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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    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Believe
    Though his new voice has the rambunctiousness that pubescence assumes, it's also marked with the timorousness that's less often celebrated, but equally omnipresent among vocalists trying to figure out the limits of their new range.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tigermending
    Round and Burns rarely keep their focus fixed on any one aspect of the album's narratives, arrangements, or performances for very long, and it's that constant sense of movement that makes Tigermending feel so wonderfully alive.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Looking 4 Myself
    Unavoidably uneven but fresh.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Oceania
    Oceania benefits from Corgan's new sense of freedom, resulting in the Pumpkins' best album since the gothic Adore.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Idler Wheel Is Wiser than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do
    The Idler Wheel captures what's made Apple one of the defining artists of her generation: a persona that's reflected changing views of private versus public spheres. The results have often been misunderstood, but Apple has continued to present herself as someone who refuses to resort to niceties of tact or self-censorship when she engages with her audience.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In Our Heads
    Hot Chip is built primarily on good beats and a sweet, devil-may-care sass, neither of which the groups seems interested in delivering on In Our Heads.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Punching Bag
    While Turner has often used his immediately distinctive voice to salvage some middling material, that isn't the case on Punching Bag.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Banga
    Banga itself doesn't exactly break many rules, but it does find Smith rejuvenated, discovering new wisdom in old myths and icons, and in her missives to the young, a renewed sense of purpose.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There's No Leaving Now
    While There's No Leaving Now doesn't accomplish anything new, it never drags down the upbeat timbre of the singer's attractive moodiness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Synthetica
    For a large chunk of the album, the band seems to assume that Haines's ice-queen snarl somehow lends Synthetica's bland, hookless milieu a cool irreverence, but more often than not, what's supposed to be punk-ish detachment often plays like the group is bored by their own material.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amanda Mair
    A winning debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WIXIW
    WIXIW puls[es] with strange, inimitable energy.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Americana
    In attempting to honor the sounds of the past, Young ends up turning them into toxic sludge.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
    A deeply rewarding album.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Stoned Immaculate
    A lazy and undercooked album.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is PiL
    If lyrically This Is PiL marks a step forward for Lydon, then musically the album seems caught in a mid-'90s production rut, the color and texture of the band's rhythm section feeling leached out.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nashville, Vol. 1: Tear the Woodpile Down
    Genre formalism is all well and good when there's genuine creativity and exploration behind it, but Tear the Woodpile Down exposes the limitations of Stuart's hardline conservatism.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Valtari
    Teeming with crescendoed melodies, children's choirs, and other symphonic flourishes, the album serves as Sigur Rós's full-fledged reunion with the ethereal sound that made them famous.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What We Saw from the Cheap Seats
    At her best, Spektor tempers her theatrics with a deep-seated empathy. Beneath the yelps, gasps, and exaggerated accents, she's a romantic, and What We Saw is her most deeply felt, resonant work to date.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Magic Hour
    A muddled, uneven album that, for a few interminable stretches, sounds like it could've been recorded by just about anyone.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Among the Leaves
    Among the Leaves may not be the most captivating way to spend 70 minutes, but it's a valuable effort nonetheless, a deeply felt record of one man's never-ending struggle with himself.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ufabulum
    This may not be the most challenging or experimental Squarepusher album, but it feels like a step forward for an IDM artist who's been at it for nearly two decades.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Heroes
    Inconsistency and lack of focus mars Heroes, which relies too heavily on misguided collaborations that don't add anything of value to the album.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Not Your Kind of People
    Not Your Kind of People adheres so doggedly to formula that it often sounds dated... There's no indication that the band has evolved much.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Joyful Noise
    An album that wears its disposability on its sleeve.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vows
    Kimbra certainly has the voice, and, at least for now, the production to foment both critical praise and mainstream success, provided she can find an audience with enough patience for such carefully plotted music.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Storm & Grace
    Storm & Grace is an effortless, natural-sounding collaboration.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Only Place
    The band sounds like they're struggling to come up with a new template, a feeling that leaves The Only Place sounding shiftless and adrift.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bloom
    An anthology of pretty but aimless ambient rock, and a starkly disappointing regression after the thoughtfulness of 2010's Teen Dream.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trespassing
    Trespassing marks a strutting step forward for Lambert.
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