For 4,084 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
67% higher than the average critic
-
3% same as the average critic
-
30% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 76
Highest review score: | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Version] | |
---|---|---|
Lowest review score: | Songs From Black Mountain |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 3,648 out of 4084
-
Mixed: 400 out of 4084
-
Negative: 36 out of 4084
4084
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 23, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The largely self-produced Balm in Gilead plies a folksy yet soulful jazz-country sound that showcases both her inimitable voice--with its playful meter and peculiar grain--and her studio prowess.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Grim Town makes growing up seem--well, grim--but Monds-Watson skillfully captures its bitter realities as well as the stirring memories that become life fuel.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 29, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There something like It Still Moves or Circuital soars to untouchable heights, the band’s latest falls flat at a noticeable rate in terms of delivery. ... Their new album is representative of their live show in the best way: It can shift from a rootsy rock number to a hyped-up free-for-all at the drop of a hat, sometimes even within the same song.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 21, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The record remains a close cousin of Picture You, and with its comparatively brief length, it’s hard not to hear it as an encore as much as it is a follow-up. Surely the group has earned a round of applause.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 22, 2016
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Wild & Reckless takes a couple steps in the right direction. This band’s optimum path, however, is still several steps away.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 9, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
If Among the Ghosts would have benefitted from more of a balance between those poles, Lucero’s latest demonstrates that they do the quiet stuff nearly as well as the loud.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 7, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Come Back to Us isn't Rogue's greatest work-both Heaven's Gate and Descended Like Vultures feel sturdier in terms of the long haul. But it's a huge step forward from the lukewarm attempt at populist coolness that is Permalight.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 4, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Slower songs like “Gonowhere” and “You Make a Fool Out of Me” can be a drag, but what My Old, Familiar Friend lacks in consistency it more than compensates for with adventurous diversity.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The House feels like a transitional work, one saddled with stylistic experiments and themes of rebirth, renewal, self-discovery and so on. Perhaps that bodes well for Porches Album #4, whenever it arrives. And perhaps it will tie up some of The House’s loose ends.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 17, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
West has, by no means, figured it all out or emerged victorious, but the point of The Lamb is that she’s trying and her efforts have resulted in a colorful listen and touching journey.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 1, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Looser and funkier than 2006’s "Reprieve," Red Letter Year is a dazzling folk/punk/jazz hybrid.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 1, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Nash wants to prove he’s capable of soaring skyward. Whether his listeners are willing to follow him as he scales that cosmic plane remains to be seen, but for now, Nash offers all the inducement needed for them to at least consider making the climb.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 24, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Ultimately, these guys work best when the stakes are lowered, when the pretensions and grandeur are set aside in favor of snot-nosed, nihilistic punk-pop clatter.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 25, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Say What You Like delivers more of the same qualities that made Paisley your Riding A Bike Friend.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 21, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
All the core elements of Beachwood Sparks are here, but there’s also more, and less, at the same time.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 26, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It takes the time to listen and absorb the lyrics within to get the full effect. If you’re looking for something quietly magnificent and uplifting, then you may have found it.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 1, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
If Grim Town focused on what mere survival looked like, then If I Never Know You Like This Again captures the gnarled frustrations and contentment alike of a life fully lived.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 20, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Despite all the tenebrosity, or maybe because of it, Hoop is chasing human connection on this album, which teems with delicate acoustics and sneaky electronic elements. She seems wholly concerned with examining empathy—even for gross internet trolls—in a world deprived of it, and there are few quests as noble.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 12, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Stargate Music, doesn’t stray from this formula. These are not traditional bangers. There are no club hits here, unless you know of a club where muffled thumps, squiggles, hisses and bonks fill the dance floor. Instead, Stargate Music is a 10-track (off)beat tape designed to add up to “an astral ode to woman,” according to Ras G.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 24, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Throughout the LP, Wallows show an ease in incorporating unexpected sonic textures and multi-genre influences while still remaining immediately recognizable, accomplishing what every band must hope to achieve on their sophomore album.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 29, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This is one of the tightest and most intricately arranged Deerhoof records, particularly rhythmically- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 18, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There is plenty to celebrate and admire about City of No Reply. Coffman’s pristine crooning fans the embers just enough to draw you in closer, and it takes no effort whatsoever to find an immense, relatable comfort in her lyrical coyness. The most frustrating letdown is not the quality of the songs themselves, but how they are unavoidably ensnared by production choices so at odds with their roots.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 15, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The very best tracks grapple with eternal themes of love, fear, suffering and the transmigration of the soul, with the overarching narrative largely irrelevant; the low points, however, take the dramatic framework and hit you upside the holy head.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 13, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Her eclectic song structures and subtle melodies with a tendency to stick help give these songs an indeterminate specificity, like confessionals where her audience can fill in the details with whatever needs unburdening from their own souls. Maybe the sense of place in her music, then, is whatever place it needs to be, for whoever needs it.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 2, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
This labor of love represents an earnest conversation between a musical trailblazer and a young fan--an interplay of innovation and tribute that many music fans would likely endorse.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Dec 3, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Where previous Pink Mountaintops releases sounded a bit tossed off and crudely drawn, Outside Love is an intricately illustrated affair, built out of druggy walls of guitar feedback, reverb-drenched male/female vocals, and leaden drum splashes.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Minaj is at her best-at her most compelling, most ingenious, most human-when she indulges every weird mannerism that comes into her busy brain.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 4, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Where Devotion contained only three or four songs with big, traditional choruses, Tough Love is built on them.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 27, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 13, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Songs For Judy plays best if a listener can manage to ignore such contextual inequities and instead immerse themselves in the slice of time and space that the album brings to life.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 25, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album, by and large, plays like a live recording; somewhat endearingly sloppy performances add to the authenticity of a band whose honest songwriting is more important than any flash-in-the-pan posturing.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 20, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Nothing on Appaloosa Bones will blow your mind or stop you in your tracks, but it’s reliably beautiful and starkly self-possessed throughout, simultaneously free of forced erudition and mass-produced pandering. It is, perhaps, not music for everyone, but fans of Isakov’s stylings will be thrilled to introduce his latest venture into their daintily-plucked campfire song repertoires.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 18, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 29, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Despite the nods to “Strawberry Fields Forever” on opener “America,” Unrepentant Geraldines bridles and bristles against the constraints of pop music.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 13, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
On their sunnily deranged new album, Repo, Black Dice somehow manage to do away with context entirely, constructing music comprised solely of sound effects designed and recorded themselves.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Like their forebears The Kinks, British Sea Power remain resolutely iconoclastic, supremely melodic, quintessentially British, and utterly unique. God save the Queen and her royal navy.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 10, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Longing and heartbreak are universal themes, but what Rostam does is make them accessible, thought-provoking in an artful manner that will serve him well in as he navigates his solo career.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 11, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An Evening with Silk Sonic works because these two artists know how to complement each other extraordinarily well. Hopefully, down the line, they will work to reinvent the wheel instead of merely paying homage to it. But in the meantime, the world should just enjoy the pithy musings of this lively pair.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 16, 2021
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The record stands as a solid collection from a trio of exceptionally talented individuals.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 6, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Foster’s dismal allusions to The Great Gatsby and Daniel Johnston are clever, yet it strays from the collective sanguinity of the rest of the album. Despite those handful of flaws, Sacred Hearts Club is an enjoyable listen.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 26, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Pratt has a very, very restrained way of supplying strength and relief during our hectic moment. Her songs are so quiet they almost don’t even exist, but maybe that’s how we need to feel for just a moment--like we’re just air.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 8, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Although Avi's taken a few risks with Ghostbird, the artist has still delivered a record full of material that could easily be used as the backdrop for a "stay positive" surf film--a comfortable range for the singer's talents.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While the rhythm section is fairly basic throughout the album, there are a few bright moments when simplistic rhythms turn into entrancing bass lines or brisk drum fills. So while these moments of musical clarity might make Moonlight worth a listen, they likely won’t warrant a plethora of repeat spins.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 20, 2015
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The way that Soft Metals experiment with repetition without needing much time to do so is unusual and impressive, with Lenses ending up so much stronger for allowing the ideas behind the music to drift into view of the audience.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 16, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The new album is a return to form. Yet Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions still manages to range far and wide.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
With the songs segueing from one to another, neither the mood nor the message are ever in doubt. That’s fortuitous; despite its ample stock of songs--21 to be exact--the album still clocks in at just under 45 minutes.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 20, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It grapples with and effectively communicates what happens after the party, what it feels like to come down.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 26, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Dec 12, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Sobriety requires courage, and hopefully, that bravery paves the way for the more sonically diverse Best Coast that we get a glimpse of on Always Tomorrow.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 24, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s an inspired recasting of Annie’s wispy voice[on 'Marie Cherie'], which seems to ring truest when draped in melancholy. That vulnerability--more than anything else--sets Annie apart from the pack.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Payseur offers little besides the opening track that looks forward. Clash the Truth suffers because of this, playing as an introduction for a band that is to come, a band that will have sonics to match their musical ambitions, that could break free of their hazy daydreams to which they remain shackled.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 12, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album—their eighth overall—finds Jim and William conjuring up wicked, writhing, guitar-driven goth rock that’s full of grizzly, distorted guitar-driven shoegaze and snarly, industrial clangers.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 22, 2024
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Mark Lanegan makes blues for our time, chopping up sonic tropes, stretching them over handcarved laments, wrenching them from his throat and bleeding badly all over them.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 25, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Darnielle is having so much fun splashing around in the cinematic world of gory retribution that his delight is, perversely, inclusive and inviting.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 19, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Eno does his best to keep things floating on Someday World, but without a partner able to punch in the same weight class, their combined efforts end up uneven and lopsided.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 6, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
On Broken Equipment, BODEGA don’t sugar-coat the intoxicating feeling New York can create when it gets into your blood. If you can survive the constant rent hikes, shady practices from shifty landlords, collapsing infrastructure, and a cyclical reshuffling of artistic epicenters and neighborhood fixtures, it’s an adrenaline high worth building a life around. This one’s for the ones able to hang on.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 10, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
You can cook a hard-boiled egg quicker than it takes to get through a Kurt Vile song, and we love him for that. The stretched-out jams on Back to Moon Beach are consistent with the last 15 years of his sound, yet it holds some of the greatest work Vile’s done in nearly a decade.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 21, 2023
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There’s not necessarily any closure here as Finn brings his trilogy to an end, but there is a sense of completion. After examining these characters in different lights, from various angles, it’s as if he has done what he can to make their stories resonate. Whatever he decides to do next will indeed be the start of a whole new war.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 3, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Despite suffering from a steady ebb and flow of musical contributors over the course of their collective career, the music still taps into a cinematic style, turning songs such as “1998” and “All the Hail Marys” into narratives full of arched drama and concerted deliberation.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 18, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Remnant’s vision is so utterly singular, weird and compelling that you’ll stick around for this mapless journey. God only knows where they’re going, but being lost is most of the fun.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Ultimately Chiccarelli deserves credit for reigning in Broken Social Scene’s disparate elements. If he doesn’t always streamline the sound, he does manage to make it appear more contained and cohesive.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 6, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While this old dog isn’t learning any new tricks, the band’s unmistakable chemistry shines, and each note is a glimpse into a youthful energy that hasn’t been seen in quite some time.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 6, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Covering Ground is an accessible, listenable peek into Ragan's vision of acoustic music, and it will appeal to the punks and the folkies alike.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 20, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Trophy far more often concerns adult themes, and it navigates these topics with a clever lyrical hand that few teens could muster.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 29, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Love at the Bottom of the Sea is an endearing, comfortable offering from a band that will hopefully do 10 more albums.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 5, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The album is uneven by previous PB&J standards, but the band earns high marks for proving their hooks can translate into any stylistic language.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Depths hide in both the party music and the comic lyrics, but Roberts & Lord don't limit themselves to formula.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 12, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s developed in parts, compelling, and his existential struggles are somewhat realized.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Dec 13, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 20, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While this sampler doesn’t begun cover the whole of his efforts, it does boast enough essential songs to qualify it as an adequate introduction.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 3, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Dec 4, 2012
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
For better and for worse, Hubcap Music seems to announce that “the man from another time” has finally made it to the present.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 14, 2013
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
If Versus communicates anything--and it communicates a lot, sometimes too much--it’s an examination of the linear relationship between producer and listener, a warning for the artist against the magnetic allure of pontification.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 9, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
The songs are bolstered by a generally unsettled sound throughout. Yet rather than opt for a tumult, Hatfield maintains a persistent pulse and an air of determination.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 29, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It stands as a sometimes-confusing document of a particular time and place in the story of this constantly evolving art project.- Paste Magazine
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Hinton’s own voice doesn’t show up on his latest LP, but it doesn’t have to. His songs tug at heartstrings all the same, and in a cultural landscape where “Does this make you feel something?” is now the predominant question, Mercury is sure to prompt a resounding yes.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Imani is less appealing when it treads too close to feel-good platitudes (“Inspired By,” “Twist of Time”), though Gab’s conversational flow still packs enough sincerity to get away with lines like “Family will have your back when everybody else will skip.”- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 18, 2015
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
With such lovely environmental textures, Sixteen Oceans makes it easy to imagine how warm a fully ambient album from Four Tet might be. For now, it’s nice to be able to stare out the window with Sixteen Oceans.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 19, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
For the most part, the songs are compact, with only the closing instrumental, “Weekend Wind,” passing the six-minute mark. Jeremy Earl’s falsetto is at its most confident and versatile, gliding over tunes that explore the headspace newfound fatherhood has brought him.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 28, 2020
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Everyday Life lives between the stripped-down comfort of Ghost Stories and the mercurial nature of Viva La Vida, but most importantly, it provides more hope than ever that they have another masterpiece in them.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 27, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 7, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Fallon has a knack for crafting sturdy tunes that border on anthemic, and every chorus has fist-pumping potential. He has a full-throated approach to vocals, singing nearly every song, even the slow jams, in a raw, aching voice that conveys a sense of urgency.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 9, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? has its faults, not quite hitting its full potential, but it gets damn well close, delivering an infectious record for the post-party hangover.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 4, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s A New Day Tonight offers hook after hook after hook draped in a credible vintage sheen by folks that understand vintage sheen. As long as you’re not allergic to classic pop-rock earworms, it’s a solid record that deserves repeated spins.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 11, 2018
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While it won’t fill the void left all those years ago in the mighty Leviathan’s wake and features a few gratingly saccharine moments, Emperor of Sand is full of passionate performances and serves as one of Mastodon’s most surprising and relatable releases yet- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 31, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s a respectable collection of bluesy rockers that showcase the brothers’ strengths.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 14, 2024
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Comfy isn’t always what you want, though. And while Meteorites walks that line, we can at least take comfort in the fact that McCulloch and Sergeant are still doing it, and doing it well.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 3, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 7, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Death Peak has some brilliantly immersive moments throughout. ... Upon repeat listens, the fine tracks that marked the early part of Death Peak sound tarnished and wanting, the combined weight of the album suddenly appearing uneven and cumbersome.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 13, 2017
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
In 13 songs, Wild Cub creates infectious, intricate electro-pop that blends ‘80s beats with electronics and synths worthy of the aughts.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 21, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Spirituals is an album that takes admirably big swings in its desire to shake all constraints off, and inevitably, there is messiness in the movement. The risks pay off, but leave some of the tracks in the album’s middle stretch to play supporting roles.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 7, 2022
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
White is not hurting for fans in any of his musical guises, but he might have many more if he were to lighten things up a bit.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 5, 2015
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s pleasantly concise—a welcome change from Oczy Mlody and Heady Fwends—and doesn’t rely on excessive guests, 24-hour songs, LPs pressed with menstrual blood, or any other gimmickry to impress you. Now we wait for the Broadway adaptation.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 16, 2019
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
There is something that feels almost too comfortable on Lateness. Taylor stays in the same well-worn groove he has been grinding on for the past decade and shows no signs of looking for an exit strategy.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 9, 2014
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
Let The Poison Out marks no departure for The Beets, and it shows few signs of greater ambition.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 17, 2011
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
It’s a beautiful sounding collection, no question. Sometimes, though, Adams’ exacting, just-so approach to the sonics undercuts the power of his lyrics.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 17, 2017
- Read full review