing and its jazzy inflections and nuances.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    So Far Gone [Mixtape]
    His materialism threads throughout So Far Gone (champagne flutes, girls, BlackBerrys, more girls), but he chases that with soft touches of humor and honesty.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Dreaming Room
    Her songs have the sophistication and idiosyncracy of a singular talent. At times (“Show Me Love”) the ethereal arranging meanders, but mostly (“Bread,” “Kiss My Feet,” “Angel”) it has the authority of a signature.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Point Of It All
    His singing throughout is flawless and expressive.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Muchacho
    Phosphorescent’s Muchacho is the kind of album that will take two listens to decide you hate it and then another three to realize how much you actually love it.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Food
    As Kelis herself once said, “Tasty.”
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lantern
    Where “Butter” sounded like he downloaded every idea in his brain into the music, this is more concentrated and immersive; the 13 intricately sculptured songs inform one another and cohere into a complete work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ultimate Victory
    He's made a better disc as he shows growth and depth. In a surprisingly obscenity-free set, Chamillionaire pays increased attention to the world and its contradictions while setting aim at those who have crossed him.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Ice
    In other words, Black Ice is a quintessential, if not exactly essential, AC/DC album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wheelhouse
    Per usual, the writing is sharp and the guitar playing impeccable. Paisley cooks through honky-tonk, country swing, the blues, rockabilly, and weepy ballads with assured command.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Restless Ones
    The group has expanded to four pieces for its most accomplished, most musical album yet.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Better Day
    Better Day is among her most stridently upbeat albums, a feisty antidote to uncertain times.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rooster Rag
    It's a versatile tour de force with Feat's four singers tackling mostly picaresque themes that would make Helm proud.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prism
    It is Perry 101: heart-on-sleeve ballads, bouncy party anthems, and brawny odes to respecting yourself.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mojo
    While 12-bar twang, mean girls, and swampy harmonicas do populate the track list, Mojo is a rock record — and a good one at that.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hold On Now, Youngster
    A welcome throwback to the raw energy of early Kill Rock Star bands, this delirious debut still boasts enough cheeky vigor to sound fresh and new.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feeling Mortal
    Kristofferson’s voice, which is front and center and unvarnished, is something to behold here: craggy but beautiful and forged with wisdom that comes to a lion in winter.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Babel
    The London quartet's hallmarks--plucky banjo, hard-driving acoustic guitar--are in place, but the songs are bigger and bolder, right down to Marcus Mumford's exuberant wails that now grind with more grit.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
    This trippy collection spans Brazilian Tropicalia, '60s psychedelia, classic rock, blissed-out pop, gospel, and a new genre that might be called Hebrew doo-wop--a ridiculous range of styles, but one that works under Banhart's expansive, expressive umbrella
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ellipse
    Mostly, though, Ellipse delivers an inventive yet intimate batch of laptop-pop gems.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Electric
    [Producer] Stuart Price coaxes the best out of the Boys here for some of their finest dancefloor work since 1993's limited edition "Relentless."
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Which Side Are You On?
    Most of this spirited album strikes a natural balance between matters of the heart and causes close to DiFranco's heart.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    One Breath
    It’s hard to say what is more ferocious on Anna Calvi’s new album: her voice, her guitar, or the interplay between the two of them. Together they launch a formidable assault on One Breath.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shaking the Habitual
    Easy listening this is not, but Shaking the Habitual is at least bold and brash, the work of a band hungry to explore strange sonic textures.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    2
    The new album is as fiery and romantic as a youthful tryst, a rock ’n’ roll experience unsullied by the inevitable passage of time and unspoiled by the burden of experience.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All You Need Is Now
    Simon LeBon's still sturdy voice soars over coolly funky backdrops and the grooves are some of the group's most urgent in years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    English Electric
    It’s comfortable, familiar, expected, and joyful.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Phrazes For The Young
    Phrazes for the Young blusters its way through eight songs full of killer hooks and choruses, and then? Well, it’s gone, as fun and fleeting as a carnival ride that’s just a memory a few hours later.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sings the Great Diva Classics
    At age 72, Franklin can still shut down the competition with a breathtaking, gospel-trained grace and power.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Incarnate
    It all sounds compellingly real; guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz adds brain-splitting riffs, and the rhythm section of Mike D’Antonio and Justin Foley locks it down hard.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Summer 08
    Even at its moodiest, this is a deliriously inventive and often whimsical dance record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rising Down
    On the Roots' superb, inky-black tale of paranoia, 2006's "Game Theory," the walls were closing in. On the equally gripping Rising Down, the group's 10th album, out today, the walls are getting demolished.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Victim of Love
    You hear him at the peak of his powers on the title track, whose acoustic soul reels in the band and lets Bradley tell his story, one wounded sentiment at a time.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Emily's D+Evolution
    Her new album builds on that idea [multi-hyphenate] in a thrilling way, taking the experimental ideals that she learned as a student of jazz into new directions--heady funk, tongue-twisting soul, sparsely arranged confessional --that consistently surprise.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midnight At The Movies
    The striking thing about Justin Townes Earle's new record is the variety of styles it visits in just over 30 minutes. Just as striking, this variety doesn't come across as dabbling or disparity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wolf
    If you’ve made your peace with his artistry, the rewards are considerable.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Real Estate
    The music, accordingly, is languorous and minor-key, the guitar work of Matt Mondanile chiming and tuneful in the manner of the Strokes. Nostalgia is carried along by the wind, along with the smell of salt water and hot pretzels.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Emma Jean
    Fields showcases a burnished voice that quakes and quivers with the wisdom only age and experience can afford.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mirage Rock
    Ben Bridwell's voice remains a beguiling instrument in both high and low registers, and there are moments of stark beauty.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Meanest Of Times
    Meanest is everything you want in a Murphys record and a great inauguration for the band's newly minted indie label, Born & Bred Records.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barchords
    At once spacious and intimate, Barchords is an album as suited to a brief romance as it is to a long drive.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loud
    More than her previous records, Loud is all about Rihanna's fighting side.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living Thing
    The Stockholm-based trio has also piped in a good deal of lyrical gravity--another contrast to PB&J's persistently perky first album--and the best tunes have a welcome heft.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lush
    Jordan exudes a level of confidence that’s all her own, never once flinching at the opportunity to reveal her feelings and insecurities, and it’s her insight and level-headedness that take her music beyond catchy earworms.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bad Witch
    Production-wise, the album sounds amazing, every multilayered arrangement and synth tone calibrated for maximum headphone-listening pleasure. ... Reznor is still making records that crackle with restless energy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    The songs on “High as Hope” don’t have as much youthful urgency of past anthems, but Welch’s thoughtful words and the raw power of her melodies keep the songs compelling. The lush production by Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey) and Welch herself (her first production credit) bolster each song with sweeping atmosphere.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trouble in Paradise
    Jackson is more adventurous here.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hvarf/Heim
    Together, the EPs form a beautiful post-rock symphony, topped by singer and guitarist Jonsi Birgisson's simultaneously naive and profound singing.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Do You Like Rock Music?
    BSP has backed up its postured oddities and idiosyncrasies with a new raison d'être: to deliver the true stuff of rock 'n' roll.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Without Fear
    Even better is Wilson’s return as a performing singer-songwriter on his second solo album.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Going Out In Style
    This time out, there's a conceptual framework laid over the proceedings in the tale of the dearly departed, and fictional, Cornelius Larkin.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twice
    The daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook continues to find the sweet spot between reggae and dub’s poppier elements and the sheer breeziness of her voice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Made Up Mind
    While they may stretch out for improvisational flights in concert, Made Up Mind is concise and compelling.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Down to My Last Bad Habit
    It’s a pleasure to report that country music’s ultimate good guy has once again crafted an excellent collection of new music with his 18th album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bear Creek
    Here she flirts with going full-bore on "Rise Again," but otherwise simply continues her ascendance as contemporary pop's most expressive and astonishing singer this side of Adele.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tin Can Trust
    A job well done.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feeler
    It's inexplicable why these songs were deemed weak follow-ups to the Toadies' stellar 1994 debut, as the "Feeler'' tunes - re-recorded with the band's current lineup - exude the sinister tension of the breakout hits while also branching out into other sonic turf
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nocturne
    The sophomore LP from Virginia dream-pop project Wild Nothing, bandleader Jack Tatum at times seems fixated on darkness. But that doesn't stop the songs from glistening with a melancholy polish.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Red Beans and Weiss
    His recorded output is sporadic, which makes his latest, Red Beans and Weiss (terrible title, terrific album) such a welcome pleasure.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Broken Bells
    In stretching the '60s-mining acoustic pop of the Shins over a cracked foundation of sonic-world-building, sometimes one plus one equals three. It's just weird enough to work.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Real
    Loveless continues to manifest a remarkable combination of bruised vulnerability and desperate longing, alongside a tough, self-deprecating resilience, but there’s more of the former and less of the latter this time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Watkins Family Hour
    Their new debut album, Watkins Family Hour, retains all the homespun intimacy of a bunch of musicians enjoying one another’s company and talent.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deer Tick, Vol. 1
    Deer Tick Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 the rare double helping that doesn’t feel excessive or bloated. They’ve got the tunes; whether they’re acoustic or electric is beside the point.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heaven Upside Down
    At a svelte 10 songs and 47½ minutes, Heaven Upside Down is the shortest Marilyn Manson album yet, avoiding the overstuffed redundancy of past efforts. No one expected this band to be doing some of its best work 20 years after it first shook up the zeitgeist, but here it is, continuing to evolve while toning down its more dated or cartoonish aspects.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trap Lord
    Ferg reaches beyond the boroughs and borrows from various regional musical and linguistic influences to create a set of songs laced with introspection, menace, and smartly conceived verses.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Who's Feeling Young Now?
    Disjointedness and pretension are twin possibilities, but the Punch Brothers avoid both pitfalls; what results is always interesting, and sometimes spectacular.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Historicity
    It's a perfect point of introduction to one of the most challenging and satisfying talents in jazz today.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Give Till It's Gone
    It is raw, warped, and cathartic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Volume Two
    Deschanel and Ward continue their winning ways on Volume Two, drawing on their shared love of everything from Bobbie Gentry to Wilco.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Deer Tick, Vol. 2
    Deer Tick Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 the rare double helping that doesn’t feel excessive or bloated. They’ve got the tunes; whether they’re acoustic or electric is beside the point.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loud City Song
    Nobody else is doing what Holter is doing, and it’s well worth following her lead.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shine
    Equally adept at slinging sharp rhymes and jazzy crooning, Estelle has a sweet sense of cool and charm.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mother
    Her return to music is a quiet triumph. For the most part she has flown the Chicks’ country coop for this solo debut, which is a well-curated mostly covers affair.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Dark Age
    MGMT spikes the formula with just enough outsider charm to milk an album’s worth of inspiration from the tired aesthetic. It’s not going to inspire legions of imitators à la “Oracular Spectacular,” but Little Dark Age should be both hooky and eccentric enough to please MGMT fans of all stripes.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Versus
    With its compact running time "Versus'' is in some ways better than the album that spawned it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Up!
    The album is a beguiling mix of acoustic and electric blues, with harmonica legend Musselwhite weaving in and out like a roadhouse virtuoso.
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