No Ripcord's Scores

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For 2,723 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Island
Lowest review score: 0 Scream
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,897 out of 2723
  2. Mixed: 750 out of 2723
  3. Negative: 76 out of 2723
2723 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Devour
    Devour is best experienced from front to back. Shifting from Chardiet’s possessed screams (Spit It Out), to the dial-up-modem-from-Hell (Self-Regulating System), to grotesque static (Deprivation), Devour is shockingly sublime, like some warped, morally corrupt gradient. What’s equally mystifying is how textured and thematic these songs are, subtleties and surprises that are only revealed through brave, dedicated consumption.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    PAINLESS
    What she's gained in the process is more focus and confidence, and as PAINLESS proves, an intriguing foreshadow of things to come.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wounded Rhymes
    Lykke Li holds to her regal aesthetic and simple drum and bass lines doggedly; whether stripped down or ramped up she has a well crafted, appealingly consistent sound, and it's what she puts over this that completes it.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Majesty Shredding
    With this latest effort, Superchunk have proven just that, and done so in their own insightful, rocking way and without compromise. All hail the kings (and queen).
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Placeholder
    The rousing, yet equally understated the book on how to change part II brings closure with a welcome luster, though it's not enough to salvage the album's soporific middle half.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Typical System
    Their free form approach is certainly amusing, perhaps too cerebral at times, but that’s just another way of reinforcing they want us to figure out what they’re aiming for.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Covers
    Although Marika Hackman’s covers album lacks for originality in the title department, she more than makes up for it over the course of the ten tracks.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Centralia
    Centralia finds Mountains in their finest form yet, indicating a new level of comfort in the space they've been carefully carving out over the past decade.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Laurel Hell
    She’s emerged from the thickets of Laurel Hell more assured than ever before.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brighter Than Creation's Dark
    Even if this type of thing isn’t your bag, it’s really pretty irresistible and is worth a shot.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Hunter
    From start to finish, The Hunter is a collection of songs that inadvertently expands their repertoire and capabilities while they turn off their heads and let their fingers tell the story.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blackjazz
    In the case of Blackjazz, Shining spreads lyrical passages across songs, repeats song titles with different music attached: they basically create an environment that can only be understood as a whole.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wild Flag
    It feels like they've been doing this for years, and while they quite literally all have, the way they have formed and moulded that sum of past experience into one new entity is nothing but impressive.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Swim
    Snaith is able to hold onto his Caribou identity despite the new techno influences. His new album Swim reaffirms the supreme artistic capability that is Caribou.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Shine A Light
    There is a monumental feeling of strength and courage in their music that is impossible to deny.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hopelessness
    Aside from dubstep-resembling "I Don’t Love You Anymore”, a breakup song that doesn’t really mesh within the political context of Hopelessness, there’s hardly any fault to find in Hegarty’s incredibly imaginative portrait of a world that’s in dire need of some reformation.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Balladeer
    Ultimately, The Balladeer is a solidly enjoyable record, one that captures McKenna’s voice and style nearly perfectly.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Black Noise
    Where ["The Bliss"] bubbled and spat like hot fat, its meticulous construction overflowing with polyrhythms, Black Noise seems disjointed and overlong even though it runs for roughly the same duration.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You Could Have It So Much Better
    The excellent-to-annoying song ratio on this album is definitely high. Still, their first record was solid from start to finish, and this one smacks so much more of Lennon/McCartney than Kapranos/McCarthy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Under Color of Official Right
    Under Color of Official Right is built with a steely fortitude, treating its subjects with respect and bluntness even if there’s nary a hopeful or comforting prospect to look forward to.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It Still Moves
    It Still Moves is the kind of album that can inspire both wonder and respect in equal measures.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    SVIIB
    While every song here makes note of the relationship at the center of School of Seven Bells, this is not a downbeat album. Instead, it's a record that showcases everything the band is about.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Visiter
    This is one of the few releases of 2008 that shook me out of my complacency and forced me to accept it on its own terms.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For the First Time
    For the first time is usually nonsensical, frequently transcendent, and compulsively listenable. Everything that sprung to mind is on the wax here, but BC, NR don’t forget to make it catchy and groovy. In nailing that balance, they’ve given us the year’s first capital-G Great record.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    We're New Here
    While it may not attain the dizzy heights of I'm New Here, Smith's deftness ensures that We're New Here is far more than just a vanity project
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Sunset Tree
    There’s so much here to enjoy, we can tolerate the occasional lyrical overreach.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Outer Heaven
    If Anything was good, but this is the work of a band who are well on their way to establishing themselves as key cogs in their category.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nikki Nack
    Sure, there aren’t quite the visceral heights that the best tracks on w h o k i l l provided, but you will not be thinking that during Nikki Nack’s best moments. Listen to the words she says, let them sink into your head.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Soused
    Soused, with its impenetrable construct and heavy ambition, delivers on many fronts, most notable of which is in its thoughtfully composed immensity.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Age Of
    Age Of is an excellent and frequently rewarding album; where one might expect a musical cul-de-sac, there is a 180-degree turn that somehow always feels appropriate, a testament to two years of songcraft that have clearly paid dividends.
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