Paste Magazine's Scores

For 4,051 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
Score distribution:
4051 music reviews
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The record is arresting and unnerves in a way only possible from personal anecdotes as opposed to Poem’s parables—it doesn’t speak for everyone, like a fable might, but it does speak for a lot of people.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With Birth of Violence, she takes a momentous step forward with songs that initially mask their sophistication behind plodding, strummy, dreamy facades. Because of Wolfe’s newfound ability to communicate so much more with less, you could call Birth of Violence a tour de force—only Wolfe has mastered the art of eschewing force altogether.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    The problem is the songs. Auerbach can sing with feeling (see the cover of Jerry Butler’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which features vocals reminiscent of vintage Todd Rundgren), but his lyrics are so banal they hardly seem worth the trouble.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    The combination of loose fun and pinpoint accuracy here is bracing, and Califone’s sheer originality is a great counterpoint to the many acts trying desperately to live up to the legacy of their formers.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    That seven-year break might have been just what Wolf Parade needed to regroup and come back even stronger than before, and Cry Cry Cry shows that guitar rock is far from dead.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Lambert is an outlaw, and she’s also an album artist, and Wildcard proves she’s one who will be rebelling, experimenting and rocking the hell out for many years to come.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Three Bells gives us is more than an hour of his musical stream of consciousness roaming wild and free—the results are unpredictable, imperfect and utterly fascinating.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Following the overblown COPE, it seemed unclear where the band would go next. But with The Million Masks of God, Manchester Orchestra prove that they’ve found their footing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    A fun romp through the most succinct Jack White material in a decade, a collection of songs that will thrill crowds across the world until White moves on to whatever his next project is.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Success may not be a salve, but color theory is a resounding triumph.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    WOW
    To give oneself over to the world of colorful unpredictability is easier said than done, but it makes for a rewarding experience that leaves one grinning ear to ear.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    The resulting album is an imaginative indie-pop chronicle of millennial malaise. Throughout, Donnelly sings in a thick Perth accent, and her vocals are dotted with audible laughter, theatrical flourishes, inspired instances of talk-singing, and other oddities. It’s almost as though her stories can’t quite be contained within the limited space of the songs themselves.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    he made an indie pop album for music fans. He went for our hearts rather than our heads, and, for a band as cerebral as Deerhunter can be, that’s its own kind of artistic evolution.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    The songs do not proceed through conventional structures—they lock into deceptively simplistic refrains and then mutate and warp like carcasses exposed to sun. ... When the band strays from post-punk aggression, results are mixed.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    It’s a subtle album, built around gentle, dream-like musical arrangements that belie the tougher sentiments underpinning these songs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    At the edges of the record’s most grey-cloud moments is the iridescent glimmer of vocal harmony, which may not be too far from human harmony.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    The Next Day offers an embarrassment of riches that should keep listeners busy for weeks and months to come.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Banga is a song cycle that expresses a synthesis of all of her strengths to form one of her strongest albums.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Bully’s new album, Lucky For You, is her finest work to date. Never before has Bognanno crafted a record so consistently captivating, able to fire on all cylinders even in its quieter moments.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    This Land proves Clark knows his way around a soundbooth, too, not to mention the news cycle. He’s a restless artist in the best way, and if he keeps chasing those kinetic blues, there’s surely only more good to come.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Like any artist following up a successful record, 10000 gecs was always going to suffer from great expectations. While it keeps the duo’s cocky, chaotic spirit at its core, the material never feels like a step forward, nor does it ever capture the magic of their debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Though it rarely rises above a whisper, Van Etten's captivating vocals and Dessner's subtle production ensure that Tramp is never remotely sleepy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Cheap Queen is more melancholy than “1950,” more introspective than her ode to “Talia,” less ebullient than the assured bedroom-romping funk of follow-up single “Pussy Is God,” the latter of which was co-written with Stenberg. Cheap Queen is also more vulnerable.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Somehow, she makes gothic folk, gloomy doom and grim noise feel above ground. The odds of these kinds of sounds bubbling up into the mainstream are slim, to be sure. But on Hiss Spun, Chelsea Wolfe makes it imaginable.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Though these 11 songs aren’t always as sharply drawn as his best material, there’s plenty to love here.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    It’s time well-spent: slow-burning, dynamic, emotionally resonant and representative of Charly Bliss in 2019.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    While this may not be their magnum opus, and they aren’t reinventing the wheel—or even trying to—Vivian Girls keep us wanting more than just a Memory, but a bright future full of raucous tunes.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Where Dying Star offered only glimmers of hope that Kelly’s garden would someday flourish, Shape & Destroy is a modestly verdant landscape as far as the eye can see—maybe not “tall and purposed” quite yet, but healthy, happy and headed that way.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    They show they don’t need to burn down what they’ve built and start over—they can grow outward, not just upward. These songs are some of the best and most inventive they’ve done, and they prove that Porridge Radio, while always burning brightly, are no mere flash in the pan.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    SPELLLING has shown how she can transform her project from peculiar, interior pop to something grandiose—and Mystery School demonstrates her versatility: Not only can Cabral reorient her sound, she can fashion her existing songs with a new, consistent approach, closely tying all of her eras together under one project.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Her songwriting chops prove better with each new release, making Ivy Tripp her most accomplished outing yet.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    The songs here are frequently gorgeous in their arrangement and production, but they’re not the kinds of tunes you’re likely to find stuck in your head. Rather, Weller’s 14th album is a striking display of his range as a writer and performer.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It’s a jarring rather than smooth listen, but that’s exactly the point from a band that places premium value on the pattern of tension and release.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's great to have her back. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.100]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tough but sugary, Expect Delays is an unhindered blast.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    While most tracks are easy enough to hum along to, laced with warm banjo and pretty keys, it’s the unexpected explosions of warped guitar solos that make Lady Lamb’s softer moments standout--and the album as a whole succeed.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Each track is visceral and transportive, which is no small feat.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    On Somewhere Else, Lydia Loveless has harnessed the barnstorming energy of her Bloodshot debut and transformed it into something much more.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    It’s best to take When the Wind Forgets Your Name in the spirit offered. That is to say, it’s a rewarding one-off project on songs that underscore Martsch’s talent as a songwriter and guitarist, while also showing him in a different light. May all his future collaborations be so inspired.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Where Honey celebrates the diverse community that informs Samia’s experience as a person and an artist, Honey does not necessarily give back, returning an inconsistent set of identities that do not always highlight what makes her a promising artist. Samia instead sinks into the honey like quicksand, encasing her to the point of occlusion.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    13 Rivers may be the most hazardous crossing Thompson’s ever had to make, but it’s also one of the most telling.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    AM
    Arctic Monkeys arrive at the end of AM a lot wiser than they may have appeared from the slow opening stomp of the LP.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    On their second LP, the youngsters don't disappoint.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A sidestep that’s as easy to admire as it is hard to love.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's a welcome, bliss-smacked comeback. [#13, p.121]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wonderfully askew. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.96]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    MS may have temporarily slowed the Athens, Ga., musician’s output, but it has not diminished its quality.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Where this CD really starts to take shape and fit the mood of the series is during the last third of the tracklisting that starts with a gentle lullaby from The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and lands softly with the hands of Frahm himself playing a solo piano version of his song “Them.”
    • 81 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    There’s no denying Visions Of A Life top marks for a sterling sophomore effort.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Brandi Carlile has always aimed high. On By the Way, I Forgive You, she aims higher than ever before, this time with her best songs and exquisite production on her side.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    While Bernhard and his colleagues--bassist Lucia Turino, guitarist Cooper McBean and new recruit, touring drummer Stefan Amidon--are intent on conveying these tales of darkness and despair, their upbeat approach, flush with propulsive rhythms and distorted guitars, suggests a punk-like persona and a devil-may-care distinction, one that distracts and departs from any deeper meaning.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Like Warm and Warmer, Tweedy’s requires a bit of patience to crack open. The songs tend to seep in slowly, but it’s worth the effort to burrow into them: Beneath that low-key exterior, Love Is the King displays luminous depth from a veteran songwriter who continues to grow into his craft.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Neale has placed her trust in life’s meanders—and in its source—and the result is her best work yet: a golden mean between experimentation and pop, lo-fi and hi-fi, vitality and rest.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    The social commentary feels sharper here, but otherwise, not much has changed in the last three years; Good Living Is Coming For You delivers more of what made Hunger for a Way Out an aesthetic standout and word-of-mouth underground hit.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    I Keep My Feet On The Fragile Plane is a wildly successful catalog of the trials of early adulthood, providing a comfortable space to explore painful points of unrealized promise and acceptance. Krieger seems at home within the structures of her languid, smoldering ballads–though the fire burns hot when she picks up speed just a little bit.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It is a beautiful record, and maybe a little over-simplified at its weakest moments, straddling that line between clean and bare.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Redd Kross 2.0's incredible debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Decemberists’ first two records—Castaways and Cutouts and Her Majesty (both in 2003)—felt a touch spotty.... Picaresque trumps them both by dint of its focus, consistency and restraint.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    At its best, The Ruby Cord is able to convey as much story via the timbre of Dawson’s voice as it does through his verbose lyricism. Dawson brings no shortage of compelling narratives to this record, continuing Peasant and 2020’s propensity for song-length vignettes that thematically snap together when put in sequence.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Each one is charming and sturdy and well put together, evidence of an artist who is at the very top of his game and ready to reach even higher. Here’s looking forward to Volume 2.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Throughout They Want My Soul, the songs flow into and out of each other with a subtle movement that’s hypnotic and sounds deceptively simple.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    He's not the only one channeling the greats, but he does it better than almost anyone else today.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Caroline Rose’s portrayal of a new beginning during the first three tracks of The Art of Forgetting is visceral and guttural. ... The tracks remarkably set the pace and atmosphere for the entirety of the record.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s a tense endeavor wading into unknown territory, nevertheless projecting raw confidence. It shows us a band that isn’t afraid to push themselves. And, a decade in, that’s no small feat.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    That Lucero often focuses on guys like that [screw-ups] doesn’t diminish the power of those songs, but it makes it harder for any one of them to stand out when there are so many solid options. On the other hand, the fact that Lucero has made it 25 years singing about bad luck and worse choices is, in its own counterintuitive way, something worth celebrating.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    By cycling through so many varied musical styles in the pursuit of bristling self-reflection, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was offers an easy way through the endless morass of bad headlines and worse outcomes: Dance and sing.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Subtlety is practically extinct. As a result, The Queen of Hearts demands a patient listen and a willing ear. Happily, this clear appreciation for folk nobility reaps its rewards.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    She’s been utilizing her voice to influence the world for generations, and Blueprint emphasizes that her work is far from done. Whatever Alice Bag wants to talk about, we’re here to listen.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Before you know it, 87 minutes have gone by and you’re not quite sure what to make of it all, but you’re ready to listen again. For that, Tool are to be commended. If nothing else, the band have given us an album that could very well keep us occupied until its next one arrives sometime around the year 2032.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Salutations expands Oberst’s raw scratch solo Ruminations’ 10 songs into a messier, more glorious celebration of squalor and self-indulgence with a self-loathing chaser.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    As it stands Burst Apart is a record of big songs from a band that's good at generating big songs, and we should be relieved that The Antlers can be impressive without an overarching concept behind them.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The album becomes more intoxicatingly hermetic with each successive song, taking you as deep as you dare to go. [Nov 2006, p.79]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Finding a strong balance between art and slick, Parton continues walking a line of what people expect and her heart. She just gets better with age.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    IGOR is a commendable, yet flawed album, one that further challenges what we can and should expect from a rap album in 2019.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    It does manage to strike a balance between the stylish sass of post-fame Porches and the elegiac sulking of the act’s early era. It seems like Maine has finally found a sound that will continue to allow him to headline large venues, without coming across as a sellout. All Day Gentle Hold ! confidently lays the groundwork for a sustained Porches return.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    What Jesso has delivered is a record that needs no context, that can exist outside of time and place. Jesso, in short, has crafted a masterpiece, with the only connection of real significance being between him and his audience.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    The album surprises continually, offering humor, crises and redemption within the sound of something as lovely and enticing as it is aggressive and challenging.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Although their synth work and melodies are memorable beyond belief, this album’s poignance, delivered with a good-natured determination, is what takes the wheel and makes it a synth-pop milestone.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Prewitt's songs take their time unfolding, giving the album a meditative quality that's pretty admirable. [#14, p.105]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Most of the album was recorded at The Black Keys’ studio in Nashville and favors bluesy twangs, folksy fiddles and country slide guitars.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 73 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    She found it in herself to make yet another gorgeous, melancholy, old-souled record.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    It’s an ideal time to simultaneously start over and glance back, which Walker does on Sycamore Meadows, trading the glammy style of his prior solo work for competent, traditional radio rock....Then again, you’ll need a high threshold for boorishness to enjoy his frequent autobiographical nostalgia for substance abuse, pubescent defloration and venereal disease.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Perfect for the learned music scholar, the Goth mom on the go and the curious young listener alike, Still In A Dream: A Story of Shoegaze 1988 – 1995 is a masterpiece in the art of box set compilation, one that sets the bar high for any enterprising opportunist looking to anthologize an entire subgenre.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    YNA_AYT is without a doubt the best work of Sorority Noise’s still-nascent career, and an early frontrunner for one of the best albums of 2017. It is emotionally complex, yet full of uplifting melodies that feel designed to pull the listener--or at least Boucher--out of the dark corners of the mind.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The personal nature of the lyrics shouldn't be overlooked. It's what makes Moms feel less like an exercise in sonic exploration, and more like a flesh-and-blood rock record... that happens to also be an exercise in sonic exploration.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    With How The West Was Won, Perrett proves that he’s got plenty of rock and roll left to make, a lot of courage left to make it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 92 Critic Score
    Sprinter crackles and explodes, with a dynamic range that’d make Steve Albini blush.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 93 Critic Score
    Don’t blink--no mere mid-career album, Monomania registers as an absolute impact event, a massive dirty blast marking the moment Deerhunter’s steady trajectory spins out of control.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On Apocrypha... Bird may be simultaneously at his most clever and most luminous. [Apr 2007, p.55]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The result is a new record that has the warmth, remembrance and intimacy of a photo album, one with which Cahoone charmingly invites you to get to know her a little better.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Chemtrails Over the Country Club is a record full of euphoric highs and baffling lows. It’s an enjoyable listen that cinematically celebrates Del Rey’s vocal prowess.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 84 Critic Score
    On The Way Out, their fourth and most dazzling work to date, the duo strikes an ideal balance between found-sound collage and original vocalizations.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    03/07-09/07 offers a well-rounded introduction to the charming High Places.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    It’s Marling’s sense of immediacy that makes Short Movie so evocative.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Her third album, Tomorrow’s Fire, is her best work. Leaning in harder than ever to rock music, the roiling catharsis so often found in Williams’ vocal performance now bleeds into the production. Tomorrow’s Fire is lean, clocking in at 34 minutes across 10 tracks, but Williams doesn’t waste a second of it
    • 81 Metascore
    • 86 Critic Score
    Jones and the Dap-Kings make the kind of music that moves them, and their feverish passion is contagious.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    The time-tested tracks not only showcase the band doing what they do best in notoriously long, dramatic, panic-inducing instrumentals but are also startling reminders on why the band was so vital and lead such a movement to begin with.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Her music remains light with playful rhythms, but she keeps her songs controlled as if they were on a string, as well. If you're feeling brave it's a good listen for a quiet evening at home, but Tristen's study of the heart may be far too honest for some.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Maraqopa's experimentations aren't those of a young musician set loose in a studio full of new toys. Rather, with this newest release, Jurado demonstrates that, at this late date in his career, he may just be hitting his stride.