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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    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Return of the Tender Lover
    A satisfying mix of adult pop-soul love songs that evoke his early work. These amiable, adroitly produced and arranged songs confirm his inimitable knack for graceful melodies and effortless hooks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kill the One You Love
    Less visceral than Beach House and more rhythmic than Trespassers William, GEMS creates its own distinct shade of contemporary dream-pop. Usher’s angular guitar work and layers of synths provide a luxuriously designed sonic backdrop for Pitts’s doomed romanticism.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Every song here features cascades of syllables, careful integration of repetition, and narrative momentum.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    25
    If there are no uptempo blazers on the order of "Rolling in the Deep" or "Rumor Has It," the album doesn’t suffer in quality for the lack.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Incredible True Story
    With the creative confidence to go with his considerable skills and heart, Logic crafts some polished and appealing material.... Overall, a step up for the sophomore.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Comes the Night
    No one does heartbreak and yearning quite like this veteran singer-songwriter, who sounds renewed here with a streamlined sound in these 12 carefully observed, beautifully sung songs.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Misunderstood
    Church had already set the bar high for himself with his watershed 2011 release, “Chief,” and more disparate 2014 album, “The Outsiders.” He vaults over that bar with “Mr. Misunderstood,” in some ways a love letter to music itself and to the ways it can save a soul, a heart, a sense of self.
    • 99 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966
    It’s fascinating to hear how some songs started in one direction and darted into another one entirely.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Get Up
    Adams starts promisingly with the rockabilly-etched “You Belong to Me” and mission statement “Go Down Rockin’ ” (”I ain’t gonna slow down/ I’m gonna go down rockin’ ”). But things flatten out with the repetitive “Do What You Gotta Do” and the embarrassing “Thunderbolt.”
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Return to the Moon
    On Return to the Moon, their debut for 4AD, the duo play off each other’s strengths--Knopf’s kaleidoscopic art rock and Berninger’s impressionistic storytelling--to skim the best of both worlds.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am a Problem: Mind in Pieces
    Wolf Eyes’ travels through the depths of noise and despair sound like they end up at a place where the gates read “Abandon All Hope,” but the group’s ability to put across its artistic vision with such totality should inspire at least a flicker of optimism.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Son Little
    His self-titled debut on Anti- Records requires several listens before it comes into focus as a shape-shifting exploration of identity both personal and universal.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    South Broadway Athletic Club
    This 11th album is slighter than the group’s finest records yet there are enough emotionally true narratives here brimming with soul and bruised wisdom.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Liberman
    Fueled by exploration and musical experimentation, Carlton’s reinvention finds her a long way from “A Thousand Miles”--and in a better place, artistically.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Divers
    On Divers, her breathtaking follow-up to 2010’s “Have One on Me,” the singer, songwriter, and harpist affirms her stature as a visionary. It’s the most streamlined of her four albums.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Storyteller
    There’s plenty on Storyteller that will sound familiar to Underwood fans, and a few filler tracks. But a little stretching goes a long way, and this might be her most interesting album yet.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Color Before the Sun
    The music was recorded in a Nashville studio with few overdubs, which lends a welcome organic crunch at times. But overall, the consistency is not what it could be.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All We Need
    Raury’s spirit and intent are laudable, but his broad lyrics and potpourri musical approach need refining.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sermon on the Rocks
    Singer-songwriter Josh Ritter is moving fast on his eighth album, but he never puts a foot wrong. The 12-track collection, produced by Trina Shoemaker over two weeks in New Orleans, is positively giddy with wordplay.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revival
    A forthright album of pop songs that make it clear she is ready to be honest and even vulnerable in her music.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Incidental Hum
    Among 12 originals there are a couple of failures (“Winslow” is soft, creamy, and dull), but the vast majority insinuate themselves into your brain with repeat listens. Not much commercial potential, but a job well done.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fast Forward
    Whether he is grappling with his confusion with the modern world in the searching title track, mulling the delightful aggravations of relationships on “If It Wasn’t For You” and the joys of making up on “A Little Smile,” or working up a froth on his rage, rattle, and roll version of Television’s “See No Evil,” Jackson is in peak form.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Uncovered
    Colvin struggles with the Band’s complex “Acadian Driftwood,” but otherwise shines.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stories
    Stories drags a bit at the end, the low point being a reggae-lite track starring former Fugee Wyclef Jean and the fusion-minded Matisyahu, but when it hits, it hits big.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New Bermuda
    What’s surprising isn’t that the band takes such leaps, but that it nails its landings so surely.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    Unbreakable is much closer in sound and spirit to her peak self, and her most solid release in years.
    • 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.
    • 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
    Music Complete
    This overflows with ideas and intricate synth patterns while maintaining the emotional resonance of the band’s best work.
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