Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,119 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Who Kill
Lowest review score: 0 Fireflies
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,689 out of 3119
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3119
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3119
3119 music reviews
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    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    xx
    It's a perfectly executed ending for an album whose understated pleasures will surely amount to one of the year's most treasured releases.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sleepless Nights
    Loveless has offered another unqualified masterpiece with Sleepless Nights and reasserted her place as one of the premier artists not just of the country genre but of contemporary popular music.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jim
    This is saying something, because every single song on Jim will battle for space in the part of your brain that gets hooked.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Present Tense
    Present Tense possesses a complexity that's not so calculated, focusing on the passage of music rather than layer upon layer of sound. Its 11 synth-drenched tracks are more bare than those on Smother, but they move much more fluidly, their liquiform seduction establishing a contrast with the band's ominous lyrics.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Once I Was an Eagle
    For its cohesive tone and the ease with which it plumbs the darkest recesses of Marling's consciousness, Once I Was an Eagle is close to a masterpiece, a heavenly composition with just enough hell to keep things from feeling too familiar.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ta-Dah
    Ta-Dah isn't an unimpeachable triumph from front to back, but it's a hell of a good showing.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is No C)
    Powerful and smart above all else, Enlightenment may just be Hubbard's finest record, and it's certainly the new decade's first essential album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wildheart
    D'Angelo may have struck a new gold standard for intellectual R&B, and even recorded a more traditionally cohesive and satisfying album, but Miguel's cocktail of furious angst, pained perplexity, and damaged tenderness is just as relevant, acknowledging the complicated realities of modern sexuality while pushing to expand its horizons.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Will
    Will's coup is how it keeps one guessing, and how Barwick keeps from relying on the beautiful yet impersonal sonic washes of her past work. It's the sound an artist, whose mysterious and celebrated process has ironically created theatrical and curated work to this point, finally achieving subtlety.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Reflektor
    The band certainly hasn't left rock behind, but they've found a way to push beyond a sense of exhaustion with the resources that the genre has to offer, while at the same time reflecting on the tenuousness of interpersonal connection in an age of hyper-evolving technology.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Suburbs
    Three years later, they've given us The Suburbs, a stunningly accomplished album about embattled, often embittered, adulthood by a band that continues to mythologize childhood even as it moves decisively into artistic maturity.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All Mirrors
    All Mirrors is challenging and confrontational, and rewards close, present listening.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Civilians
    Even in its rare maudlin and melodramatic moments, the album is saved its many precise, stainless sounds: Henry's compassionate, reverb-shaken voice, Bill Frisell's excellent fretwork, a bewitched pump organ, a snare hit that always echoes a bit too long.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son
    The singer's delivery is more pliant than it's ever been, moving from the hushed echo-chamber whispers of "Silver Malcolm" to the fuzzed-out shouts of "Jericho Road." But the real magic is in the melancholy appeal of his daydream, what he calls his "temporary Earth" in "Magic Number," and the persistent possibility of revelation that Jurado catalogues with grim bravado and wry hope.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mykki
    A pop debut of disciplined eccentricity and disarming force.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Waterloo To Anywhere
    Punchy, ragged, and frenetic, Waterloo To Anywhere surges forward, not-so-subtly aping The Strokes, The Clash, and The Ramones as well as delivering that precise buzz that can only be felt by the young, drunk, and excited.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jim Noir
    Jim Noir works brilliantly on an escapist level, even though it rewards more active listening.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Magnificent City
    Refined attention to detail gives Magnificent City the kind of structural awareness that distinguishes exceptional records from merely great ones.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Order of Time
    A triumph of form, The Order of Time is through and through a completely idiosyncratic take on American roots music, steeped in its tradition but not beholden to it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Lupercalia
    The fact that Wolf stands little chance of displacing Rihanna or Adele shouldn't preempt our appreciation of what he's accomplished with this album, which is to shake off his unseemly solipsism and turn out his most catchy and engaging batch of songs in one concise effort.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Suddenly
    It’s a treat to listen to the way such a masterful musician mines his own record collection for inspiration. What makes the album so spectacular, though, is Snaith’s voice. ... Throughout, his mesmerizing vocals elevate songs that might otherwise scan as banal.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Oczy Mlody
    What makes Oczy Mlody so enthralling is that the Flaming Lips are ambitious in their exploration of the aftermath of their typical spectacle.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pure Comedy
    It's something of a miracle, too, that he's managed to wring such beauty and profundity out of the mess of a society he sings about.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    American Band
    The band displays a new level of clear-eyed purpose and here-and-now urgency on American Band. Eloquently plainspoken as ever about the pressing issues we face as a nation, they’ve made an album multiple decades into their career that establishes them as more directly relevant than ever.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Channel Orange
    Channel Orange is so textured, complex, and mature that Ocean's recent coming out feels like a footnote, rather than the entire story. It's a revelation that only further colors the tales of longing and disappointment found on this impressive album.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Slave Vows
    It is hardcore, a visceral distillation of fury that aims to wound.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Molina And Johnson
    This empty feeling contributes to the quiet mood of Molina & Johnson, which feels dark and battered yet still gleaming, a compilation that's as evocative as the best work of either of its namesakes.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    M B V
    A few twists and turns shy of perfection, m b v is the innovation and sonic warmth of My Bloody Valentine rekindled and made anew.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All Born Screaming
    The album finds Clark at her most fragile and ferocious, seeking beauty among the waste and wreckage of 21st-century life. Itself a beautifully ugly thing, All Born Screaming is a visceral examination of art and nature when both are pushed to the brink.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    Rather Ripped is probably one of the best records in Sonic Youth's catalog, and definitely one of the best albums of 2006.
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