For 4,079 reviews, this publication has graded:
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67% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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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: | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe Version] | |
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Lowest review score: | Songs From Black Mountain |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 3,643 out of 4079
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Mixed: 400 out of 4079
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Negative: 36 out of 4079
4079
music
reviews
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- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 4, 2016
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What’s here is an excellent start. This collection gives a sense of the scope of Strummer’s career, and the passion with which he pursued it.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 28, 2018
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At 23, Dacus has already made a career album with Historian, and she’s really only just getting started.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 2, 2018
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An experimental, genre-less and extremely noisy sound to exceptional results. Schlagenheim is beyond weird. Schlagenheim is a legitimate one of a kind record. Schlagenheim is a masterpiece.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 21, 2019
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- Paste Magazine
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Miraculously, Moin sound like every band they have been influenced by while remaining completely inimitable.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 3, 2023
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About as accessible and smooth as this band is going to get. [Aug 2006, p.85]- Paste Magazine
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Okkervil River--with frontman Will Sheff as producer--defers to the chief, allowing Erickson's gruff voice to reign over woozy background vocals ("John Lawman"), punchy brass sections ("Think of as One") and Ebow lullabies ("Birds'd Crash").- Paste Magazine
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The trio hasn’t quite put together an album of complete heart-stoppers just yet, but Blitz charts them in the right direction.- Paste Magazine
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Part minimalist dance record, part undulating sound collage, his new album serves as a scrapbook of nearly every idea Hebden has examined and cast aside during his career.- Paste Magazine
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Whether it’s the start of a beautiful musical friendship or just a flash in the cast-iron pan, Crutchfield and Williamson’s I Walked with You a Ways is roomy, real and charming, and it’s one of the best Americana albums of the year and a powerful display of songwriting skills.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 12, 2022
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 9, 2020
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 18, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 3, 2013
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 6, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 7, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 29, 2024
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 28, 2021
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 24, 2019
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- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 28, 2020
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 2, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 11, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 13, 2015
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 17, 2019
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It’s a subtle album, built around gentle, dream-like musical arrangements that belie the tougher sentiments underpinning these songs.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 27, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
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The Next Day offers an embarrassment of riches that should keep listeners busy for weeks and months to come.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 12, 2013
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Banga is a song cycle that expresses a synthesis of all of her strengths to form one of her strongest albums.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 19, 2012
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 1, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 14, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 21, 2023
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sentiment is the work of someone who understands that emotions are a full-body experience, and rousay’s work responds with a sensory palette beyond what a typical song can muster. Does it devastate? Sometimes. Above all else, this little archive of rousay’s emotions cancels the distractions outside and sinks you in a bath of feeling. The best response is to ease in.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 18, 2024
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Though it rarely rises above a whisper, Van Etten's captivating vocals and Dessner's subtle production ensure that Tramp is never remotely sleepy.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 7, 2012
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 1, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 16, 2017
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Though these 11 songs aren’t always as sharply drawn as his best material, there’s plenty to love here.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 15, 2014
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It’s time well-spent: slow-burning, dynamic, emotionally resonant and representative of Charly Bliss in 2019.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 10, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 20, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 1, 2020
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 18, 2022
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Her songwriting chops prove better with each new release, making Ivy Tripp her most accomplished outing yet.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 14, 2015
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 13, 2018
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 9, 2015
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- Paste Magazine
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- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 5, 2015
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 3, 2015
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- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 20, 2023
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On Somewhere Else, Lydia Loveless has harnessed the barnstorming energy of her Bloodshot debut and transformed it into something much more.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 18, 2014
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 7, 2022
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jan 26, 2023
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13 Rivers may be the most hazardous crossing Thompson’s ever had to make, but it’s also one of the most telling.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 17, 2018
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Arctic Monkeys arrive at the end of AM a lot wiser than they may have appeared from the slow opening stomp of the LP.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 10, 2013
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- Paste Magazine
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- Paste Magazine
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- Paste Magazine
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- Paste Magazine
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MS may have temporarily slowed the Athens, Ga., musician’s output, but it has not diminished its quality.- Paste Magazine
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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.”- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 1, 2015
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There’s no denying Visions Of A Life top marks for a sterling sophomore effort.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 11, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 6, 2018
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 21, 2018
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 22, 2020
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Apr 21, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 5, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2023
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They have still remained true to their calling card and brave—and talented—enough to try new things. So while Poetry might not be an avid Dehd-head’s favorite album, I have a feeling it will attract a wider audience. It’s a relatable album, too, one that, for better or for worse, is easily digestible.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 10, 2024
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It is a beautiful record, and maybe a little over-simplified at its weakest moments, straddling that line between clean and bare.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 25, 2014
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- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 7, 2012
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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.- Paste Magazine
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Nov 18, 2022
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 4, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 5, 2014
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He's not the only one channeling the greats, but he does it better than almost anyone else today.- Paste Magazine
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 29, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 14, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 24, 2023
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 20, 2020
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 10, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jul 13, 2018
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Aug 30, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 21, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 9, 2011
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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
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 13, 2014
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IGOR is a commendable, yet flawed album, one that further challenges what we can and should expect from a rap album in 2019.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 24, 2019
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Oct 11, 2021
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 17, 2015
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The album surprises continually, offering humor, crises and redemption within the sound of something as lovely and enticing as it is aggressive and challenging.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Feb 19, 2013
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 28, 2020
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Prewitt's songs take their time unfolding, giving the album a meditative quality that's pretty admirable. [#14, p.105]- Paste Magazine
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Most of the album was recorded at The Black Keys’ studio in Nashville and favors bluesy twangs, folksy fiddles and country slide guitars.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 3, 2013
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 9, 2014
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She found it in herself to make yet another gorgeous, melancholy, old-souled record.- Paste Magazine
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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.- Paste Magazine
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted May 5, 2016
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Mar 15, 2017
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Sep 20, 2012
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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.- Paste Magazine
- Posted Jun 28, 2017
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