Drawer B's Scores

  • Music
For 121 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 55% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 9.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Kill The Moonlight
Lowest review score: 10 This Island
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 73 out of 121
  2. Negative: 21 out of 121
121 music reviews
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sleater-Kinney’s weakest album in years.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The formula has barely changed, although there is a noticeable decline in songwriting quality.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Blood Brothers pretty much have one speed: murder. This will tire even the most patient ears after about fifteen minutes, although, the album does show signs of expanded musical breadth with slower, albeit, brief melodic interludes and unconventional instrumentation (xylophones, toy pianos).
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It sounds overcooked, over-thought, and overly ambitious, but such growing pains are preferable to pandering.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suffers from too much open-faced honesty and a serious lack of intensity.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    This collection is the antithesis of anything Kurt Cobain would have authorized, right down to the shiny metal packaging.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Only vaguely hints at what the future holds, relying mostly on its tried and true formula of layered, epic rock and raw, pounding emotion.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cure fans are certainly used to Smith’s voice being high in the mix, but on this record it can be overwhelming and stifling.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Less than half of the record actually sports the rock I salute it for, but when it does Superdrag shines like a blast from the past but without the feeling that it’s a calculated throwback to anything in particular.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    They show great promise, but also fall victim to the uncertainty of a band drastically altering their sound and trying too hard to make grandiose statements.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beneath all the off-kilter catchiness, quirkiness and aggression lies little of substance.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    There are some good songs here, to be sure, but they’re wedged between too many meandering, indistinct retreads of self-referential bombast.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Orton seems to be embracing the humdrum, schlocky sound of New Age crooners and adult contemporary mush like Dido.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    [Gilbert’s] chirping voice is such a spectacle at times, you won’t know whether to laugh or punch a hole in the wall.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Style definitely outweighs substance in the world of The Raveonettes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    3121 may be funkier, edgier, and dancier than Musicology, but it still doesn’t push the envelope on a level that would constitute a true return to form.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    They’re not trying to pass this off as original, and it’s not by any means. But it is clearly catchy as hell, if almost annoyingly so.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A strange and somewhat inconsistent release.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    On Worlds Apart Trail of Dead sounds utterly reinvigorated yet dangerously reinvented.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In small doses casual, uninformed listeners could mistake this for vintage Pink Floyd, but it lacks the tension of Pink Floyd’s passive aggressive rumble.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It’s far from the level of a Magnetic Fields release – or even The 6ths for that matter – and, therefore, won’t appeal to casual fans.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It’s frustrating to listen to a band run in place, especially when the expectations are so much higher.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    It’s safe, unobtrusive, and ubiquitously “indie”, if well produced and memorably melodic, at times.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It’s pleasant enough music if you’re having a Caribbean-themed barbecue in your backyard, I guess, but little here will challenge your musical senses or move you in any way.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Nowhere near as affecting as even latter day Sebadoh records like Harmacy, Emoh shows Barlow in a typically maudlin frame of mind, but the starkness of his voice is smoothed over with pointless overdubs
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    TA
    With each successive song, the vocal shortcomings become more and more apparent.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Astronaut doesnâ??t come close to ranking with the music that made the band world famous, but it has moments that make it easy to remember why the band rode such a wave to begin with.