Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,072 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: 100 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Version]
Lowest review score: 10 Songs From Black Mountain
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,636 out of 4072
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4072
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4072
4072 music reviews
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    • 79 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    God's Problem Child
    Honesty gives God’s Problem Child heft.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Volume 1
    Given the variety of approaches employed within, just about everyone scrolling through these 11 tracks should find an addled anthem easy to love... even as the album itself remains frustratingly difficult to like.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Sad Clowns & Hillbillies
    Sad Clowns & Hillbillies is a solid effort with as many peaks and valleys as southern Indiana.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    What Now
    It grapples with and effectively communicates what happens after the party, what it feels like to come down.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Possum in the Driveway
    Mulcahy’s least predictable album: there’s something memorable and unexpected lurking around every corner.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Gargoyle
    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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Americana
    A handful of songs here are as inspired as anything he has done in at least 30 years. But for an artist who has experienced enough of the American Dream to know where the truth is and where the lies are becoming more seductive, it’s a shame he didn’t have something more interesting to say about it all.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Love Is Love
    This latest song cycle reflects the maturing work of an act determinedly young at heart yet gathering their powers nonetheless to confront encroaching terrors.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Death Song
    Death Song, their fifth full-length, is both unlike anything they’ve done before and also the most purely Black Angels album they have released.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Wrangled
    Song after song features sharp lyrics, sublime melodies, strong performances and suitable production, with Presley cool, calm and collected at the center of it all.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Robyn Hitchcock
    Robyn Hitchcock will never unlock the mysteries of being and nothingness, but his never ending quest for existential satisfaction is supremely fulfilling in its own bracing way.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    With DAMN., Kendrick Lamar plays by the rules and then sets the rule book on fire, and continues one of the most impressive run of albums of any artist in recent memory.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Death Peak
    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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Pleasure
    However stark the departure from his comfort zones, Lerche seems enlivened by the change. That effortless facility with instantly-memorable melodies enables choruses to suddenly erupt full-flourish or drift along as a quoted jingle. The effect is thrilling and supremely confident, with almost casual intimacy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Untouchable
    The magic moments found on Untouchable speak to Kelly’s swaggering confidence--as if that weren’t perhaps alluded to enough in the album’s very title. As a result, the ambitiousness of his work seems increasingly more destined to join the canon of timeless pop from which The Cairo Gang’s songs find their roots.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Siberia
    Siberia seems to have satisfied a need in Ideskog to break from production conformity, and while there are weak spots lyrically, its shadowy memories and hazy snapshots of the Russian railway emit a steady warmth you can return to.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Sincerely, Future Pollution
    The fact the “Born Under Punches”-esque freakout outro doesn’t rob the earlier minutes of their somber beauty is testament to the success of this particular sonic experiment. For that matter, it’s the main proof this new sound of theirs was not just a good move but a great one.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    More Scared of You than You Are of Me
    The 12-song collection ensnares listeners with its tight song structures, yelping melodies and energy delivered via middle-of-the-neck pitched guitar riffs.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Belladonna of Sadness
    Her boiled up fury and velvety voice pair together to make something special, resulting in the album that Del Rey would kill to make.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The World's Best American Band
    There are not a lot of surprises; White Reaper mostly stays in its lane, risking redundancy on some lesser tracks (“Daisies”). But the hooks are relentlessly strong.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Toxic City Music
    Toxic City Music still leaves its mark, if only by reinforcing on listeners how sharp Caminiti’s musical mind is and how he applies it judiciously to work that heaves and menaces like grey storm clouds.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 46 Critic Score
    L.A. Divine
    For a 14-track album that feels interminably long at only 44 minutes, three songs is not enough to save L.A. Divine from sustained mediocrity.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Far Field
    Longtime listeners may recognize in this new album as a solid continuation what Future Islands have been selling for over a decade.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Canyons of My Mind
    Combs has shared that timeless quality since his first record and Canyons Of My Mind is an assured and accomplished continuation of that.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Adios
    The trio creates a sound that is cohesive in approach and unpredictable in expectation as heartland rock mingles with new wave agitations and swampy blues brushes shoulders with swinging waltzes.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Double Roses
    A whisper, sigh, prayer and somehow catharsis, Roses balms life’s harshness.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Life. Love. Flesh. Blood
    There’s no mistaking her passion. And with Life, Love, Flesh, Blood, May makes every intention clear.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Pure Comedy
    This is a big-idea album in a way none of his work was before.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    The Navigator
    As an album, The Navigator’s musicality--both the melodic nature of its songs and its musical-like structure--highlight Segarra’s raw talent and growth as an artist. But if she set The Navigator to stage, like a slightly rockist sequel to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights, she might have even greater impact and success.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    Swear I'm Good at This
    Swear I’m Good At This is the now-21-year-old’s coming-of-age story, and it’s an engaging one, full of awkward moments, breaking hearts, insecurity and a discovery of power.
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