Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,117 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: 1,687 out of 3117
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3117
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3117
3117 music reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    5EPs
    Taken together, the EPs function as a grab bag of Dirty Projectors’s collaborative strengths and interests, affirming their indie bona fides in a new form.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dixie Lullabies
    Drive-By Truckers may have all of the indie cred, but Dixie Lullabies is a welcome reminder that Kentucky Headhunters are still one of the finest Southern-rock outfits around.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Port of Morrow
    Most of the songs on Port of Morrow seem slack and not especially purposive.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do
    Guns comes with a plot that has absolutely no bearing on the album's songs or list of guest collaborators. That its ostensible backstory makes for little more than some colorful, comic-inspired cover art keeps the album's focus where it should be: on some of the year's most compelling beats.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    St. Peter & 57th St. [Live]
    St. Peter & 57th St. shows the current Preservation Hall lineup in a flattering light--that is, as exponents of a musical sensibility not so much trapped in amber as preserved via community.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    (One)
    (One) is a good rock album that likely could have been great if not for lack of a solid lead single and anything resembling overall coherence in its thematic overtones.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Atlantis: Hymns For Disco
    While Atlantis doesn't exactly "rip apart" the "stereotypical art" that is mainstream hip-hop, as the rapper-singer claims on the track "Equalizer," it's a pretty good start.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Body Talk, Pt. 2
    Pt. 2 is further evidence that Robyn is still one of the most consistently innovative major-label pop artists working today.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brighter Than Creation's Dark
    As is, it's a sporadically brilliant effort by an exceptional band whose reach still sometimes exceeds their grasp.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs
    It all manages to hang together thanks to the fact that, after some trial and error, Wasner and Stack have hit on a sound all their own.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Car
    The direction they’ve taken here finds them flexing their muscles in a way that sheds the cheeky irony of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in favor of a more plaintive earnestness, while at the same time building on that album’s sense of adventure.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Reminder
    Though jangly uptempo ditties are nothing new for the Canadian singer-songwriter, it's these kinds of songs, seemingly constructed for radio play, that mar the otherwise radiant Reminder.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hackney Diamonds
    As high-energy and catchy as most of Hackney Diamonds is, though, the album also showcases a few tracks that suggest that the Stones might be better off embracing their age rather than asserting their eternal youthfulness (“I’m too old for dying and too young to lose,” Jagger declares on “Depending on You”).
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Home, Before and After
    While some of its sonic experiments aren’t entirely successful, Home, Before and After is spiked with humor and pathos, and Spektor holds the two in balance as skillfully as she ever has.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
    Grim Reaper is consistently engaging, often catchy, and sometimes disarmingly pretty.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
    Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance is the most overtly political B&S album to date. But Murdoch is still most interested in characters and how they react to the world rather than regurgitating liberal talking points, and he hasn't lost his satirical edge one bit over the years.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Traumazine
    Megan displays more vulnerability on “Anxiety” than she ever has before, letting the person behind the swagger show. ... Megan’s attempts at pop and R&B crossover are less successful. Traumazine’s production, full of cavernous piano chords and punchy 808s, finds a sweet spot that’s mainstream enough to appeal to a wide audience while still threatening to blow out your woofers.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    End of Daze [EP]
    A five-song EP that summarizes the band's strengths better than any of their work so far, while also highlighting how little this material gains from linear sequencing.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wrapped in Red
    Any of these, as well as the retro title track, would make welcome additions to shopping-mall playlists, but it's the album's lead single, "Underneath the Tree," which recalls Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in theme, tone, and structure, that's likely to become Clarkson's very own contemporary standard.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Notes of Blue
    After that opening salvo, though, Notes of Blue is driven more by stylistic immersion than a renaissance of Trace-level songwriting. While this results in the occasional lapse into bland formula (namely the joyless dirge “Midnight” and the drifty acoustic piece “Cairo and Southern”), Farrar for the most part sounds utterly invigorated by his new sense of direction.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sremm 4 Life
    Perhaps the album could have felt a tad more engaging if it attempted to do a little more both sonically and lyrically, but Slim and Swae, as well as longtime producer Mike-Will-Made-It, know exactly what they excel at and they do an excellent job at doing just that.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Warm
    None of Tweedy’s studio work has ever quite captured how funny he can be in this format, and for the most part, Warm is no exception. But the album comes close, in both timbre and tone, to reflecting the unvarnished Tweedy that shows up at his solo shows.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fellow Travelers
    The album still has an intimate feel to it, like a missive to those other bands trudging the tour circuit, and it's an ambitious one that invites listeners to travel along.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fear Fun
    These are songs about trying to find onself, realizing how cliché that quest is, and then further realizing that there's no choice but to push through anyway.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Emmaar
    With Emmaar, the band continues to construct a creative vision that remains true to the music of their native country while finding ways to incorporate more traditional North American blues elements.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heroes & Villains
    As a concept album about good and evil, Heroes & Villains mostly delivers. It’s not very ambitious as far as subject matter goes, but the majority of the guests, whose appearances never feel obligatory, at least cursorily touch on the central theme. ... To this end, Metro seems more like an orchestrator or curator. Unlike Khaled, however, Metro aims for a unified sound, and damned if he doesn’t achieve it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The House
    Orbit's production doesn't find as forceful a match as it did with Madonna on Ray of Light, and Melua's style still seems too thin to support true greatness, but The House is a promising start, a sporadically grand album that finds another talented artist rescued from mediocre pop oblivion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No Better Than This
    No Better Than This works as well as it does because it plays to Mellencamp's strengths. His genuine empathy for rural living and his occasional hell-raising both come through in equal measure.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Light Chasers
    For an album that's set in the coldness of space, Light Chasers impresses for its warmth.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Unbreakable
    Janet has calculatedly played the humble-grateful card countless times in her career, but Unbreakable, a ready-made collection of deep cuts, is one of the first times she’s given a fully convincing performance.
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