Consequence's Scores

For 4,034 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Channel Orange
Lowest review score: 0 Revival
Score distribution:
4034 music reviews
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's a jumbled mess that's partly aggravating in its derivative nature. Not coincidentally, you live up to the album's title by its end. Still, like any long, tiring trip, it's the moments that count. Moby continues to excel in that.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Although this is a solid step towards solidifying an already tight presentation, it could go deeper. There is still a disconnect between Ebert’s philosophy of childlike adventurousness and community-building and the songs themselves.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While Head Carrier may fall far short of lightning bolts raining down from Olympus, there’s enough reason to believe Pixies have a bit of thunder in them yet.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Leave it up to an overly trippy album like Gemini, Her Majesty to not only mix one of the most eccentric actors ever with an aquatic bird, but also a giant fish.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It’s a reset of the odometer rather than a definitive statement of destination.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Chasing Yesterday, the second album from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, sounds an awful lot like Gallagher’s past efforts, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While The Green EP feels a bit long for its purposes, it never gets exasperating--quite the achievement for a collection of unreleased records.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It turns out they were right to push through the breakup, but a few bleak songs dampen the high they’re chasing after as a result.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, Amen & Goodbye largely works in the realms of humongous. There could well be a clear, concise thesis buried somewhere in all that business, but it’s very difficult to pick out amidst all the signifiers.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Although Weezer’s shared love of (and debt) to the Sabbaths and Van Halens of the world is undeniable, their homages to those bands feel as scattershot as they are heartfelt.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While Lynch and Rasmussen manage a keen awareness of how technology will continue to shape us, the way they process that fear feels tired, not adding anything new to the conversation.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    For now, Pool is a pleasant enough record, but one that doesn’t quite hook into the emotions or memory.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    iii
    Aside from “For U” (which features Charli XCX) and its Bloc Party aping intro, almost all of the fist-pumping energy of the debut has receded into a more mature, yet less thrilling persona.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    If you’re a Barnes completist, it’s totally worth a listen. For everyone else, it’s hardly essential.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    McGuinness’s inclination to throw the kitchen sink at listeners is as fully on display here as it’s ever been, which makes for a pretty busy listen. But it never threatens to get stuck down one track for too long, and that might be the best thing that Chroma has working in its favor.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It’s a mixed bag, but an overall pleasant and inoffensive one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    .5: The Gray Chapter may not win over new fans to the rest of their catalog, but it’s enough to open the eyes of those of us who haven’t given Slipknot a second thought in 10 years.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    This makes for an uneven listening experience and detracts from the sharply conceived and executed songs. Three years is a long time to wait for such unbalanced output.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The fickle genres of 99¢ not only see Santigold challenging the rules of pop, but bettering herself. In writing for others, Santigold grows a backbone that defines her unapologetically bold sound, even if she doesn’t push her lyrics as far as she does the music.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Adequacy is a trait that fits Stranger Things well. It’s not a disappointment like Glow & Behold, but then it only occasionally manages to reach the heights of Yuck’s debut.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It makes a skeptical, new listener wonder if they spent themselves creatively, shoving too much onto one album when they could have honed in more closely on a few clear ideas.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Throughout Earth Suck, Oozing Wound manage to deliver biting criticisms and headbanging riffs with their tongues in their cheeks, without either losing the power of the music or biting those tongues clean off.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    C’est La Vie has moments of real beauty and depth while reflecting on fatherhood and settling down. But Houck should keep pushing into the strange, uncomfortable places where his best music gets made; now’s not the time to shrug it off.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Robyn, her keyboardist Markus Jägerstedt, and the late producer Christian Falk dig into retro dance floor techniques to produce some solid, if unexceptional club tracks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    By lacking any resonant peg and showing little advancement, the record feels like a question mark, a gray spot on the timeline.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, the majority of the tracks here lack that auditory lock-and-key interweave. Instead, Silver attempts to force stylistic egalitarianism, the two sides of his composition awkwardly failing to join.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    There are transitions in mood, but the focus is on love songs with vitriol supplanted by a brand of joie de vivre, the darkness still there but distanced.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Policy may just be too slight to be successful, forcing its shortcomings to be amplified even if there are, in fact, many things to enjoy about this record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The glacial pace and gentle vocals remain, as does the unique mix of electronic landscape and live instrumentation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    There’s quite enough here to suggest that 2:54 will continue to develop and mature, but that may involve reaching out more than searching within.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    There’s only so much traction that can be extracted from adhering too closely to styles this familiar, and White Denim don’t provide quite enough edge to differentiate themselves.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While the album features several standout tracks and stunning vocals, as a whole, over-shined production and mashed-up genres obscure Murphy’s strengths.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The dexterity displayed on Dudesblood, if nothing else, forces fans and listeners to give Sartain’s music a little added pause for thought, and the record does its own small part to help keep today’s garage punk scene on its toes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Crooked Doors stands as the transitional sophomore record where a band appears set to define its own identity, yet still hasn’t completely shed the safety net of its earlier, tamer sound.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    He’s had time to hone his wallflower tendencies, translating them through robust lyrics that capture the depths of human longing, loneliness, and self-awareness. His downfall is his passive delivery of the lyrics, which he often muffles as though he’s a forlorn adolescent poet scribbling verses in his college-ruled notebook.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    On Strong Feelings, his third full-length, Paisley’s pointed but oxygenated arrangements allow the best facets of his penmanship to bold-face themselves.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    His focus on atmosphere isn’t as successful as it should be, especially when the best songs are often the most straightforward.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Reality Testing, then, pushes into new territory so well that it erases the possibility of its existence as a one-time distraction, and its few major successes lead to expectations of a more unified version.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Cold Hot Plumbs’ main failing is that it occasionally can feel like a pedestrian experiment in honoring some of Dwyer’s favorite bands that Thee Oh Sees’ psych rock sound was too straightforward to capture.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    On Pale Horses, they seek a comfortable spot between weighty post-hardcore and artful indie rock introspection, but ultimately sound suppressed.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Though it too often lingers when a punch is needed, Glitterbust carries plenty of weight.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    On first listen, Kibby’s stratospheric vocal style can reach overwrought territory, specifically with the frequent acceleration from ethereal to formidable. For In Cold Blood, however, this approach (and her resultant ability to convey strong emotions) infuses the album with a level of high drama that puts White Sea in the higher tiers of ’80s-worshipping synthpop outfits.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    At times, Habitat feels like a slapdash collection of tracks that didn’t fit anywhere else.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Kotche continues to establish himself as a fresh, progressive voice in contemporary classical music. His vision may not be as defined, but it sure has beautiful and engaging moments.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Barragán, the follow-up to that 2010 misstep [Penny Sparkle], course-corrects well, incorporating the most interesting elements of that electronic side trek while returning a few steps closer to their strengths.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Joanna Gruesome rides on raw emotion, whether it stems from anger or victory, but they lose the edge of their retorts.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Ranked alongside the Heartbreakers’ back catalog, their 13th falls somewhere in the middle. As a measuring of the fire inside Petty, however, readings are strong. Listening to Hypnotic Eye, you can rest assured he’s still kicking.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Now I’m Ready plays like a collection of tracks that didn’t quite make the cut on the season’s coolest synthpop albums, familiar despite its unfamiliarity, pleasant if not exciting.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The production and playing are beautiful throughout the album, and Yusuf’s voice remains remarkably preserved, still able to instantly spring from gentle introspection to emphatic eruptions. The record as a whole does suffer, though, from certain cover choices.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Inevitable End doesn’t have too much to say that hasn’t already been said either by Röyksopp or their descendants. But when it does hit on something, it screams its lungs dry.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The results are never bad, exactly, but they do fall somewhere between tribute and karaoke--call it Now That’s What I Call George.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Truthfully, some of the most affecting songs in the Cheap Girls catalog are the ballads (I’m thinking of “Cored to Empty” off 2012′s Giant Orange) and it’s a shame there are none to be found on Famous Graves.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Rip This is a step forward, but it’s a small, staggered one.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Their voices complement each other and mesh together almost seamlessly, and on tracks like the big-sounding “I Won’t Dance”, it’s hard not to smile at the perfectly executed harmony. Covers of slower tunes like “Nature Boy” don’t really offer much that’s different or new, but they’re beautiful and engaging nonetheless.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    For diehard Iron and Wine or Band of Horses fans, Sing Into My Mouth will make a pleasant supplemental entry into their collections, but for everyone else, it seems to be a record much more fulfilling for its creators than for listeners.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Few artists can make complaining about heartbreak passable subject material, and even fewer come out of that experiment more likable. Despite some too-similar musical passages and a lack of memorable moments in the album’s mid-section, a few gold standard hooks, some heart-pumping pop punk, and clever turns of phrase help Dalliance do just that for Gold-Bears.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Auerbach got the chance to dial down the tempo and warm up the mood with his friends, and if this side gig doesn’t eclipse his main one, at least it has him flexing out of his mold.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Madonna has created this music for an audience of one: Herself. Often it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    MØ deserves credit for consistency; almost every song on Forever Neverland is pleasant enough, but few rise above “pleasant.” The everything-is-a-hook songwriting style works better in small doses.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Unfortunately, Wasted on the Dream gets too mired in the darkness in between its party anthems.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    There’s something to be said for organics, but that conversation isn’t happening here. Become Alive compensates by pinning three powerful songs to its tracklist, but the rest feel like scraps unintentionally left on the inspiration board.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    If the lyrical substance isn’t quite there, at least the riffs are.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Naturally, the beats are excellent across the board, although 21 Savage uses a little more Autotune and makes more of a play for the pop charts with some slinky R&B jams. ... Unfortunately, these reflective moments are outnumbered by repetitive odes to getting high, getting laid, and getting lots of money. What’s worse, some of his lyrics aren’t just bland, but blatantly homophobic.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Trick might not be a must-have album for working DJs across the tech-house scene, but it’s an earnest passion project that will once again bring some new faces into the worlds of dance music and indie alike.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hypnophobia is a pleasant listen, but it passes by as quickly as a warm breeze on a spring afternoon.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Honor is a healthy step back in the right direction, but there’s also no chance of it blossoming into a late-career classic.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    With the whole of Just Enough Hip to Be Woman, though, there’s more needed to jump into greatness than just those peppy, almost virulent hooks.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    All Hands may be better than many group hip-hop albums, but the whole comes up as less than the sum of this collective’s talented parts.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    On Evil Genius, Gucci Mane sounds like he’s having fun and his rapping is as polished as ever. But too much of the album comes across as filler, and his lyrics seem afraid to take any kind of chance.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    As pleasant and competent as Sand + Silence is, it rarely emphatically grabs attention. Instead, it’s an appealing but overall unremarkable batch of well-recorded indie pop. That’s it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Zahner-Isenberg has changed his focus more toward the piano and atmospherics on At Best Cuckold, as opposed to the complicated guitar lines of their debut, and it works well. However, to keep growing, the band can’t stay focused on cute adolescent lyrics that, while tongue-in-cheek, don’t match the lush intricacies of the music behind them.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While Classic Zeus sounds like it’s supposed to be catchy, it’s ultimately impossible to remember.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Oddly enough, The Getaway starts to flounder whenever RHCP revert back to their old habits.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While The Saga Continues engenders enough wistful reminiscences to satisfy the core, it provides shockingly little in the way of memorable moments.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    At nearly 80 minutes, it’s understandable for an album like Hardwired… to Self-Destruct to have lulls, but the band gets way too comfortable way too early.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The album feels like a careful study of new techniques, but the end result never breaks into more than a simmer.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    A mixed blessing. The musical edifice that he and his cohorts have built is strong and daringly modern, but they’ve decorated the insides with spray paint and hashtagged sentiments.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Many of these songs will soar in arenas and on festival main stages. They’re expansive, epic, and Mayberry’s powerful voice never wavers. But that openness comes at a price, and throughout Love Is Dead, every time CHVRCHES have the chance to get stranger, messier, and more unique, they rein in their eccentricities, going cleaner and more general.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The last few tracks are memorable because they’re so strange, but City of Quartz falls short by suffering an overarching identity crisis.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The vocals feel particularly watered down, a pastel blur that lacks the highs and lows that the Leopards had delivered in the past, the songs blending too anonymously into each other.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Darkness and Light loses its depth, however, when Legend skews toward pop (see: “Love Me Now”), even if these songs do maintain a catchy candor. Fortunately for the album, they’re rare and few.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It is, overall, inoffensive and even likable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Amos manages to weave her own mythology into larger fantastical stories, and fight societal norms in the process, all with a fierceness that will please old fans and likely win over new ones.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    My Dear Melancholy, has cohesion, but it’s a listless, murky sound that never unhinges the way you want it to. Had he pushed a little further, it could have made for something more substantial, rather than walking up to the cusp and then backing down.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’ seems concerned with little more than keeping up appearances. Hopefully, the high points of the album are a proper barometer, and Kid Cudi’s next destination is a sight better than this.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Especially on the front half, tracks flow into each other inconspicuously, and two of the nine are one song split into two parts, probably unnecessarily. The effect, then, is a bit of a shrug, a signal that James either has less to say or is less inclined to profess it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Skip A Sinking Stone is Lee’s most mature, thoughtful work yet, filled with complex reflection and meditation. That sense of calm also serves as the record’s biggest drawback, as it lacks the dramatic tension and sweeping heights that made songs like “Golden Wake” or “Advanced Falconry” so direct and impactful.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Gang of Four have always been emotional in their own way, but when the emotions are broadcast so loudly, they drown out the anxiety. They drown out the energy.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It’s undoubtedly healthy for musicians to step outside of their main project to spread their wings and create something new. But in the end, the project reads as only a slight tweak on Berninger and Knopf’s established voices.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It’s a unique recording, a shocking, exciting collaboration performed in full faith. But it too often fails to be more than the sum of its parts.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    AFI covers most of the band’s explored genres, giving fans from every era something to appreciate. Unfortunately, this means no one will be completely satisfied.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    niggas on the moon might be their most polarizing release yet, simply because it’s non-musical in many ways.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Although it features a few radio-ready summer moments, Waiting on a Song never quite rises to the heights reached by its famous collaborators or canon-approved inspirations.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Zola Jesus has a firm grip on the magnificence her songs can accomplish. Without the threat of failure, though, that beauty runs too smooth.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    While the album is undoubtedly fun and includes a few absolute gems, this mismatch [twisted samples meant to indulge the horror intentions, but rarely entirely integrated into the music] makes Slasher House a middling success.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hollywood offers few surprises, leaving listeners with memorable hooks and impressive sonics but little information about the man at the center of it all.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Though the 19-track, 22-minute album zips by at a Black Flag pace, the songs feel more akin to Calvin Johnson’s monotone confessionals. Engle’s voice is meek and exposed, though he still manages to assert himself over the pummeling drums and sharp guitar riffs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    On a practical level, High Country is a decade-old band trying out different material. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    If there’s one knock against Santana IV, it’s that it might be a little too overstuffed, with a tendency to occasionally wander into the realm of the self-indulgent.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Perhaps treasures will be revealed when we apply the deep, close attention Perkins requests. But not enough breadcrumbs are strewn along the path to encourage the search.