Chicago Tribune's Scores

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For 566 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
Lowest review score: 25 Graffiti
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 456 out of 566
  2. Mixed: 97 out of 566
  3. Negative: 13 out of 566
566 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Under the Savage Sky
    Greenberg again contributes a handful of songs to the toughest sounding Savages recording yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sound & Fury
    Distortion-saturated guitars, synthesizers squealing like tea kettles and tribal drums give country tradition a swift kick in the back side. This carnage doesn’t belong to a genre, it’s more like a feeling: Side 2 of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Rust Never Sleeps,” ZZ Top demos after three cases of Tequila in a Texas roadhouse, a hurricane.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Swanlights
    On Swanlights, Hegarty's fourth album under the Antony and the Johnsons moniker, the darkness lifts, and the singer sounds almost buoyant.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Fun Rises, the Fun Sets
    The songs marinate in sexual imagery, but it's more sensual than explicit.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Ship
    An album that has few direct antecedents in his vast discography and arrives as a late-career landmark.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Near to the Wild Heart of Life
    At its best, "Wild Heart of Life" approaches that recording's [2012's "Celebration Rock"] peak moments, but it too often undercuts them by trying to pull the duo out of its minimalist arena-punk corner.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Brill Bruisers
    Brill Bruisers sounds like a bunch of friends reuniting for a long-overdue blow-out.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Hope Six Demolition Project
    It all builds masterfully to a powerful, closing one-two punch.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Unseen In Between
    At times in the past, Gunn’s songs felt like they were skimming the surface of multiple genres. On The Unseen in Between, the guitarist more fully submerges himself--and by extension, his listeners--in his most personal songs yet.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Coexist
    The melodies aren't quite as immediate as the best songs from the debut, but Coexist functions as a near-perfect mood piece.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Dirty Pictures, Pt. 1
    Dirty Pictures (Part 1) (Contender) comes close enough often enough to qualify as a worthy substitute for one of the Philadelphia quintet's bar-room blowouts.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Post Pop Depression
    For all of Pop's well-earned reputation as a bare-chested banshee in concert, he has an expressive, even sonorous baritone voice, and a pithiness as a lyricist. His words brim with battle-scarred imagery and humor.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Schmilco
    Wilco has made a weird little folk record. It not only sounds different than the band's previous album, but slightly out of step with the rest of its discography.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Restarter
    Torche perfects its volatile mix, a work that at least matches the potent Meanderthal (2008) as a career peak.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    American VI: Ain't No Grave
    The music casts long shadows, packed with foreboding. But Cash's voice isn't particularly morbid or self-pitying. Instead, it's tinged by longing--not for what he's leaving behind, but for what's next.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Blessed
    Williams lets the songs burn slowly and sensually until there's nothing left but smoke and ash.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Psychedelic Pill
    The foursome may be interrupted by time and circumstance, but whenever they find themselves in a room together with their instruments they pick up the conversation exactly where they left off.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Live in London
    Beneath the energetic exterior, a steely resolve informs the songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nothing Was the Same
    Drake’s increasing mastery of not just rhyme, but tone and inflection is readily apparent.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    National Ransom
    As with many of his releases the last decade, National Ransom is kind of a mess, with enough scattered gems to reward deeper investigation.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Strict Joy
    Producer Peter Katis (who has worked with The National and Interpol) ornaments the duo’s foundation--Hansard’s battered acoustic guitar, Irglova’s piano, co-ed harmonies--with nuanced orchestration and a spacious mix that flatters the singers’ interplay.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Soldier Of Love
    But mostly “Soldier of Love” presents Sade as a genre unto herself; after 25 years, she remains alluring and subtly rewarding, while still keeping the listener at a safe distance, as if she had even deeper secrets to guard.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Woman
    Rhye’s debut album, Woman, is a beautifully sequenced song cycle of soul music with the flame turned low. It’s sexy, but not overheated
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sukierae
    The second disc is lower key, a less varied collection of music than Disc 1. Though it might have made sense for tonal variety to distribute the acoustic pieces more evenly between the two albums, they work together in creating a sustained mood piece.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Gloss Drop
    "Playful" isn't often the first word that comes to mind when listening to music with this kind of cerebral veneer, but it's a perfectly apt description of Battles' subversive and frequently delightful brand of avant-pop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Both
    It's a unified album, in which sound is every bit as crucial as craft. Despite the formidable solo careers involved, The Both improbably sounds like the work of a band.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Silver Bullets
    There are no throwaways on this album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Lover
    An album where the filler and the nuggets struggle for supremacy. ... Yet even those indifferent to Swift’s charms since she emerged as a teen-pop hitmaker in 2006 would probably acknowledge that she’s got a knack for writing hooks, and there are plenty of them on “Lover.”
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Electric
    “Dream Attic” was looser and rougher than the guitarist had been in quite some time, a timely reminder that Thompson could still let it rip, and Electric follows suit.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Witness
    Booker soundtracks his anxiety with music that feels more textured and spacious than any he has made previously.
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