Paste Magazine's Scores

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For 4,070 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: 3,634 out of 4070
  2. Mixed: 400 out of 4070
  3. Negative: 36 out of 4070
4070 music reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Want My Soul
    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
    • 80 Critic Score
    Armchair Apocrypha
    On Apocrypha... Bird may be simultaneously at his most clever and most luminous. [Apr 2007, p.55]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon
    Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon is Murder by Death's most beautiful album to date.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Let's Face the Music and Dance
    Let’s Face the Music features some of his strongest and most engaged performances in a decade.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ganging Up On The Sun
    What this band lacks in flash it more than makes up for in sheer musicality. [Aug 2006, p.88]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    The album’s sequencing is impeccable, as the band segues into airy atmospherics for 'Night of Joy' and 'We’re Gonna Rise,' the album’s most tender, melancholy and meditative tracks.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Out of Love
    They've left a weird, unforgettable stain on the shirt of indie-rock.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Three Bells
    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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Long Slow Dance
    They are clearly a band that have done their rock 'n roll homework and have made such an unabashedly catchy record that is at the same time both totally accessible and subtly offbeat; the only thing to do is sit back and enjoy it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lady from Shanghai
    Even at its unruliest, Lady From Shanghai is gripping.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Warpaint
    A much-matured (now fortysomething father) Chris ?nds peace and clarity through some of his ?nest, most poetic storytelling to date.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amused to Death [Reissue]
    The meticulously crafted music is bold and robust, with same panoramic sweep as The Wall, Waters’ magnum opus he created while with Pink Floyd.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rabbit Habits
    They are what rock ’n’ roll is meant to be and, frankly, what most rock bands have forgotten altogether: These songs are fun.
    • 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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Warm
    Is the exchange of restless turmoil for quietly focused introspection a worthwhile trade? Depends. For Wilco fans who never really got over the big hooks and sonic clamor of Summerteeth, probably not. For listeners who have taken pleasure in Tweedy’s continuing evolution, WARM is akin to a gift.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pearl Jam
    Concise, focused and even, it’s a great addition to the band’s increasingly rich catalog.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Field Music
    Effortlessly blends candy-pop conventions with the concise edge of punk. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.128]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nightcrawler
    More daring and challenging than anything he's done up to now. [Sep 2006, p.75]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
    Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? is probably the most fun one can reasonably have while wrestling with somebody else’s demons.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Partie Traumatic
    Moving basslines and driving, bouncy drumming run under brass backing, bright keys and group-sung vocal harmonies throughout Partie Traumatic's joyous entirety.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happier than Ever
    Billie Eilish continues to rise to the occasion on Happier Than Ever, staring down critics, naysayers and whatever the future holds while carrying self-love and compassion in her back pocket.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Surprise
    If the lack of truly standout melodies ultimately derails this effort just short of greatness, it’s hard to find fault with such a warm, generous and open-hearted collection of songs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    VII
    VII is Blitzen Trapper’s strongest album to date, with years of musical experimentation having come together in the band’s own mad-scientist brand of cosmic Americana.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heaven Is Whenever
    One might suspect that The Hold Steady's rock repurposing would eventually chafe, but they're achieving the opposite effect, again pulling off with heroic sincerity the idea that heaven is lying on the floor listening to records-even if you're well past 16.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Children Running Through
    Fancy up her surroundings all you want, but like another transcendent, intuitive singer-Van Morrison, in whose company she belongs-it's the way she sings... that defines her greatness, as lonely as it might be.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reunion Tour
    This is investigative journalism with a heart of compassion, a steady backbeat and four buzzing power chords.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Rainbows
    Not only is this Radiohead’s most straightforward, organic-sounding album since The Bends, it finds the band shedding the bulk of its trademark anxiety while remaining indomitably themselves.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    B-Sides & Rarities
    With phenomenal sound quality and scarcely a weak track in the lot, B-Sides & Rarities ought to satisfy Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fans with its fascinating, if fairly familiar, tale.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Euphoric
    The album is also a testament to Rostam and Georgia’s connection: Their musical chemistry is so rich that, on Georgia’s first collaborative album, she sounds more like herself than ever before. As she stitches her own euphoria together, one thread stands out the strongest: other people.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kykeon
    Kykeon is a tripped-out and sometimes intense experience--able to pull even the most rigid listener into the incense-perfumed darkness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ultramega OK [Expanded Reissue]
    As far as where Ultramega OK stands in the Soundgarden catalog, it still doesn’t hold up to later records, but it does contain some of their best songs.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Men With The Blues
    This performance with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis feels like a long-overdue summit meeting. These renditions of classics--including some of Willie’s own--sound completely natural.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Same Old Man
    On his 19th studio album, John Hiatt has rediscovered his muse--more wrinkled and greyer than before, but central to a musically unvarnished song cycle tracing the ups and downs of a long-term relationship.... Two of these songs rank with Hiatt’s best work.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Folila
    For those who have never heard Amadou & Mariam's music, Folila may be a perfect place to start exploring.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Messenger
    Instead of muscling through on charisma and bluster, this guy pushes himself in new directions and ends up with perhaps his best solo album since 2002’s The Instigator.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Just Us Kids
    It’s the ache of 'Ruby and Carlos' that reveals McMurtry’s sensitive brilliance as a chronicler of quiet desperation (though even here, he can’t resist a jibe about “the Mason-Dumbass Line”).
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Constant Sea
    Numsuwankijkul fronts the Brooklyn-based psychedelic rock quartet, and on A Constant Sea, Heliotropes’ debut album, she shows that she can slink around a melody like PJ Harvey, yowl like Courtney Love in her best of times and pose as a softer-sided folk singer.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revamped
    This album is also an experiment—a glorious one where we get to hear Demi Lovato’s virtuosic vocal technique and belting.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Afterparty Babies
    As a knowing send-up of youth culture, Afterparty Babies can be both funny and obnoxious.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
    For the first time, the duo forgoes Ant's sampled beats in favor of live instrumentals to back Slug's rhymes, which results in a sound that's far more textured and intricate than their previous five efforts.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cole's Corner
    Hawley's empathic delivery reveals the indelible stamp these relationships leave on his protagonists' hearts. [Dec 2005, p.126]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Loon
    An original and largely unaffected effort that reminds you why you dug indie rock's yesteryear. [Aug 2006, p.87]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Heretic Pride
    Complex and worth repeated listens? Hell yeah.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Impermanence
    Though there are also occasional woodwinds, brass, keyboards and percussion, Impermanence is almost like an experiment in minimalism, to see how fully Silberman can deconstruct songs and still make them compelling. Quite a bit, as it turns out.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Woman King [EP]
    Producer Brian Deck understands that Beam's music is fragile. [Apr/May 2005, p.132]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Silver Tongue
    More TORRES is a good thing, especially after a worrisome interlude when it seemed the artist might be done. And Silver Tongue is compelling evidence that she is not.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pink Graffiti
    As an album, Pink Graffiti is a little schizophrenic, but it's a rousing handful of songs.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Barton Hollow
    Barton Hollow may be a fictional location, but The Civil Wars' music gives it a voice and identity-one of mystery, mystique and beauty. War has never been so pleasant.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Candidate Waltz
    At nine tracks in 33 minutes, Candidate Waltz hardly overstays its welcome, and it's hard to fault Johnson for keeping it punchy and direct.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    the record
    While the record delivers on the promise of those talents united—exceptional rock music by three sad-song experts—it doesn’t always sound more timeless than topical. But when it does thrive at the former, the record is exploring more rudimentary feelings rather than emotional coalescence.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Albatross
    Consistently brilliant. [Dec 2005, p.121]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pretty Little Head
    The more I listened, the more beguiling it became. [Dec 2006, p.93]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bones
    By expanding its sound and not playing it safe, Son Lux has all but stepped into another dimension with this album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Paper Tigers
    It turns out that "Jerk It Out" is just the tip of the iceberg for these savvy Arctic rockers. [Aug/Sep 2005, p.130]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    He Thinks He's People
    People is a consistent album filled with great songs that are no doubt written by Crow himself.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Information Retrieved
    From start to finish, Information Retrieved sounds confident and deliberate, a consummate release from two deft musicians who've made every note count.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Eye on the Bat
    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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Springtime Carnivore
    Springtime Carnivore doesn’t always showcase the full extent of Greta Morgan’s talents, but it gives more than enough reason to be excited for her future projects.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Consolers Of The Lonely
    while one can easily imagine smoke machines spurting during many of the album's 13 other tracks, there is no irony in the mix. Just fun.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus
    Aside from the power of the music and lyrics, the set draws on Cave’s compelling persona: part priest, part sideshow barker--crooning one moment and eviscerating the next. While this has always been the core of his talent, on Abattoir/Lyre it is particularly rich and rewarding.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    McCartney III Imagined
    Most of these artists strike a rare rework/remix balance, preserving what made the original tick while infusing enough of their own identity to justify the new take.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If I Could Make It Go Quiet
    Ulven succeeds in making it go quiet with an entirely instrumental track of spare piano and dramatic strings. These daring instincts are what elevate girl in red’s music beyond her status as the wunderkind of the moment.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
    His effort to overcome the body-brain gulf is more apparent than ever throughout No Shape follow-up Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, on which Hadreas loses control of not just his body, but his heart. As ever, his voice and music contort and warp in tandem with his anatomy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    "Awaken, My Love!"
    Glover is an artist who often pushes himself into new mediums and now new styles of music. While a further development of the concepts on Because The Internet could have seen an interesting continuation on the hip-hop arc of Childish Gambino, Glover instead introduced a new element.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    God's Favorite Customer
    Tillman’s gift for melody and his penchant for droll, evocative lyrics pull these 10 songs back from the brink of morbidity.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Ascension
    With an 80-minute runtime, The Ascension feels overwhelming in its second act. ... But worried as it is, The Ascension isn’t without joy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Love You, It's Cool
    All told, I Love You, It's Cool won't resonate upon first listen. It'll have to grow on you, but once it does, there's no denying its enchantment.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Squeeze
    Squeeze excels when it provides the perfect soundtrack for punching a hole in the wall, or at least fantasizing about it.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Exit Strategy Of The Soul
    He’s defined not by what he loves, but by his doubts, and as a result, this album is far more interesting and complex than anything he’s done in years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Go
    It's easy to forgive the album's occasional misfires because it doesn't tiptoe about, eyes glued to the floor, apologizing for its gargantuan ambition. It does cartwheels when it bloody well feels like it, cries when it wants to, and raises the bar for songwriters like Sufjan Stevens who share similarly heady classical predilections.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    It may be called The Moon and Stars, but June’s latest showing for Fantasy Records is music to consume while perched by a window fragmented with sunbeams. Just the sound of June’s voice is enough to defrost any lingering icy memories of a cruel winter.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    West of Eden
    Despite the high barrier to entry, West of Eden crowns HMLTD as one of few bands with a serious claim to artistic vision and sonic uniqueness.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ice Cream Spiritual
    Not recommended for people with heart conditions or pregnant mothers, but for those of you looking for visceral thrills, this is it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Holes & Revelations
    A career milestone and one of the year's strongest rock albums. [Sep 2006, p.73]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mentor Tormentor
    In the mesmerizing, disturbing dream that is Mentor Tormentor, Espinoza and Murray wrap their sweetly uneasy voices around misty melodies, while the deceptively sophisticated production reinforces the sense of uncertainty.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    50:50@50
    Ultimately, while some might complain about the lack of original material offered in deference to so many concert inclusions, Fairport fans can cheer the fact that 50:50@50 is the band’s best effort in at least two decades.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    II
    It's part Fairport Convention and part Led Zeppelin at the band's most druidic. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.121]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    @#%&*! Smilers
    The result is simply a more keyboard-centric entry into her consistently excellent solo catalog.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Now
    There’s a confidence and vulnerability Brittany Howard fearlessly reveals on this album, which is more adventurous and riskier than Jaime.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tracyanne & Danny
    The whole thing is as immaculately crafted and endearingly overcast as the Scottish countryside.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Plastic Bouquet
    They sound like they’ve been singing together all their lives—as if Anderson and Linthicum somehow stumbled upon a third cousin in a faraway land. Here’s hoping the distance doesn’t stop them from doing this again and again and again.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Overseas
    Overseas truly feels like an effortless collaboration that isn’t about each member but the whole. Whether you’re already a fan to any of its members or not, you’ll find something new and refreshing in Overseas.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Carpenter
    It's this penchant for playing with contrast--between light and dark, comedy and tragedy, hard and soft, fast and slow--and their ease with switching gears between the romps and soliloquies that shines on The Carpenter, perhaps stronger than on any of their previous releases.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Love & Justice
    Rather than being a return to form, it’s a leap forward in maturity, depth and nuance.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sun
    There's something about the flaws on this thing--the way Marshall lets it all hang loose, the way she continually tries to express a sentiment she can't quite put into words--that's absolutely fascinating in its humanity and compassion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Broken String
    Bishop Allen has delivered an album worthy of its integrity-laden new home.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Bargain
    A solidly sung, played and written collection of songs, it is a very fine release that will almost certainly find a welcome reception from her longtime fans.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hell Hath No Fury
    This time, believe the hype.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cinder
    Cinder feels less like discrete tracks and more like a river of song bearing you effortlessly from one sublime moment to the next. [Dec 2005, p.115]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dance Fever
    When a band have been so focused on their brand for as long as Florence + The Machine have, it’s easy for them to box themselves in, muting their power; instead, Dance Fever is the sound of a band finding an escape route, rediscovering what makes them special.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lost In the Dream
    Lost in the Dream pushes rock music forward.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Broken Social Scene
    Broken Social Scene builds on gentle nuances, compounding its effect incrementally with each track.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Flock
    The rest of Flock, originally released in Ireland in 2006, shows a depth of musicality and imagination too great to serve simply as a sonic backdrop for the tired angst of southern California rich kids.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
    Its expertise at majestic drone remains, but the group colors outside of well-established lines this time around, pounding on tribal drums during 'Gobbledigook,' smearing swaths of mellotron across 'Fljótavík' and 'Straumnes,' and pulling back on its patented reverb in favor of crisp, clean lines.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Things Take Time, Take Time
    For a record born of introspection, Things Take Time, Take Time is surprisingly fun.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cry Mfer
    Whether treating the serious not too seriously is the right way to go about it or not, it does bring about 40-some-odd minutes of refreshingly genre-bending music that only rarely drags.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Person Pitch
    It's as lucid a marriage of the eneffably strange and crayon-bright catchy as 2007 is likely to see. [Apr 2007, p.58]
    • Paste Magazine
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Derdang Derdang
    Through all the sax squall, noisy racket and oftentimes-undeniable melody... this is a band imploring you to come along for the ride. [Oct 2006, p.81]
    • Paste Magazine
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