No Ripcord's Scores

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For 2,725 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: 1,898 out of 2725
  2. Mixed: 751 out of 2725
  3. Negative: 76 out of 2725
2725 music reviews
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    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shields
    Shields is undeniably tuneful, and you could even say that it's the perfect record to build that swelling momentum, but it's also detached and emotionally destitute.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beyond the Pale
    Despite its slightly misfiring concept, Beyond The Pale remains an enjoyable hour spent inside the world of one of Britain’s most revered songwriters—even if you're never quite sure what your host was meant to be showing you.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LP1
    All those flinching sounds can surely give some fatigue after a while, but does it matter when it’s so good at instant gratification.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Futureheads
    The reason The Futureheads is so good is because, quite simply, the music is simply stunning.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Locked Down
    Locked Down is the result of a synergy between musicians of different generations – both have something to bring to the party, and the combination is compelling. It is an album of rare energy, heat, sweat and motion, and a salutary lesson to all that age need not diminish one's mojo.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    This is Newman’s most touching, musically rich and consistent record since "Good Old Boys" way back in 1974; and it’s hilarious to boot.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Empros
    The band's fourth album, Empros, seamlessly threads together a mire of unmitigated sonic emanations with a consciously utilized sensitivity to sound and beauty, crafting a less than monotonous or laborious listen.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kitchen Sink
    It may not come across as immediately ambitious as her previous work, but there are no tricks or gimmicks that create this intimacy; it’s just clever production and writing that never outstays its welcome.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Boxer
    With The Boxer, The National has not only crafted a contender for Album of the Year.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ravedeath, 1972
    What resulted is ultimately an album of destructive beauty. Elegance married with sonic destruction!
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Dream
    American Dream does offer a lot from a songwriting standpoint, and why wouldn’t it? Murphy is a skilled producer with a deft ear for melody. But he’s somehow disrupted that valuable balance of humor and thoughtfulness found in LCD Soundsystem’s past with a more sedate offering that is riddled with mixed messages.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Will Always Love You
    We Will Always Love You is an impressive mediation on everything that matters, and of letting go of what doesn’t.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lost In the Dream
    Granduciel apparently spent hours going over and over tracks as they were developed from their demo stage into full blown band pieces, occasionally completely abandoning latter versions to return to the demos, and that was the case with album standout track An Ocean In Between The Waves-it looks like an inspired decision.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Blue Rev
    It’s not simply an incremental improvement. It’s a quantum leap. As far as third albums go, it’s their Forever Changes, Summerteeth, and The Meadowlands rolled into one. It really is monumental. ... It truly is one for the ages.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    New Long Leg
    Dry Cleaning have far more talent than they do irreverence. How satisfying, then, that where Miller was one and done, they’ve only just gotten started.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Underside of Power
    There’s a confrontational energy to The Underside of Power that encourages conversation, and not just rapturous abandon. It’s an unorthodox approach that immediately distinguishes them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gold Record
    A muted and detailed project that doesn’t feel like a grand statement or treatise—just a collection of lovely little songs.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All at Once
    The intensity of the music and interplay between the trio remains firmly intact and stronger than ever.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    untitled unmastered.
    Kendrick Lamar’s talent is superficial in the extreme, plumbing his own creative depths with an unerring attention to detail. With untitled unmastered., he has found another way to sheathe people in his compelling vision.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Poison Season
    It’s a surprise to see him employ such an economy of language, but Bejar can still command your attention with his sharp, romantic one-liners. He’s setting the scene by making a visceral impression with characters that feel alive, engulfed in their indecisiveness, driven with a theatrical imagination that’s as restless as it’s ever been.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sick!
    This is the most esoteric, thinking-person’s cloud rap album I’ve heard since Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up, and I mean that in the most endearing, complimentary way possible.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Shaking the Habitual
    Despite clear flaws though, enthusiastically raving about the album, even when taking into account that a third of it (including those aforementioned ten minutes of Fracking… ) is borderline irritating, feels entirely justified, rather than an exercise in willful perversion, thanks to the quality of everything else on offer.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lucifer on the Sofa
    It's in Spoon's ability to remain so forthright while keeping their intentions a little bit hazy where their songwriting presents itself in the best light. We've never asked them to spell it out for us, especially when they're at their most direct, and that's why they continue to keep us guessing after all these years.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Weather Alive
    One could say that her impeccable use of space is what reveals a special intensity to her work, a musical style artists don't often explore as they near the end of their third decade release music. Orton hinted at it through all this time, even if you weren't paying close attention.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    50 Words for Snow
    It's the work of a mature and serious artist, who has made a unique and lasting contribution to pop, and this album will continue her reputation.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
    This is the best album of the year so far.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    New Brigade
    This ambiguity is precisely what makes New Brigade so exciting--there's no dogged political agenda, nor a desire to sound wiser than their 17 to 19-age range. And even if it sounds like a slush of trebly clatter, Iceage manage to pack a wallop of melodic transitions in each measure.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Silver Ladders
    By the end of closer Thirsty Tulips, it should be no wonder that Mattimore is signed to Ghostly International, a traditionally electronic music label. She makes ambient music better than the music that most ambient musicians are putting out these days.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    So Beautiful or So What
    As it is, we have a definite return to consistency, if not form, and a Paul Simon as simultaneously hermetic and engaged as only he can be.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Daddy's Home
    Weighed down by its own concept and bloated with references, there’s just no room left for emotional reckoning. In the end, we’re better off seeing Daddy's Home as purely an homage to the rich ‘70s funk and psychedelic music scene from somebody who only experienced it secondhand. It’s simply unable to withstand the added complexity of the personal narrative that we were promised.
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