Paste Magazine's Scores

Select another publication »
For 4,079 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: 3,643 out of 4079
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4079
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4079
4079 music reviews
view
per page
    • 65 Metascore
    • 34 Critic Score
    Delta Machine
    Depeche Mode has been an easy target for complaints of stagnancy, and, indeed, the band seemed to stop progressing in the mid-’90s like a child with a pot-a-day habit. And, Delta Machine is another example of this.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Chaosmosis
    Chaosmosis, though full of small pleasures, will undoubtedly go down as a minor work in the Scream discography. Primal Scream’s best records dissolved genres together like potions; Chaosmosis seems happy just to ride out the groove.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Mountain
    Black Mountain indulges that old-school rock ’n’ roll craving.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 44 Critic Score
    Little Wild One
    The album comes off as polished, tasteful and static, like a still-life, beset with predictable melodies and proficient but less than electrifying vocal performances.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twelve
    More Pete Seeger than Cat Power, her interpretations sometimes feel too internalized to startle. [May 2007, p.61]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Specter at the Feast
    Reacting to what life has given them has made Black Rebel Motorcycle Club a better band on Specter at the Feast, and we can hope that this change will stick.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Declaration Of Dependence
    Declaration of Dependence offers a sense of cohesion their previous albums don’t, a complete story through melody.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Zee Avi
    Her arrangements are music-hall clever, her erudite lyrics reference the most arcane subjects, and her flapper-vampy voice camps up everything to the point of burlesque.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wait For Me
    It’s a remarkable work, and while Moby may find himself once more providing the soundtrack to every trendy restaurant and automobile ad for the next 18 months, what’s best about this record is that it’s just that: an album, meant to be consumed the old-school way, front-to-back.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Under My Influence
    This record encapsulates a unit who have perfected their chemistry so much that they are approaching their prime with precision, passion and grace. As the ladies continue to propel forward, it’s important to remember Under My Influence as a bold collection of thoughts and experiences that tap into a generation of women who maybe don’t even know they need it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mylo Xyloto
    It's a moment of stirring calm amid a sea of blaring showiness, and this well-intended mixed bag, despite its lovely surfaces, could have used more of that variety.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Don't Act Like You Don't Care
    The tape hiss and overall lo-fi production values initially make Don't Act feel like a backward enterprise, failing to build upon Pigeons' kaleidoscopic scope. But in many ways, this is the most accomplished collection of songs Temple has put forth, even if it takes some time to account for the awkward adjustment.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Freedom's Road
    In [some] songs, Mellencamp comes across as Toby Keith's benevolent doppelganger: a good ol' boy who'd rather forgive someone's sorry ass than put a boot in it. [Mar 2007, p.68]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    An End Has A Start
    These 10 songs repeatedly strike the same dynamic and evoke the same vague drama, each sounding more perfunctory--and more soulless--than the previous.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Free Dimensional
    The general focus and fulfillment of personal goals on the album is admirable, and the pop landscape is now a little stronger because of it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Court Yard Hounds
    Though neither boasts Maines’ forcefulness, they invest these tales of severed connections with an emotional intensity that elevates even weaker tracks like “Fairytale” and “Then Again.”
    • 65 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    This Is Gap Dream
    You can sense the solitude and fear in his warbling slacker-rock epics, and the solitude went beyond sheer internal turmoil: Fulvimar also played every instrument on the album.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Brave And The Bold
    Like an indie-rock version of Dylan & The Dead--only surprisingly inspired instead of barely palatable. [Apr/May 2006, p.110]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lynn Teeter Flower
    What she has done so compellingly throughout her career--evanescent moments of self-doubt given voice through melancholic bursts of catharsis--yields here to '70s singer/songwriter cliches once peddled by Carole King and later adopted by the Lilith Fair crowd. [May 2007, p.68]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Closer to Closed
    It's clear that Braid, after having been a band for more than a decade, have never sounded more like one.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Losst and Founnd
    Like Nilsson Schmilsson, Losst and Founnd flits restlessly from style to style, emphasizing the singer’s eclecticism and sense of humor. And while the songs are hardly as great as that 1971 masterpiece, nor the production as timeless, it is nice to hear Nilsson’s voice anew.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Potato Hole
    Booker T. is more a frontman than a bandleader here, which makes Potato Hole sound less like a solo album and more like a band project.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    I Love You Go Easy
    She's pushed her own skills as a vocalist, drawing more from her jazz side even when singing pop or country. In the process she's created some of her finest art, even if it frequently sounds too casual for that word to apply.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Breeze: An Appreciation of J.J. Cale
    Breeze: An Appreciation Of JJ Cale isn’t a perfect record by any means, but if these versions of his best-loved songs from Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Willie Nelson and Mark Knopfler encourage people to listen to Cale’s originals, the whole effort will have been worthwhile.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1: No Past. No Future. No Sun
    At their best, Shiny matches the sheer majesty and emotional depth of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. At their worst, they sound like a third-tier Muse cover band (“Seek And You Shall Destroy” is a particularly low track).
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mission Bell
    "Violin," the lone track which seems to bare a hint of Calexico influence, is unsurprisingly the album's clear highlight: a swelling, sweeping slow-burner with wide-screen atmosphere, angelic harmonies and pedal steel aching over modest acoustic strums. More of this ilk and Mission Bell would have been a stunner.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Is That You in the Blue?
    Album highlight and instrumental freak-out "Climb Down" even sports frantic rock 'n' roll saxophone that would've fit in nicely on the new Black Lips album. Unfortunately, these lively moments are watered down by a majority of low-key material, verging from enjoyable to listless, which in turn makes Is That You in the Blue? a mixed bag overall.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Daughter of Cloud
    The record would be better served to ditch a majority of its so-so offerings and stick to its successes--those that show Barnes as willing to channel his creativity into a focused direction.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wildlife
    The well-established indie-pop tricks get results, but are too unerringly calculated to have much distinct personality. Some big, billowy production would have helped.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Cosmic Egg
    Much of Cosmic Egg is just that--not-quite-hatched, and in need of sharper claws.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Mama, I'm Swollen
    Mostly Mama comes filled with soul-aflame adolescent angst that generates lines like “I am the joke of existence / I am no one” with guitar squall to match.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rise To Your Knees
    The years, however, have worn on the Meat Puppets. Their unrestrained gusto has been replaced with a slower, methodical purging.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Songs of Patience
    Their reach so far exceeds their grasp that all we can hear is the rift between their ambitions and their abilities.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Green Imagination
    It's surely a treat for fans of Olivia Tremor Control. But while interesting in its own way, the album is an inessential psychedelic-pop diversion for most everyone else.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    El Rey
    El is the kind of album you listen to once--and appreciate--but never really groove through with any regularity.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Let There Be Morning
    The Perishers fail to elevate their brand of minimalism beyond the politely unobtrusive and fatally unmemorable. [Apr/May 2005, p.149]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Without Feathers
    While stocked with skillful guitars, tuneful vocals and the occasional hook, Without Feathers feels oddly unassuming, a plain-vanilla modern-rock record. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.122]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 65 Metascore
    • 52 Critic Score
    Different Gear, Still Speeding
    Speaking of The Beatles, Different Gear continues the Gallagher quest for the perfect Lennon impression. It's yet to be found.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crush Songs
    Despite its warbly lo-fi aesthetic and unfinished feel, Crush Songs does have an honest, classic vibe to it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 51 Critic Score
    The Blueprint 3
    Jay overreaches, leaning too heavily on by-the-numbers production from Kanye West and Timbaland, and muffling his own voice in favor of a guest-heavy tracklist.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Transfixiation
    Transfixiation is at its best, however, when a little restraint casts its own spooky shadows.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    In the Grace of Your Love
    I will say In The Grace of Your Love makes the last five years without The Rapture seem a lot more empty, sometimes you don't know what you're missing until it returns.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Rockstar
    Throughout the rest of the project, Parton’s original tracks (including “World on Fire,” a stadium-ready stomp-stomp-clap protest anthem) and faithful renditions of classic rock favorites help her get the band back together for one last encore shine through. At age 77, Dolly Parton sounds fresh, brand new and like she’s having the time of her life.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Konk
    Konk is a bit too glossy for its own good, with neatly distorted guitars, swooning multi-tracked harmonies and perfectly manicured choruses working against the energy inherent in the performances.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Relaxer
    alt-J can twist ordinary feelings into something darkly seductive and unsettling, peeling away comfortable layers of emotion until all that’s left is its raw, exposed core. Each song reveals its own slice of disturbed history, set to the band’s warped perceptions of sadness, death and lust, with cold reality as its backbone.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Horses and High Heels
    Faithfull knows she has much more past than future, which gives her cover an intense melancholy that seeps naturally into the rest of Horses and High Heels. She is, in other words, a true pop connoisseur, blessed not only with a distinctive voice but with an understanding that songs can change dramatically with age and experience.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Top Ten Hits of the End of the World
    Stripped of its clever concept, Top Ten Hits for the End of the World can be apocalyptically bland.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    The Fool
    As a debut album, The Fool is certainly an impressive first outing.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reviver
    It shows their talents as a band that can perform a vast array of songs and yet still manage to tie them all together.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Full Bleed: Caught on Tape
    This is a massive slab of American skronk.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    AIM
    AIM isn’t nearly as ambitious. It’s just busywork, M.I.A. watching the clock, scanning the news, occupied, but idle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    9
    While not as panoramic or varied as its predecessor, 9 is marked by a similar mix of poised control and impulsive gestures backed by dramatically arranged, lyrical instrumentation. [Dec 2006, p.92]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 64 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Because the Internet
    It’s developed in parts, compelling, and his existential struggles are somewhat realized.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 43 Critic Score
    Chinese Democracy
    Too bad the epitaph’s already scrawled in Chinese Democracy’s anachronistic margins: a bottomless pit dug by disposable income, a persecution complex and egomania.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Anxiety
    While Anxiety is not a trainwreck, it's a missed opportunity given the strength of her foundation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Summer Bodies
    The overall accumulation of the album's atmosphere might be its greatest success.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Stockholm
    Stockholm, produced by Peter Bjorn and John’s Bjorn Yttling, has the cutting lyrical tilt and raw agony that defined the Pretender, but its sheen beckons listeners.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    The End of That
    The End of That finds them sounding more mature and comfortable than ever before, signaling perhaps not an end at all, but rather a new beginning.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    That's Why God Made the Radio
    While all members sound terrific behind the microphone, particularly when the harmonies are at their thickest, Love's lead turns on the god-awful "Daybreak Over the Ocean" and "Beaches in Mind" are excruciatingly over-played in their winky retro-ness and, quite frankly, an embarrassment.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    The Modern Age
    The Modern Age is a record to get down to. Most of all it’s a terrific comeback for a band that rose to fame and flamed out much too quickly.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Songs of Innocence
    Once the controls for the album are ceded (mostly) to Danger Mouse, the album really starts to cook. The last five songs are the best batch of material U2 have played a part in for a decade, at least.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Battle Born
    In many ways, Battle Born will live up to everything you wish of it, just not every Lanois-Lillywhite-and-O'Brien-helmed second.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Dr. Dee
    Unfortunately, an undertaking as complicated as Dr Dee needs all the accessibility that would-be fans can get. And instead it's nothing more than rabbit-hole music for Dr. Damon.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Musik, Die Schwer Zu Twerk
    It’s hard to make an argument for anything here being essential for the Flaming Lips’ career arc, but, it is a side project, and as side projects go, this one is strong.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Hungry Bird
    Rather than picking up where End of Love left off, Hungry Bird sounds like an extension of previous solo outing Lose Big. Barzelay’s soft, depressed poetry is brushed across the canvas of his wispy songs as if he could float into the ether at any moment, becoming a ghost singing from the wizenened remove of the afterlife.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Wildness
    [There] are minor blemishes on what otherwise is a strong comeback album for Snow Patrol that proves Lightbody’s still got it. Now, though, his hooks are weathered a bit by life and loss and struggle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Here Lies Love
    With multiple narrators voiced by a plethora of singers, it's hard to follow which character is speaking at any given time. Extensive liner notes clear up the confusion, but it feels like a lot of work for an album that's not particularly revelatory in either music or story.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Penny Sparkle
    A nicely composed mix, no doubt, and one that's often gorgeous to boot, but Penny Sparkle mostly sounds like a band getting complacent with age.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Desert Skies
    All the core elements of Beachwood Sparks are here, but there’s also more, and less, at the same time.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Barragán
    Even with Barragán’s sleepiness and sparseness, the malleability of a band like Blonde Redhead--especially one that continues to make music for the art of creation--is the same strength that has kept them relevant for so long.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Voids
    An album that feels inspired by nostalgia but not limited to it, which bodes well for wherever Minus The Bear decides to go next.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Violet Cries
    Violet Cries is broadly, nebulously goth, with very little to distinguish the band from their peers and forebears.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Everybody Knows
    Unfortunately, Everybody Knows is the sound of two classic artists playing the 18th hole of their intertwined and decorated careers.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Ages
    These days it’s no easy feat for a band to differentiate itself from the slough of other guitar-pop bands. You need songs, and Ghost Wave has plenty.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Be Set Free
    On Be Set Free, Langhorne Slim perfectly captures the lyrical simplicity of bygone times with straightforward lines like, “I don’t want to break your heart, but I probably will.”
    • 64 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head
    Trouble Man is less senile in general than "Hello," but for too many of the album's 71 minutes, we listen in horror as T.I., 32, tries flaccidly to get down with the kids.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us
    Madeira's Mercyland offers an ecumenism that reaches across subgenres to coalesce a community bound by both faith and music.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fly by Wire
    Even if the whole thing isn’t world-upheaving. Those standalone tracks make it worth a whirl.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Funplex
    Their first album in 16 years aims to achieve a similar blend of the edgy, catchy and commercial. And it does just that with 'Eyes Wide Open,' which features a synth loop that sounds like the Magical Musical Thing toy of the ’70s, then blossoms with the bright harmonies of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Tre!
    It's more raw, pointed and hard-hitting than anything they've released in years, yet it's littered with head-scratching filler and awkward sonic diversions.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Beak and Claw [EP]
    At four tracks and 18 minutes, Beak & Claw is over long before it starts to make any kind of sense--and the end result is as confounding as it is fascinating.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Like Rats
    Every once in a while, the album offers a flash of something ancient, mysterious--a foreboding glimpse behind the curtain of the human psyche at some truth so cavernous, frightening and hard-to-grasp that we can’t normally focus our eyes long enough to see it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Como te Llama
    For guitarheads, Como Te Llama makes for a nifty Fender Stratocaster tonal demo. For more general fans, it’s a relaxingly unfocused but usually enjoyable effort.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    La Costa Perdida
    Overall La Costa Perdida goes down easy--maybe a little too easy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hello Everything
    Hello Everything is short on revelations but not quality. [Dec 2006, p.97]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 64 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Minnesota
    There are moments where Jennings deviates thematically and sonically from the boy-becomes-a-man-and-uses-all-the-pianos thru-line-some succeed, like the loose and likeable "Well Of Love," and others, not so much, like the synthy fairytale nightmare mess of "Witches Dream."
    • 64 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    City Of Refuge
    The fine-tuned spaces let you hear every rough callous scrape across the acoustic strings, every quick intake of breath before a verse.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    9th Ward Pickin' Parlor
    [A] solid, satisfying effort. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.95]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brain Thrust Mastery
    The Brooklyn band’s innate charm and accessibility allows forgiveness of its near-abandonment of bass-driven new wave.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Permalight
    In the three years since Rogue Wave’s last album, frontman Zach Rogue has discovered the synthesizer. This isn’t bad in theory, but in practice the newfound instrument does little to lift Rogue Wave to the next level.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    The Big Dream
    Submitting yourself to its hazy beauty may prove challenging for some, but for those willing to explore these unsteady climes, the journey will provide countless delights for the senses.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    In the Cool of the Day
    With a truthful tone and a passionate telling, In the Cool of the Day is good salve for anyone, believer or skeptic.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    WYWH
    WYWH is all about atmosphere, but it's an atmosphere that doesn't always leave an impression, which makes this album a very tentative step in the right direction.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Weezer (Red Album)
    Now we get Cuomo name-dropping Eddie Rabbit, Joan Baez and "a Cat named Stevens," which makes Weezer sounds like a retread of "Built To Spill," who did the recycled-classic-rock-cliché thing back in 1999. Did it better, too.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 47 Critic Score
    Enough Thunder [EP]
    There are flashes of the brilliance that made the youngster such a trendy buzzname, but it's hard work wading through the awkward muck.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    More Than Just a Dream
    More than Just a Dream is poised for prime time, a diabetic coma of sugar-rush pop.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    The Third Gleam
    On The Third Gleam, The Avett Brothers take a step back from all that gloss and shine and just focus on the songwriting, the harmonies and the dynamic between three musicians in a room. Hearing The Third Gleam is like stepping into a sunny, peaceful clearing after hours of running through the woods.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    I Want to See Pulaski at Night [EP]
    The prolific, fiddle-touting, whistling Bird creates a cinematic musical experience that opens itself to both individual interpretation and universal experience.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rize of the Fenix
    [The song] "Rize of the Fenix" is so powerful, so perfect, so representative of what these guys do well, what follows is almost sure to pale in comparison. Luckily, the highlights keep on coming.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Colonia
    If she has more misanthropic stuff like this up her A Camp sleeve? Hey-forget the Cardigans, and bring it on.
Page: