No Ripcord's Scores

  • Music
Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    It's not the first time a band of this stature chooses to find their confidence by taking it slow. But neither is it too daring or too unhinged; in fact, sans the slower, more methodical tempos, many of the songs still fall under their common pairing of doo-wop chord progressions and piercing guitars. So much of your appreciation for Tranquility may depend on how much you can stomach Turner's interpretative dance.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Do Hollywood
    This retro carnival is a trip, but it’s also a downright mess riddled with poor songwriting choices that are disguised as clever.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
    The Pains of Being Pure at Heart can easily be at the forefront of this scene because, simply put, they have the best hooks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Close It Quietly
    There's no doubt that Kline’s abundance of sharp ideas and approaches will lead her down some other paths, but Close It Quietly’s full-band approach yields an embarrassment of eminently listenable indie-rock gems.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Open Season
    British Sea Power are not only the best band around, they’re also the best songwriters.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wonderful, Glorious
    Wonderful, Glorious is a solid Eels record, with some of the best arrangements they have ever written.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Local Valley
    González adds in playful elements like metronomic percussion (Lasso In) and danceable cumbia rhythms with mixed results (Swing.) And though both are charming in their own right, they don't quite measure up to the haunting simplicity of his best work.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    21
    Adele and her team have crafted an album that's both full of songs that have the potential to reach the upper reaches of the charts, and also a collection of songs that hang together as an album.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Compass
    Though he offers some of his most impressive and experimental numbers to date, due to Compass’s continual up-and-down nature it’s unlikely to make the impression of either of his two previous albums.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Volume One
    Warm and elegant, careful but not calculated, Ward's production stands perfectly alongside his solo releases in terms of sound, style and impact.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    An Album by Korallreven
    An Album assembles all the loose threads from previous bursts of inspiration to sequence a scenic panorama to get lost into.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blondes
    You're probably not going to find another record quite so beautifully produced this year, or quite so warmly inviting, or just quite so full of lovely stuff.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Amok
    Although Yorke’s songwriting prowess is still very strong, this record is by no means perfect.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The High Country
    Richmond Fontaine should be commended for bucking the singles trend and crafting an album that functions best, possibly only, as a whole, especially amid rumors of the album's impending demise.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Screws Get Loose
    Screws Get Loose, is wonderfully tight and Those Darlins' latest succeeds with catchy, country tinged rock-and-roll with a healthy dose of humor.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Before A Million Universes
    The whole of it is too calculated, even if they occasionally hit the mark with an obvious attention to craft which, to be fair, certainly counts for something.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hang
    Hang appears as an album of ambition that outdoes itself so spectacularly that it appears as a jazzed up, Disney-esque caricature of its own end product.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Babes Never Die
    It’s easy to make comparisons with contemporaries--namely the likes of Best Coast--but Stina Tweeddale and Cat Myers transfer so much personality to their tracks that a deeper, more lasting impression is given.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    True Romance
    Minor quibbles aside (Set Me Free is a little over-wrought and clichéd), True Romance is a simply stunning record.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Algiers
    Algiers is immense, genuine, and, at times, heartbreakingly beautiful.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All Fiction
    The tension they harbor throughout can sometimes feel a little too detached for its own good, but that doesn't take away from an otherwise nonlinear experience that has the potential to grow over time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blood Pressures
    Blood Pressures is a compelling forty minutes, and by the time we reach the closer, Pots and Pans, with a slider and twelve bar riffs to accompany its sultry, resonant admissions, you can barely imagine them any other way.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everyday Robots
    The result is an album that humanizes the machine and peels back a layer from Albarn's life while adding more to the music.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Mind
    From the fuzzy way-wah bridge of Serve the Song to the soft and gentle swing of Holding Patterns, the band is taking great strides in diversifying their musical palette even if it primarily coalesces and not expands on their established personalities.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Do You Think About the Car?
    In many ways, What Do You Think… is a perfectly teenage album; it’s smart and it’s naive, it’s funny and it’s bleak, and, most importantly, it understands the appeal of pop while being frustrated at the apolitical landscape in which it exists.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ceremonials
    As it stands, the best that could be said about Ceremonials is that it's a pleasant enough listen that will change absolutely nobody's mind about Florence and her machine.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transit Transit
    Transit Transit justly follows the digitalized distortion their debut paved, keeping a decidedly drab mood that permeates throughout the entire production.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Be the Void
    Dr. Dog's best effort yet.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Leaving Meaning.
    It’s still haunting, and it’s still beautiful. It’s like a soundtrack to exploring some abandoned, centuries-old mansion in the middle of a desert, now filled with ghosts, lost memories, and cobwebs weaved around expensive furniture.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Talkie Walkie
    With all its shallowness and artifice, it can only ever be a guilty pleasure. But it is the most intense of guilty pleasures.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Knoxville
    This brand of thoughtful ambient music is certainly not for everyone, but those willing to take the plunge may just come away surprised. After all, being perhaps too original and ambitious is often better than being trite and derivative.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Possum in the Driveway
    At first, it’s a bit off-putting how much Mulcahy has extended his reach, also considering its numerous shapeshifting vocal qualities, but once you recalibrate your expectations you’re left with an album that bravely looks ahead. It’s a fond return riddled with unbounded creativity, and could very well be his definitive statement.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hera Ma Nono
    They've just released their second very good album, Hera Ma Nono, and the collaboration is still positive and unforced.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Departing
    It's exciting in its pacing, invigorated in its writing, and illustrious in its instrumentation. It's not mad - nor, indeed, prairie-mad - to think that this is an early contender for album of the year lists.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    No One's First, And You're Next
    As a collection of odds and ends, No One’s First… is a necessarily disjointed album. It’s alternately disappointingly simple and refreshingly unique from song to song, torn between country, radio rock and classic Modest Mouse.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Million Dollars To Kill Me
    Joyce Manor takes another assured step which reinforces their viewpoints, not their maturity, with finesse, and those who still think otherwise haven't been paying enough attention.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Love in the 4th Dimension
    Their versatility and ability to channel some of the genuine peaks of the paradigm into their sound is a huge strength, and while it doesn’t break the mould or reinvent the wheel, Love in the 4th Dimension is a very impressive debut.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Cigarettes After Sex
    At once droll and melancholic, Cigarettes After Sex struggles to earn the aural beauty it desperately seeks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    IV
    IV is impeccably produced, one that tailors even the finest details with a delicate brush; even when it disappoints it’s still a joy to listen to since every instrument is mixed to perfection.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Centipede Hz
    With just a bit more of a push, Centipede Hz could have been something truly special, but as it stands, it's a portrait of growing up that is wonderfully vivid but a tad unfulfilling, a collection of tracks boasting some remarkable tunes and a complex theme, and an album that is bound to satisfy both hardcore and casual fans.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Rhumb Line
    The Rhumb Line is at times moody and downtrodden, but it's Ra Ra Riot's ability to pull out of those situations that saves the album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Humbug
    Turner’s defense mechanisms are as honed and as vicious as his rather formidable bullshit detector has proven to be in albums past, and whatever Humbug lacks in middle fingers, or even thematic continuity, it makes up for with sinister gazes and scathing ambiguities.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Held
    The strength in Held lies in how it takes electronic modulation to a more challenging path, fully conscious over the fact that the genre itself benefits when it's more about the songs instead of serving as foreground listening.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    True Loves
    There are some nice elements here: the vocals and vocal harmonies are reasonably solid, but they're trapped underneath layers of, well, noise.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Royal Headache
    It'd be a stretch to tag them as soul revivalists, but there's no denying these combustible pop tunes are still 26 of the most promising minutes you'll hear all year.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    200 Million Thousand
    No holds barred, and no pitch-correction in sight, the tracks of 200 Million Thousand shine like diamonds in the rough, warts-and-all.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Moon Tides
    By the end of the album, the technical ability of Hindman and the lyricism of Versprille feel exhausted, gargled, and outsized by the very same influences that they try to honor in their thoroughly hackneyed attention to 80s Cocteau Twins-inspired rock.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Preteen Weaponry
    The intensity of its stylistic approach leaves it feeling nothing short of a musical dissertation as it side-steps melodies, bridges and verses from the get-go.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Bet on Sky
    For all [the album's] obvious flaws, none of it seems to matter. When you hear that guitar soar, those rhythms pulse, and that voice cry out, you want to keep listening, for all 47 minutes. And when they're over, you want to do it again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Exiting Arm
    It’s a glorious mess of a record, reaching for everything at once, and hitting most of it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Outside Love
    The lethargic energy of 'Come Down' precedes the smartly sequenced title track and country twanged 'And I Thank You,' Outside Love’s duel highpoints the perfect culmination of its previous output.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sex & Food
    Nielson is comfortable enough in his own songwriting to settle into airtight grooves--with the assistance of the clattering, shifty drums from his brother--and allow them to simmer for a few golden moments. His guitar playing is sensational, and his use of warping effects to achieve the right mix of tightness and sensitivity gets better with each UMO record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Forever Turned Around
    There's nothing particularly grating about their gentle, country-pop stylings—most of which deal with themes such as nature, gratitude, and fleeting time. And these are all worthy topics to explore—except that every song sounds so gosh darn wholesome that it's as if they discourage against any deeper introspection.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    After Robots
    Whereas I don’t necessarily believe it a step above the Mystery EP, still ably showcases the talents of BLK JKS, their world-influenced musical hybrid a unique presence in an industry dangerously close to being oversaturated with no longer distinctive hipsters spouting tra la la’s.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eight
    The end result is a very ambitious piece of psychedelia-tinged indie rock that rewards patience with some truly inspired tweaks on the typical slow-jam formula.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apropa't
    Side projects rarely eclipse their protagonists’ main works, but Apropa’t is one radical departure that finds the players perfectly aligning themselves to each other so convincingly that it’s hard to imagine Herren looking back again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Louden Up Now
    They write some good tunes, and they have some appropriately strident abuse for lyrics. But there’s not enough for an album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cupid Deluxe
    Floating gracefully, and guided by a stylish demigod of his own imagining, he glides atop the current of the zeitgeist as globalized and immediately accessible as the modern urban hub he calls home.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
    Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it's such an enjoyable record it's difficult to hold it against them.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blues Funeral
    The album is at its most successful when Lanegan allows these alien textures [electronics, atmospheric guitar] to take a more prominent role in his songs, providing a counterfoil to his gravelly rock vocals. Elsewhere the songs meander too much for the album to coalesce into a convincing statement.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Versailles Sessions
    I am left with the impression that Corona's vision far exceeded his brief, producing a collection of serious abstract mood pieces that conjure up dark visions of Paris. Whether this is a release long-standing Murcof fans will cherish and return to however, is rather another question.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apocalypse
    Callahan continues to be a nature's poet, painting his imagery with the most carefully detailed observations of the everyday.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dreamland
    Despite the amount of effort that appears at the surface, from the several websites to the layered and unique production, Dreamland is a project that’s as momentarily annoying as it is infinitely forgettable.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Acid Tongue
    Acid Tongue is fuller and has more of a ragged, live-band feel than any of Lewis’ previous work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    (K)no(w)here
    With ambition and expectation clearly larger than its execution, (K)no(W)here relies too heavily on its “concept” to drive itself, music being its afterthought and, ultimately, its title only communicates its direction.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is Not the End
    The songwriting does suffer as a result of their walloping, impatient joy, but as Spielbergs prove, some instant gratification is always called for.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Migration Stories
    Some of the arrangements stick, and some of them don't, but it's always enjoyable to hear where his open-ended narratives take you.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hello Exile
    The Menzingers established themselves as a group interested in moving forward—even if they wrote about those high school days. Hello Exile fails to follow through on that promise.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sucker
    Sucker is a one-two punch of wit and grit, as irreverently bratty as the lollipop Charli holds on the cover yet never impersonal, perfunctory, or insincere.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    By stripping everything back, it often ends up just being a distillation of their sound. The songs are familiar but frustratingly lack any colour or character.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Molina And Johnson
    Molina and Johnson proves to be inessential listening for fans of either artist, but should prove suitable listening for those of us who want a mild-mannered soundtrack to our lamentations of modern city life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Expo 86
    Expo 86 emphasizes the fact that novel beginnings are meant to prosper whilst winking at the past from time to time.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interstellar
    The album sounds familiar far too quickly. [But] when Interstellar hits, however, it hits hard.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Concretes
    Definitely mysterious, but the songs on this record are obvious when it comes to the Concretes’ influences.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wall Of Arms
    Each track in its own right has nothing inherently wrong with it, but put eleven of them together and it’s all a little one-dimensional.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    White Wilderness
    This album simply lacks the impact that Vanderslice's trademark sound usually packs in abundance. The bare bones of his usually excellent songwriting are there, but it's more constrained by the orchestration than set free.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Thyself
    Magazine manage to retrace where they left off, rediscover their intricacies and do an excellent job at defining themselves for, what one can only hope will be, new generations of listeners.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Minor Victories
    Despite its moments of lucid release, Minor Victories mostly likes to loom in the shadows with hardly any form at all.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Won't Care How You Remember Me
    At his best, Walsch’s lyricism threads the line between clichés and anecdotal details with ease. There are exceptions to this, as Hesitation captures the curdling of a long-distance relationship superbly. It might be his best set of lyrics. It’s a disappointment that it’s situated between a handful of bored, washed-out emo tunes that hold I Won’t Care How You Remember Me down.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Silencio
    These songs are all, for the most part, perfectly adequate, but we've heard better and stronger songs from Sadier before. It's not so much a sucker punch as a blunt disappointment from an artist who we know can do so much better.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drifters/Love Is the Devil
    Though it’s tough to get a sense of what exactly it is that’s causing all of this suffering, the details don’t seem so important in the end, as Drifters / Love Is the Devil is the sound of pure isolation and dread wrapped in one bleary, beautiful package.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tales of Us
    It is a solid and dependable album, sure of its own purpose yet ready to complement those poignant moments when all that seems to be missing is a cue for the dramatic music to start.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Please Be Mine
    Please Be Mine is a charming record that remains engaging and consistently pleasant, but you have to feel that there’s another gear in Molly Burch’s engine-room that could get the most out of her prodigious talent.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hypercaffium Spazzinate
    There are times when their elementary to songwriting can make them look as if they’re stuck in their teenage angst, which is expected considering their genuinely fun play on nostalgia is quite detrimental to their brand. But the tunes do stack up, and when it’s delivered with this much conviction, that’s reason enough to rekindle that loyal, longstanding friendship with their most ardent fans.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ringer
    Unusually for an EP, each track warrants its place on the record and the title track never overshadows anything. It’s well worth listening to, especially if like me you tend to get gushy at the mere thought of probably this country’s greatest living musician.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dark Bird Is Home
    The songwriting here isn’t just adding superficial layers to Matsson’s previous sound, it’s a step forward in style. So while that may make the album his most pleasing first listen, the dulling of the edges of his previous work keep it from being one of the more memorable.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Good Arrows
    There may be nothing exactly wrong with Good Arrows as a record, and I’m sure that in a different time and situation it would be considered a respectable if shallow pop record.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Distant Populations
    With no track here surpassing the 3 1/2 minute mark, the band firmly anchors the key components of their sound with a tight, steady grip.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The New Abnormal
    On their latest album, The New Abnormal, The Strokes have mirrored the career of Beck, offering a mimetic approximation of music they think people want, instead of music generated from their raw, inner demons or whatever fueled them on Is This It.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Human Hearts
    They work best when under the restraints of a three-minute pop song, resolute to achieving guitar resonance in a compact framework.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Physical World
    A lot has happened in 10 years, but DFA’s approach to making ferocious music certainly hasn’t.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thrashing thru the Passion
    Some good ol', serviceable rock ' roll always goes down easy, but with The Hold Steady, we know they're capable of so much more.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    OK Human
    Weezer’s maddeningly inane lyrics sometimes work, but they aren’t doing much to move the needle here. At least the album sounds nice, as that’s more than you could say for plenty of previous albums from Cuomo and the gang. We might as well enjoy it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ensemble Pearl
    Ensemble Pearl is an album of perpetual drift, expanding upon the defining characteristics of droning or ambient music.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    808s & Heartbreak
    Unsurprisingly Heartbreak is a grower. At first it does sound minimalist and sparse but the album is layered with delicacy and marked with a maturity.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hotspot
    Their latest, the duo remain steadfast to that commitment with creamy, dancefloor-ready techno (Happy People, Will-o-the-wisp)—joyously documenting the anticipation before a night out.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Slow Summits
    Slow Summits presents The Pastels at their most amiable, bearing the quiet, understated splendor of a picnic with friends on a warm Sunday morning.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heza
    Blissfully addictive and dangerously catchy, Heza is most certainly one for the more bright and breezy of us this summer.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Arrow
    As Arrow progresses, we get a clearer sense of how she's beginning to understand what she seeks. And though we're never exactly sure what it is, her music leads us to a full conclusion.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Quarterbacks
    It sounds like this would all blow over like a weird, twitchy blur, but Quarterbacks’ hooks and songwriting chops are so incredibly tight and catchy that each moment feels like its own accomplished statement, despite typically only having a few seconds to prove this.
Page: