Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,120 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: 1,690 out of 3120
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3120
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3120
3120 music reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jeff Bridges
    The ghostly "Slow Boat," which Bridges co-wrote with Burnett and Thomas Cobb, shares its title with a song referenced in Cobb's Crazy Heart, but which was unused in the film adaptation. These underplayed self-referential moments add character to the album and allow Bridges to make it a more definitive personal statement.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Slave Ambient
    With a little more time to perfect their style, the War on Drugs would be well-positioned to win converts for both camps, and also their own.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Watch the Throne
    While Watch the Throne is ultimately a minor entry in their canons, it's still a terrific snapshot of the friendship that has ended up defining mainstream rap.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Family of Love
    Like most sugary confections, Dom is a band best digested in quick, indiscriminate bursts.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Oh Land
    Oh Land's cinematic arrangements bring Janelle Monáe's ambitious approach to pop music to mind, but tracks like "Wolf & I" and "Lean" draw a bit too heavily from the trip-hop playbook (it doesn't help that Fabricius sounds a lot like Björk) and, however well-excecuted they may be, end up sounding derivative.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Tailgates & Tanlines
    Had Bryan taken more risks of that sort with his song selection and writing, Tailgates & Tanlines might have been an interesting album. But there's no appreciable ambition here.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skying
    While in some sense these tracks are truer to the band's past than Skying's more formally ambitious cuts, that only convinces me that the Horror's biggest leaps forward are the ones in which they follow other musician's great ideas to new places.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Satin Panthers
    The rest of the EP is strictly instrumental, and it's no less fun for it, whether Mohawke is serving up the type of gothic boom-bap that Young Jeezy might rap over on "Thunder Bay" or transitioning between tunes with explosions of (still mostly danceable) noise.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sky Full of Holes
    The juvenile wordplays, ironic pop-culture references, and narratives about sad-sack folks undone by mundane, everyday minutia that are among the band's trademarks remain fully intact: The content of the songs on Sky Full of Holes is, by and large, as wry and idiosyncratic as their songs have ever been.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let It Beard
    What Let It Beard lacks in blockbuster hooks it makes up for in its rambling excess of melody, giving the appearance of effortlessness to what, evidenced by Pollard's lack of competition, is obviously anything but.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is That You in the Blue?
    Is That You in the Blue? is the kind of freewheeling, creative rock record that should make Romweber a key influence on yet another generation.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Legendary Weapons
    Legendary Weapons respects the Wu-Tang ethos and legacy without doing anything to enhance it, constantly regurgitating buzz words and vintage Wu signifiers in an attempt to achieve authenticity.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Here I Am
    The inherent blandness of Rowland's persona makes for too much roundly mediocre material.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chief
    In what has been a truly dreadful year for country music, Chief is a surprise standout.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    King of Hearts
    When he's on his game, he poses a less rigorously focus-grouped alternative to Bruno Mars's tween-friendly pop-R&B, but every moment of genius on King of Hearts comes saddled with something less palatable.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    LP1
    This a wholly acceptable effort, but it makes it clear that Stone is stalling out a mere decade into what looked at first like a promising career. It's time for her to throw the throwback shtick aside and really figure out what kind music she'd like to make.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ritual Union
    Paired with Nagano's warm, engrossing voice, Ritual Union's songs become much more than just capable synth-pop fare.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neon
    When Neon provides him with a song that's actually worthy of his considerable chops, Young really shines. It's a shame, then, that most of the set finds Young fighting an uphill battle against some lackluster material.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rabbits on the Run
    Rabbits on the Run isn't quite Carlton's Extraordinary Machine, but like Harmonium, it signals that she just might be capable of such a magnum opus.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Timez Are Weird These Days
    Timez Are Hard These Days is low-culture pulp with an unrealistic sense of its own sophistication.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Life's Rich Pageant
    Life's Rich Pageant serves as both a guidepost for how R.E.M. moved in an arena-sized direction and as another extraordinary album in the band's uninterrupted run of true greatness that spanned between Murmur and Automatic for the People.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    All of You
    For the most part, All of You is virtually indistinguishable from Caillat's previous work, though the appearance of Common on "Favorite Song" does threaten to disrupt business as usual.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I'm Gay (I'm Happy)
    I'm Gay (I'm Happy) isn't sly and intertextual, it's an alternate universe beholden only to its own laws.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Galactic Melt
    As it stands, Galactic Melt is a meticulously crafted offering that, due to the tremendous promise exhibited by Cyanide Sisters, falls short of expectations.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Red River Blue
    Red River Blue may be a significant step forward for Shelton, but he's going to have to be far more consistent in his song choices and steer clear of reductive "I'm so country" shtick like "Good Ole Boys" if he hopes to keep pace with the quality of his wife's albums.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Summer
    Friedberger's debut may not be as brilliant, but it goes about depicting summer in New York in a similarly organic fashion, casting a city full of mysterious old men and rambunctious kids on the F train.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    BlackenedWhite
    The duo strikes a fine working relationship throughout BlackenedWhite too, with Left ensuring his colleague's standout bars are accentuated with a quirky sample or a sudden key change. In all, this is a far more accessible affair than Goblin; it never comes close to being as downright offensive, and Hodgy's breezy flow helps make this a far easier album to digest.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Bird
    Chambers just gets structure, and it's that know-how that makes Little Bird one of her finest albums.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Within and Without
    Much as its title suggests, Within and Without is a juxtaposition, matching an assortment of warm, decades-old retrograde styles with the despondent, isolated, and decidedly modern mood of Greene's alienated narratives.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Casablanca Nights
    There's a hell of a lot of air amid Casablanca Nights's piecemeal, electronically transferred elements. Just not much oxygen.
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