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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There's Always Another Girl
    Hatfield has again delivered a crisp collection of tunes that mostly succeeds.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Music Complete
    This overflows with ideas and intricate synth patterns while maintaining the emotional resonance of the band’s best work.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Messenger
    The Messenger, his second solo album, is a bracing reminder of his talents as a sonic architect.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Folie A Deux
    It's simply another sturdy album that plays up what Fall Out Boy does best: rocking the arena with barely a second to catch your breath.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strangeland
    Frontman Tom Chaplin continues to imbue it all with freshness and wonder making Strangeland an inviting place.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Time for Dreaming
    No Time for Dreaming is a searing testament to the power of perseverance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cass County
    While the contributors are many, Cass County is a Henley vision down to its bones.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Year Zero
    It's classic Nine Inch Nails with a few extra-disturbing flourishes.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Olympia
    The former Roxy Music frontman doesn't disappoint on his 13th solo album, a mesmerizing swirl of pulsating guitars, whooshing keys, and lite-funk undertones.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Somewhere Else
    Sally Shapiro has beguiled fans at the intersection of electronic dance music and twee indie-pop with its near-perfect time capsules of ’80s synth-pop. The format hasn’t strayed much on this third full-length album, although the landscape has.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Holding Hands With Jamie
    By reinventing the idea of what a guitar-centric band should sound like from the bottom up, Girl Band has established itself as a much-needed force in rock, and Holding Hands With Jamie is among most exhilarating opening salvos of 2015.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Steve Reich: WTC 9/11
    It's the rigor and directness of the voice-music connection--and the apparent lack of artifice--that makes for the work's stark power.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Finding Forever
    Finding Forever finds Common at his best lyrically, which means at his most basic, bending beats to fit his deliberate delivery.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fear Fun
    Tillman had released solo records before joining Fleet Foxes in 2008, but none of them was as vivid as his latest.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dirty Side Down
    Overall, the group's singing is mixed too low (vocals are not its strong suit anyway), but the music is consistently strong.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    West
    Fortunately, the alt-country singer-songwriter’s gifts of soul mining are so acute that the songs — inspired by her mother’s passing and a wrenching breakup — enrich as well as exhaust, and engender cautious optimism.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Into the Deep
    Galactic backs each act with professional, jazz-influenced ease and, on some songs, a hedonistic, dance-rock pulse a la Prince, all the while keeping its Mardi Gras flavor.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ouroboros
    LaMontagne plays exquisite lead guitar throughout, backed by James on celestial harmonies that boost the psychedelic mood even higher. The resulting album is soothing therapy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ex Tropical
    Lost Animal is the project of Australian musician Jarrod Quarrell, whose hypnotic songs sound utterly suspended in time and free of genre.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vampire Weekend
    At its best, Vampire Weekend takes the exceedingly familiar template of indie rock and invigorates it with a chiming guitar sound that suggests the band has been spending its downtime browsing afropop.org.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Further Explorations [Live]
    Not only does the trio turn over new delights in familiar numbers like "Gloria's Step" and "Turn Out the Stars," but it even unearths "Song No. 1," an Evans composition he never recorded.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ears
    Smith creates wide-eyed compositions with textures that cascade over one another, capturing the vast celestial wonder of synthesized sound.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturation III
    The disc exudes confidence on every front, though the group’s ambitions seem scaled up to world domination.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Steel Train
    Steel Train is among those bands whose members weaned in the '90s and are now busting out their coming-of-age anthems. The band handles the job well on its new self-titled album, capturing the angst and uncertainty of young adulthood with freshly rendered details.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Voice of Ages
    The Chieftains' new Voice of Ages gives voice to the Civil Wars, the Decemberists, the Low Anthem, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Pistol Annies, and the Secret Sisters, among others, but its identity as a Chieftains album is never in doubt.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Django and Jimmie
    In addition to a clutch of strong originals, the men also take on another lion with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and each puts a stamp on one of the other’s classics as Haggard tackles “Family Bible” and Nelson croons “Somewhere Between.”
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Breeze: An Appreciation of J.J. Cale
    Clapton shares some of his most transcendent guitar playing in years, especially the slide-guitar peaks of “I’ll Be There” and “I Got the Same Old Blues.” Most of his collaborations are inspired.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dame Fortune
    Regardless of the constantly evolving mood, RJ finds new ways to surprise and engage your ears.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sounds Of The Universe
    Its 12th full-length album fits neatly into its discography while sounding contemporary and building on the trio's lean electro-rock.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Future's Void
    When the fireworks gently pop and fizzle out in the last breath of EMA’s new album, it feels like the only way to close such an emotionally visceral set of songs.
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