Pitchfork's Scores
- Music
For 11,993 reviews, this publication has graded:
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41% higher than the average critic
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6% same as the average critic
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53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.9 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: | Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition] | |
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Lowest review score: | nyc ghosts & flowers |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 9,809 out of 11993
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Mixed: 1,877 out of 11993
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Negative: 307 out of 11993
11993
music
reviews
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- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
Halvorson is an inventive and generous arranger, organizing Amaryllis in such a way that it never feels like a mere vehicle for dazzling solos, though there are plenty of those. She has a painterly approach to sonority, attuned to all the rich colors at the ensemble’s disposal.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
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Belladonna removes the buttress of Amaryllis’s horns and rhythm section. At times, the guitar and string quartet move like a single amorphous organism, untethered from any particular pulse. At others, one voice will offer a steady ostinato as a home base for the others to wander away from and return to at will.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
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True to its title, Magic Pony Ride embraces Paradinas’ sugary side. Synths froth and squeak. Kitschy piano riffs ascend to euphoric heights. ... The lower end of these mixes feels less inspired.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
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Full of baloney The Versions isn’t. But its muted—and sometimes rather predictable—approach only occasionally gets close to capturing the erratic wonder of Neneh Cherry in full flight.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
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While tracks like “Credence (Ash in the Winds of Reason)” and “Syndicate II” fit snugly into the band’s previous guitar-driven repertoire (not to mention this current era of peak post-punk), Deliluh are the rare band that can summon the menacing propulsion and imagistic density of the Fall without resorting to Mark E. Smith pantomime-uh.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 14, 2022
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Two years after WOMB, the graves EP is firmly rooted in the same subtle reconfiguration that comes with each new Purity Ring release. Some songs even sound outright regressive, which isn’t always bad.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
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The run of “Milkweed,” “Detritivore,” and “Aqaba” is quintessential Shearwater in both their titles and the tendency to let the middle of their albums coast by like a warm, welcome breeze.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
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This is the Joyce Manor album for Joyce Manor fans—a loving, uncynical refinement of the band’s best.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 13, 2022
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You Can’t Kill Me is at its best when it offers surprising, welcome wrinkles to Shake’s sound.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 10, 2022
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These 11 songs may be meant to chronicle a pointedly personal inner voyage, yet he’s wound up with a warm, collaborative record that feels like a balm for fear and loneliness.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 8, 2022
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Twelve Carat Toothache, is accordingly slick, streamlined, and a little less vulgar and ostentatious than his earlier work—a sign that Malone is taking himself more seriously, for better or worse.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 8, 2022
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Rather than holding up a torch, Heart Under adjusts your eyes to the pitch black.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 7, 2022
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Like Scott-Heron’s last classic, This Is Brian Jackson is a salient reminder that great artists, no matter where they are on their journey, can rediscover themselves.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
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On Nothing to Declare, DJ Haram challenges Moor Mother with more biting beats, and the rapper responds with a looseness that’s new to her music. Her prophetic delivery retains all its spoken-word eloquence, and she peppers her lyrics with incisive history lessons that highlight America and Europe’s historical pillaging of Black culture. The music is anchored by a mix of frenetic goblet drums and machine percussion, swollen bass, and gristly streaks of noise.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
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Poliça now appear in search of a middle ground that combines their visceral songwriting with Madness’ inventive textures. At their best, these songs offer hints of that forward trajectory.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
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For now, Horsegirl aren’t so much carrying the torch as they are keeping the pilot light lit, low and steady.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 6, 2022
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Louder, faster, fiercer than their 2019 LP Itekoma Hits, the 20-minute, 18-track Super Champon goes down like a tart smattering of face-scrunching, neon candy.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 3, 2022
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Not particularly easy work. But with Big Time—her clearest and most radiant music—Olsen set out to more deliberately foreground the virtue of ease.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 3, 2022
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Apart from some missteps—like the excruciating Finneas-produced “i still say goodnight”—i used to think i could fly soars with confidence, a record that remains absolutely sure of itself even as McRae’s emotions vacillate between bravado and self-immolation.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 2, 2022
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Raw Data Feel might be the most confident album Everything Everything have ever released, but in a way that feels deeply hubristic. If this album were a person, it’d be that pompous, motormouthed philosophy undergraduate who treats seminars like extended soliloquies.- Pitchfork
- Posted Jun 1, 2022
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Though Say Sue Me have narrowed their focus, their reverence for the indie-rock lexicon remains broad. ... Some of the styles they play with highlight their strengths more effectively than others.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 31, 2022
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What we’re left with is a great-sounding Matmos album constructed from bits of Schaeffer’s work. You probably won’t come away knowing much more about either the duo or the composer than you did before, but if it gets stoners curious enough to hit up their local electroacoustic festival, it’s a win all around.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 31, 2022
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On Blue Skies, they made the best choice, which is the only choice: Change nothing. Not one thing.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 31, 2022
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Vocals play a prominent role in roughly half of the album’s songs, and while they sometimes work—UK trans activist Kai-Isaiah Jamal’s spoken-word poetry cuts powerfully through the moody “Human Sound”—they sometimes feel like Throssell is straining slightly for gravitas, pasting emotion on top of tracks that communicate plenty of it on their own.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 26, 2022
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As lovely as they often are, the songs seem to drift and float, and Cruel Country plays less like a sculpted double album than a vividly detailed snapshot of a particular moment in time.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 26, 2022
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It’s an accomplished record that, given the variety of Jordana’s catalog, feels short on surprises; having mastered the nuances of production and songwriting, she’s still finding ways to make her voice ring clear. Yet her melodies are dynamic, her ballads immune to adolescent melodrama: the toughest hurdles are behind her.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 25, 2022
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From start to finish, she leads these songs of resilience and long-term redemption with a minister’s conviction. The dozen-plus musicians around her—including her sister Yvonne and Helm’s daughter, Amy—became her de facto choir. Carry Me Home is a jubilant lesson in living history.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 24, 2022
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With little penchant for bedlam, it’s an album that lacks the exact thing that makes Flume’s music exciting.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 24, 2022
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The writing remains the main attraction in Finn’s work, and both as a storyteller and a rock songwriter, he has never sounded more in control.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 24, 2022
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Though these heart-in-her-hand lyrics take center stage, the production across EYEYE is both entrancing and bizarre. The album balances mourning and meditation, filling its vast, gelatinous sound field with phantom backing vocals, floorboard creaks, spaceship synths, and eerie, carnivalesque melodies.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 23, 2022
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Ballad of a Tryhard is a relatively straightforward collection of orchestral pop, bursting with hooks. Like the heartfelt folk songs of Amen Dunes’ Love, it is a grand step towards traditional songcraft.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 20, 2022
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So what if Harry’s House isn’t especially bold; innovation is not a requirement of a solid pop album, and working too hard is out of fashion, anyway. Better to slip on your Gucci pajamas and just enjoy.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 20, 2022
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Waterslide broadens Porridge Radio’s sound with honking synths, megaphones, horns, studio luxuries with the patina of junkyard grime—the influence of Rain Dogs smuggled into radio-friendly indie rock vis a vis Modest Mouse. Still, it’s Margolin alone who determines the trajectory of each song.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 19, 2022
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As captivating as Cain’s mood-setting can be, Preacher’s Daughter is such a slow burn you periodically wonder if the flame is even still lit.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 18, 2022
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This Is a Photograph succeeds not because of its nostalgic freight but in spite of it, and Morby’s dialogues with the living, not the dead, are when he speaks most clearly.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 18, 2022
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These tracks are plenty muscular, but there’s no bulge, no bloat. They’re as sculpted as the six-pack on a plastic superhero costume.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 17, 2022
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Without being told how to feel, one can simply feel; the music meets you where you are.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 17, 2022
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The stumbles keep Heart on My Sleeve from being truly exceptional, but Mai’s sumptuous voice and attention to detail make it a beguiling delight.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 16, 2022
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Un Verano Sin Ti is a cohesively packaged voyage through the various sounds synonymous with the Caribbean region—reggaetón, reggae, bomba, Dominican dembow, Dominican mambo, and bachata, among others.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 16, 2022
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Despite all its aggrieved poses and statements, the often astonishing rapping, the fastidious attention to detail, and its theme of self-affirmation, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers ironically never settles on a portrait of Kendrick.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 16, 2022
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They’re the sort of tunes that the Keys can pull off with ease, as satisfying as a perfectly tossed curveball landing in a beaten-up catcher’s mitt. But they also make you wish the Keys didn't spend the rest of Dropout Boogie lobbing underhand pitches right down the middle of the plate.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 13, 2022
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Dance Fever is as propulsive as any Florence and the Machine album, but its momentum sometimes feels unearned.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 13, 2022
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At no point does Headful of Sugar come off as cynical, though the central premise falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny: This is a largely beloved, well-connected, and unabashedly accessible rock band trying to be convincing as the voice of outcasts obeying their most reckless impulses.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 12, 2022
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A Light for Attracting Attention sounds more like a proper Radiohead album than any of the numerous side projects the band’s members have done on their own. ... The Smile spotlights the creative relationship between Yorke and Greenwood like never before.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 12, 2022
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Although Sigrid sings each line as if it’s eye-openingly profound, anyone looking for depth on How to Let Go will quickly find themselves in the shallow end.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 11, 2022
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On Spell 31, they rework their signature layered spirituals into fleet grooves that shimmer with color and joy yet still channel pain and loss.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 11, 2022
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Musically, it’s unfulfilling, lacking standout melodies or exciting rhythms. The sound of Come Home the Kids Miss You, in turn, is about as sophisticated and interesting as a Daniel Arsham sculpture, neat at a glance but vapid upon any extended interrogation.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 10, 2022
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There are few moments across No Fear that feel immediate, timely, or necessary, and their sense of urgency has dulled. For all the hype, fans deserved something better than just good enough.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 10, 2022
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They’re more interested in making a lovable rock’n’roll record than a pointed political statement, even though at its best Endless Rooms happens to be both.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 9, 2022
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We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is a raging bonfire, and although its scale is monumental, it boasts a revealing depth of field, every dramatic arc finely detailed.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 9, 2022
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They’ve still got it: Murdoch’s droll reflections on youthful bliss are heightened by a flitting violin and a heavenly little bridge that flies high with a trumpet and Sarah Martin’s topline vocals.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 6, 2022
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The album’s best hooks feature Bartle duetting with Okereke, a new trick in Bloc Party’s repertoire. These strengths are even more frustrating because they reveal an alternative path to the binary rut in which this band has been stuck for 10 years.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 6, 2022
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Omnium Gatherum proves King Gizzard still have a whole lot of it left in the tank.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 5, 2022
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To their credit, they mostly remember in the second half of the record, where the songs become more modest and refined, the writing more confident and precise.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 5, 2022
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Mahal is as fastidiously layered as the rest of Toro y Moi’s style-shifting discography, but Bear leaves the edges rough, connecting the tracks with radio tuning noises and relishing in unvarnished instrumental expression.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 4, 2022
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The fearsome symmetry and formidable concision Owens attempts here is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and while the first half of the album comes on strong, the second half is a little more prone to interrupting itself.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 4, 2022
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blue water road is Kehlani’s most mature album, as well as their most musically and thematically challenging.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 4, 2022
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The best songs on Profound Mysteries operate within those comfort zones [midtempo, instrumental tracks], making it more of a return to form than even The Inevitable End, but Röyksopp still trip themselves up.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 3, 2022
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These songs are bolder and more brutal, less interested in florid wording or oblique metaphor; they express feelings of alienation and self-loathing with discomfiting clarity.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 3, 2022
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His latest album I Never Liked You—the title sounds like a breakup note passed in the back of a middle-school classroom—has the ingredients of a really good Future album but lacks the depth of one. It plays it safe by continuing to lean too hard on the schtick.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 3, 2022
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Despite real moments of fun, the project ends up feeling shy of its influences, stopping short of a full buy-in.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 2, 2022
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Some songs bleed into each other, but the album also has gaps between many of its tracks, making it feel like a more traditional rock album than an experiment in fusing genres. Two of its best cuts together feel like one evolving piece.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 2, 2022
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Two Ribbons retains all of the light-hearted surreality that made their first two records so bewitching, but out of necessity, the songwriting is braver.- Pitchfork
- Posted May 2, 2022
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Vulnerability has powered Tomberlin’s music for years, and “Collect Caller” aside, these songs are sweeter and more inviting than anything she’s done before.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 29, 2022
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It’s a scattershot travelogue, idealized and hopeful, bright with giddy pleasures, welled tears, and some of her best-ever songwriting.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 29, 2022
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Digga’s self-belief and willingness to raise a middle finger were never in doubt. As he continues to test and flex his talents, his path forward will only become clearer—no matter who’s looking over his shoulder.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 28, 2022
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In its gentle violence, for you who are the wronged functions like a kind of sweet and delicate surgery. Joseph lovingly lulls you into anesthesia while prodding at your most vital pain, and then delivering you back to yourself: poison extracted, powerful, clean.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 28, 2022
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Though his words reach for darker emotional valences, the album’s most honest moments come across in Carey’s compositions.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 27, 2022
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The solid foundation of moody songcraft on their two LPs is ripe for development. Shaking their minimalist DIY ethos in favor of more lavish impulses may be just what Jeanines need to truly transcend their influences.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 27, 2022
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There’s a lot going on at high volume, each track barreling into the next with minimal interruption, and the longest reprieve comprises two minutes of droning strings on “Wall Facer,” just before the album ends. ... Blood Karaoke is no less exhausting an experience, albeit far less addictive, and though the sheer volume of content makes it a consistently interesting listen.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 27, 2022
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The record’s complexity reveals itself over several listens, its slow-motion quietude opening up into a not-quite-happiness; what might be described as flow, or else, focus.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 27, 2022
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As a whole, Trendsetter is too wide-ranging and unfocused to scan as the proper debut she aspires for it to be. But when she does lock in, her mission couldn’t be clearer.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 26, 2022
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She could have ventured further afield with the covers, as she did with Dig in Deep’s sly take on INXS’ “Need You Tonight.” Still, she sounds good, she plays better, and her band, co-led by longtime foil George Marinelli, simmers.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 26, 2022
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Her tracks might be improvised or labored upon. They feel both sui generis and tossed off. You can hear her hand, and it makes you wonder, and in that way her recordings are empathy machines. They warm and flatter as they fill the air around you, silk scarves just out of reach.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 26, 2022
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Cry Mfer is expectedly eclectic, hurdling between indie folk, electro-pop, and one piano ballad for good measure—while the differences may feel jarring, the common thread is Konigsberg and Amos’ unflappable chemistry, and their willingness to put even some of the most difficult sentiments to tape.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 26, 2022
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It’s a musically varied and vocally impressive effort from an artist who continues to cut extraneous elements out of his songwriting, drilling closer to the core of his style.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 25, 2022
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It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion. Rather than dreaming of the future, these nostalgic pieces feel as if they’re looking back at the past, taking in a bird’s eye view of the change that occurs throughout life.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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You could take issue with Spiritualized for sticking so closely to the blueprint they inaugurated more than 30 years ago. But the band always felt built for repetition and refinement, a cosmic home for Jason Pierce to grow comfortably old, away from an ever-changing musical world.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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At its best, Giving the World Away locates the edge between noise and melody, carving out a pop core amid seemingly structureless arrangements. ... Occasionally, the deluge of instrumentation grates. ... Despite its flaws, Giving the World Away marks an exciting evolution for Hatchie.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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The real triumph of Skinty Fia is that Fontaines D.C.’s most musically adventurous and demanding album to date is also its most open-hearted.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 22, 2022
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- Posted Apr 21, 2022
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Rather than attempt to write jokey lyrics, as they did on Confident Music, Stephenson and Moore are more content just to vibe out, with far more engaging results.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 20, 2022
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Whatever the Weather dazzles by pulling you towards them with the gentle confidence of an outstretched hand.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 18, 2022
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With its amalgam of genres, tones, and tastes, Ivory goes beyond thinking outside the box: It’s as if the box were never even there to begin with.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 18, 2022
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The group is at its best when it balances excess and exuberance, when its sparse snippets of quiet feel like clarity, not compromise.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 18, 2022
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Together also continues to emphasize the newfound clarity and purpose in Duster’s arrangements and production. There are still fresh experiments—like the kosmische synth swells that open “Escalator”—but this record is largely a refinement of the band’s sprawling, slow-paced sound, giving a little focus and momentum to their once-opaque instrumentals.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 15, 2022
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The deeper Vile gets into his career, the more his creative process seems to blend with the results.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 15, 2022
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These songs are great showcases for the group’s range. Though they seem to have settled squarely in the neon haze of the dancefloor, they’re more truly in their wheelhouse in these mellower moments. Sequencing, though, is a problem. Too often, the record plummets from a sugary adrenaline high to a last-call ballad.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 15, 2022
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It might not meet the extremely high bar set by his best work, but it’s almost certainly him at his most emotionally vulnerable.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 14, 2022
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The Line Is a Curve functions as a therapeutic exercise in resilience and repetition.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 12, 2022
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A capable vocalist with a lightly nasal tone and a dramatic streak, Cabello rarely misses an opportunity to riff or sail into her wispy head voice. But her spoken delivery can be just as captivating.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 12, 2022
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Besides a handful of catchy verses, though, there aren’t enough standout moments on B.I.B.L.E.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 12, 2022
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Broken Hearts Club doesn’t stray far from that warm atmosphere, but Syd still makes time for the occasional detour.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 12, 2022
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- Posted Apr 11, 2022
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Valentine pours a generous splash of funk into the homebrewed elixir, offering one of his most accessible entry points in years.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 11, 2022
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It remains a fascinatingly ambivalent note to finish on for one of the most influential indie rock bands of their era, and this reissue, while not necessarily better than the original 1999 release, provides enough context to understand its odd bathos in a new way. It was the album that brought Pavement full circle: dressed for success, but never quite sure if they wanted the job.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 11, 2022
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Their debut doesn’t skimp on outlining the horrors of being a youngish woman—but its giddy, wild-eyed pleasures are also a testament to creating your own reality to survive.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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It can feel like Misty is in danger of spinning out, but for most of the album, what’s so impressive is the subtlety of his control. The band—including frequent collaborators Drew Erickson and Jonathan Wilson, plus a string quartet and eleven orchestra members—play with silvery poise and high drama. The characters may be odious and dissolute, but the way Misty sings about them is delightful.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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When the production is as over the top as Peck himself, it can be easy to excuse—if not quite ignore—these affectations, but whenever he’s relatively unadorned, as on “Let Me Drown” and “City of Gold,” his unsteady, amelodic quaver is difficult to ignore. All these tics were on Pony, too, yet there they added to the charm. Here, as part of a grander spectacle, they become a distraction—a nagging element that keeps Bronco feeling earthbound.- Pitchfork
- Posted Apr 8, 2022
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