Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,080 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: 3,644 out of 4080
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4080
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4080
4080 music reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I'll Sleep When You're Dead
    Already the best hip-hop release of 2007, and it ain't even close. [Mar 2007, p.68]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Free Somehow
    While its upbeat rockers add a welcome sense of urgency, Free Somehow is most interesting when it is slow, pensive and bleak.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blame It On Gravity
    Blame It On Gravity is a welcome return to form.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Long Live the King [EP]
    Intellectual? Yes. Visceral? Absolutely. Accessible? Oddly.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Walking Proof
    Walking Proof’s balanced blend of quirk, confidence and craftsmanship make it a 2020 standout, both within the sphere of Nashville’s rich music scene and without. The genre flexibility doesn’t hurt.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lust Lust Lust
    Pitting garage-rock tactics against Motown strategy, Lust Lust Lust is my kinda vice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    La Radiolina
    One of the most poignant protest albums released since the U.S. invaded Iraq.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Geometry
    It's an instant late-night classic that's a pleasure to stay awake for. [Dec 2005, p.119]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Roots & Crowns
    The band's best collage of cross-bred eras yet. [Oct 2006, p.75]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eclipse
    The resulting album comes across as a natural progression, with Lewis and his Twin Shadow project reaching big and not disappointing in their grasp.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bloom
    In the end, Bloom isn't a huge progression for Beach House, but rather a lateral step for the group.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twin Cinema
    Exhilarating and complex enough to keep you warm year-round. [Aug/Sep 2005, p.108]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On All Fours
    Goat Girl remain just as captivating as they were amid the spiky guitar and haunting harmonies of their first album, but have made incredible strides in just a couple years.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    My Friend Fish
    Packed with peace, love and jangly guitars, Diane Coffee’s debut LP, My Friend Fish, is an irresistible ode to ’60s psychedelia.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Go to School
    The album is dazzling in its ambition, not least because the Lemon Twigs are in earnest.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Key
    Whatever Key lacks in ramshackle charm, it compensates for with deft musicianship and winds up just as achingly fine as the band's sepia-toned debut. [#13, p.119]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Now We Can See
    Now We Can See feels both like a nod to America’s past grievances and its potentially bright future.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You're the One
    It’s a deeply fun album that beckons the listener’s attention immediately.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fair Ain't Fair
    Refreshingly, he doesn’t resort to the type of left-wing broadsides that Bragg perfected, and instead dismantles his political and cultural targets through quirky stories and a mix of self-deprecation and sarcasm.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Diving Board
    The Diving Board isn’t love at first listen. It quietly opens itself after several spins, unveiling a complex, winking toe-tapper of an album.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Evil Urges
    Evil Urges has a little something for everybody, and at a time when albums often consist of a few peaks and a lot of filler, it’s remarkably consistent, mostly lacking extreme highs and lows.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lucifer on the Sofa
    It’s the sound of a band in peak form who are pushing to get better, go further and resist any temptation to slack off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thanks for the Dance
    More than half a century since Cohen proved himself to be someone worth listening to. Thanks for the Dance, Cohen’s fifteenth and potentially final studio album, shows that little has changed in that regard. Whether he’s singing about sex or death, or whatever else, Cohen’s voice remains indispensable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Feed The Animals
    His latest musical highlight reel is dense with rib-nudging gags and indelible moments.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nosebleed Weekend
    On the whole, Nosebleed Weekend is a triumph, The Coathangers’ strongest top-to-bottom album and one that proves the band can maintain its essence as it evolves.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Attack On Memory
    Sometimes something wonderful comes along that won't force you to estimate how "important" it will sound at year's end. Attack on Memory is one of those wonderful things.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twentytwo in Blue
    All in all, Twentytwo in Blue spills over with well-crafted songs and sumptuous performances.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I've Got Me
    The songs on I’ve Got Me start simply, then bloom into playful complexity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Divine Providence
    It's a freewheelin' LP that features all of what we've come to know and love about Deer Tick without feeling like a rehash.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Way
    It’s trademark Buzzcocks, with the slashing guitars to get you going and biting lyrics that let you know it’s not all fun and games.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    God's Country
    God’s Country is as deftly ugly as its namesake, searing in its approach, forcing you to confront the black heart at the core of a rotting nation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Live from Atlanta
    Live In Atlanta is not for newbies. It’s too overwhelming for anyone not already established as a lifelong Lucero fan. But for those who have experienced Lucero live before, Live In Atlanta is a necessary addition to the catalog.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Faith in Strangers
    Faith in Strangers is long-form listening at its finest.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forever Today
    It's the scattered, ambitious energy of twenty-somethings, when everything seems possible and even though you don't know where you're going or what you want when you get there, you feel compelled to run the whole way.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everywhere At Once
    The album truly is everywhere at once, and for that it at least deserves a taste.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Island Intervals
    Island Intervals marks a giant leap for Thibodeau, while not veering too far from his own trodden trail. Call it future folk, but in 10 years we’ll be calling it timeless.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
    Brightly chiming and tensely foreboding in equal measure, the group has never sounded more poised for a breakthrough. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.129]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Devil, You + Me
    Acher has a light touch, repeating simple phrases and subtle, smeared blue notes. As a lyricist, he’s a master of the soft sell, allowing his enigmas to carry their own weight.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Songs For Patriots
    Their best since 1991’s Everclear, and a glittering statement of purpose from an institution reinvigorated.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Midnight Boom
    In less talented hands, the dozen songs on this record easily could have sounded like a failed, high-concept art thesis, and to be perfectly objective, not every track really kills.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vertigo
    It all sounds more ominous than Necks’ last effort, the slow developing and endlessly relaxed Open. But none of the Necks’ 18 studio albums throws off an overly contented vibe--just a contemplative air. So, if whatever the trio’s thinking on and trying to relate to listeners takes another 25 years to suss out, it probably would be to the audience’s benefit.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
    His prototypically clever and articulate lyrical work infuses the album with a native intelligence that transcends the inherent limitations of any given genre.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Broke Moon Rises
    A Broke Moon Rises is a good record from a great musician, but if nothing else it’s worth hearing just to share in that moment.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harry's House
    He sounds in command of his voice on this record in a way that he hadn’t yet reached in his past two releases. While truly every track on Harry’s House has something to admire and embrace, the ninth song, “Daydreaming,” is a standout for one simple reason: Styles uses a sample for the very first time.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brighter Than Creation's Dark
    Brighter Than Creation’s Dark belongs to Mike Cooley, who contributes seven of his best, most rousing songs about hard-luck characters—the kind you know and probably avoid--proving the Truckers are at their best singing about people at their worst.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Presence [Remastered]
    Like Jimmy Page’s previous deluxe remasters, these new sets are fitfully revealing, littered with extras that even obsessives will write off as fluff. But the albums’ scattered brilliance has only deepened in the past four decades.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Through the Out Door [Remastered]
    Like Jimmy Page’s previous deluxe remasters, these new sets are fitfully revealing, littered with extras that even obsessives will write off as fluff. But the albums’ scattered brilliance has only deepened in the past four decades.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Star-Crossed
    Musgraves’ storytelling skills and musical instincts are as strong as ever on star-crossed. While it’s not perfect, love rarely is, and breakups never are.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forever Hasn't Happened Yet
    Sure to please longtime fans of his plaintive, weathered tenor and gift for melody. [Apr/May 2005, p.136]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Find Me Gone
    What a difference a year (and a beard) makes. [Sep 2006, p.75]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home, Before and After
    Whether she’s swimming around in theories about space and time, or just riffing on a few scales to make a love song, Spektor’s words and melodies on Home, before and after are a dazzling delight.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Join Us
    The songs are novel in both conception and execution, and the band seems aware of the novelty, aware that two to three minutes is just the right length, that quirky and irreverent work best when the song ends before you want it to.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rabbit Rabbit
    Rabbit Rabbit sees the band writing some of the biggest and most gripping music of their career, all while still delivering the winding, twisting arrangements that drew fans to them in the first place over 10 years ago.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Ghost Colours
    In Ghost Colours achieves its success by striking the right balance between its competing genres--rock and electronic--without sacrificing either.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Octahedron
    Though 'Teflon' boasts Rush-like guitar thunder and violent lyrics (“Let the wheels burn, let the wheels burn, stack the tires to the neck with the body inside”), the group returns to dark balladry on 'Desperate Graves' and 'Copernicus,' two more highlights from a haunting album full of twilight poetry.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laurel Hell
    When Mitski veers jauntier and more upbeat, the album soars.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Full Bleed: Caught on Tape
    This is a massive slab of American skronk.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    FU##IN' UP
    What it is is 64 minutes of blistering, heart-racing rock ‘n’ roll that, somehow, digs its claws deeper into the heaviness of Ragged Glory’s original piercing, head-splitting distortion.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For Those Who Stay
    The riffs still explode with the same epic weight, and Saulnier’s cracked tenor still recalls a jittery Tom Verlaine.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Awake Is The New Sleep
    With Awake, Lee has become a writer so adept at communicating his personality through song, that it’s easy to feel like you know him after just a few listens.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carrion Crawler/The Dream
    Although it would break the needle on the bizarre meter for a more conventional band, Carrion Crawler/The Dream is a pretty straightforward release in the world of Thee Oh Sees.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Velocifero
    Never before has Ladytron sounded so sinister, been so danceable and connected so well with its audience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sour Soul
    Sour Soul is an evening album, like all good jazz albums should be. The kind you turn on over lamplight or bump on your headphones.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    David Nance & Mowed Sound
    It’s Nance’s best work yet; who knew all he had to do was ham up his own sublime talents to get there.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    13
    The spirit of early Sabbath permeates 13, which is a solid record for those with realistic expectations.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dream River
    There’s plenty to chew on with his latest, Dream River. And that’s just the lyrics, whose weightiness is given more heft by his controlled baritone.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Other People's Songs
    Stripped-down and intimate, Other People’s Songs is a gorgeous collection of punk favorites that, when paired with Kinsella’s relaxed tone and restrained strums, take on a fresh and organic feel.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Conor Oberst
    Altogether, it might be his most mature and immediately listenable album.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Joji
    The very best kind of hot, front-porch music. [Apr/May 2005, p.134]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Defend Yourself
    Paired with familiar sounds and a reliable DIY aesthetic, Sebadoh manages to focus the emotion, which leaves Defend Yourself feeling like a reenergized, natural evolution for the band.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Glow
    Her command of the guitar creates a unique listening experience that explores every raw emotion.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Hollywood, Jr. 1947
    Hollywood's fractured tale is underwritten by melancholy music that splits the difference between Mann's Bachelor #2 and Penn's MP4. [Oct/Nov 2005, p.138]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Spare Ribs
    Because it doesn’t cohere quite as much as their previous output, Spare Ribs wouldn’t necessarily be the album you point to in order to make that case, but it’s not short on charm or growth, so it doesn’t detract from the argument, either.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unknown Rooms: A Collection Of Acoustic Songs
    The tone and pace of Wolfe's voice don't really vary that much, and there isn't enough happening with the instrumentation to give the album any real sense of dynamism.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Songs for Robots
    As a satisfying internal logic begins to emerge, it’s clear that Watson has outdone himself on this ambitious and endearingly strange album.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thunderbitch
    The record is consciously straightforward and unapologetically so. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Survive
    On To Survive, her second release under the moniker Joan As Police Woman, she casts the same torchy, seductive, chamber-pop spell that made her debut "Real Life" such a pleasure, only doing it even more effectively this time.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Lieu of Flowers
    When it comes to Aaron West, it’s easy for the plot mechanics to consume much of the conversation. But In Lieu of Flowers contains some of Campbell’s best melodies and soaring choruses.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    W
    W portends a bright future for Boris, even this late into their career. If their new material is any indication, they may never run out of ideas.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Awoo
    If... Donovan and the guy from Blues Traveler had a baby... it would... sound like this. [Mar 2007, p.63]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Invisible Light: Acoustic Space
    Invisible Light has the aural quality of a relic tucked away in a cavern deep beneath the earth, waiting to be discovered by future generations, warning them of disasters and embarrassments they maybe could’ve avoided if they’d just dug the damn thing up a few years sooner.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    V
    V is a fun, water-glistening record that waves hi to the palm trees and lies down to take a sun-nap with the sleepy sand dunes. Neilson’s reclamation of his identity in the context of space, sound and story is executed beautifully and is heard with authenticity and keenness.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Prog
    “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” and “Life On Mars” both receive willful and gorgeous deconstruction here, but the real essence of things lies in two original compositions, “Physical Cities” and “Giant,” in which the band deviously expands the possibilities of what jazz is and will become.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hummingbird, Go!
    Flying solo now, with production guidance from fellow Swede Tobias Fröberg, she’s reached a career peak with this unconventional, focused and utterly charming disc.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Three Futures
    She’s still a sprinter on Three Futures. But she looks back at what’s been lost with accrued wisdom and a literary eye for sensual detail, resulting in one of the year’s most thoughtful left turns.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Teenager
    So it appears that The Thrills are back on course, deftly employing their distinct sound and vision, a little older (though still in their 20s), a little wiser and surely finding resonance in one of Deasy’s refrains: “This could be our year."
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Post Tropical
    Haunting and heartening, the record is a powerful follow-up, that feels like just the beginning.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moonshine Freeze
    Stables’ impressive singing and highly mulled-over songwriting ensure that her creativity remains front-and-center, no matter who’s in the room with her. That said, her work is so intricate that some listeners might not find Moonshine Freeze under their skin all that quickly.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wild Hunt
    The clean, galloping banjos and guitars spotlight his pristine snarl, which slips down into powerful bass notes and then reaches up and yelps on key, accentuating his ambitious, second-language lyrics.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
    Having zigged for a while, Godspeed zags (of course) on G_d’s Pee, bringing back some of the inscrutable elements that made the band so interesting in the first place.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bright Ideas
    Every track here is strong.... Portastatic's best yet. [Oct/Nov 2005, p.122]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Warpaint
    Warpaint have crafted an album that is ultimately rewarding and full of promise, with the listener excited to see Warpaint push their vision further, believing that the road is worth the effort.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drum's Not Dead
    Drum is a challenging listen... But as the songs flow one into the next, a powerful tension builds, released finally by the gorgeous closing ballad. [Apr/May 2006, p.108]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oh Glory Oh Wilderness
    The result is an album that’s vigorously lily-livered, with hardly a dull moment to be found.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    End of Daze [EP]
    Maybe most importantly, the End of Daze EP cements Dum Dum Girls as a band that should be taken seriously and whose look has become the least interesting part about them.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul
    The songs are simultaneously catchier and darker than on her earlier records.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Another World
    Cheap Trick and others from their graduating class may be perfectly content to carry on as walking memes, but In Another World reminds us that this veteran rock act still has lifeblood coursing through its veins.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic
    Magic doesn’t break any new sonic ground for Springsteen, but no one was calling for a reinvention. Magic offers what Bruce Springsteen does best: a handful of honest, hard-working tracks about life and how we live it.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Live At A Flamingo Hotel
    Live at a Flamingo Hotel is a pristine concert documentary, brimming with the energy, charm and consummately great sound of all those Dr. Dog shows that have hooked so many new fans over the years.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Babel
    While the band will undoubtedly be criticized for playing it safe on the new record, there is no denying the music is solid despite its familiarity.
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