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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    To Willie
    The fact that the album works may speak most to the strength of Nelson's original material, but To Willie certainly has a creaky, good-natured charm, is light on frills, and puts a clear focus on the songwriting.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Feel That Fire
    Having good taste in collaborators and influences doesn't make up for how often Bentley repeats himself here though, and it isn't enough to keep Feel That Fire from being more than a tremendous disappointment.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Immolate Yourself
    Immolate Yourself does a lot and does it all well, creating an album that adds explicit punctuation to an already shocking loss.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sea Sew
    Unassuming and refreshingly lacking in the pretension of so many contemporary folk-pop records, Sea Sew makes for both a challenging and a charming proper introduction for Hannigan.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sing: Chapter One
    Sing is such an interesting project, though, because there's a real honesty to the whole of it, including the parts that are kind of insufferable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
    While not all of those risks pay off, what works about Tonight speaks to the band's greater maturity and vision.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Working On A Dream
    Yet despite O'Brien's anemic production, much of the blame for Working On a Dream undoubtedly lies with Springsteen himself; drained of his angry energy, he dribbles out material that's for the most part goofy and painfully bloodless.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
    Perhaps executed a tad more carefully than it was conceived, Ray Guns is ultimately a flawed gem.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gutter Tactics
    As they see it, new president or not, America is still a menace to the rest of the world. This will never change, and apparently, entrenched as they are in a morose pit of doom and gloom, neither will Dalek.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dear John
    What makes Dear John stronger than last year's Loney, Noir, then, is Svananen's ability to compensate for his shortcomings with arrangements that reference his disparate influences
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ready For The Flood
    If there's nothing particularly innovative about Flood, it's nonetheless gratifying to hear Olson and Louris writing and performing together again, and hopefully the album is but a starting point for future projects.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    Soulful and almost structurally flawless (it's the most minor of complaints that the middle run of songs are all about a half-minute too long), Merriweather finds one of the most talented, most creative pop bands finally and gloriously figuring it all out.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Crying Light
    Antony's performances are always classy as well as unequivocally odd.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Guilty
    Yet all of this feels like quibbling when surveying an album that's still devastatingly charming, consistently intelligent, and engaging on first listen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Noble Beast
    Similar to witnessing Bird's high-wire concert act, in which he deftly loops figures from guitar, violin, and vocals to create living sound colleges of pop songs, one comes away from Noble Beast feeling more impressed than moved.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fiction Family
    Whether Fiction Family moves forward or remains just a one-off side project, most of the chances that Watkins and Foreman have taken for this record pay off, making for a project that is sure to appeal to their existing fanbases and which stands on its own merits.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mirror Eye
    The band takes this gradual structure and spreads it over songs wreathed in recurring patterns, echo effects, and unintelligible chanting voices, resulting in music that's densely circular but moves, slowly and elegantly, with all the beauty of a wisp of smoke.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Glasvegas
    Frustrating but intermittently brilliant, Glasvegas could have made a strong EP, but instead stands as a flawed full-length that's been primped and stretched beyond its means.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Folie A Deux
    The album's best moments are those that hum along unassumingly, giving the songs room to be catchy and simple and the hooks room to sneak up on you. These moments, however, are rare and fleeting.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Different Me
    Like Blige, Cole luckily possesses the vocal talent to carry the album through weaker moments.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Da Realist
    Without a distinguishing voice or idea, Realist feels like the mold from which better rap albums are made, a blank form woefully void of substance or flavor.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    GhostDeini The Great
    So, there you go, Ghostface, you've given us time to reflect on your weird, surprisingly lengthy career while enjoying some choice and not-so-choice songs from your panoply of albums.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Universal Mind Control
    Although Universal Mind Control represents a serious step backward from the successes of his recent projects with Kanye, it would be remiss to say the album is the death knell for Common's career or that he has fallen off in any significant way.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Human
    What prevents Human from being a sort of Afro Pt. 2, then, is a minor onslaught of adult-contemporary schmaltz, something Afrodisiac's producers wisely eschewed.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Finally LP
    Light as it may feel, Finally provides a concrete diagram for what Kozelek has been doing for years: taking big songs and packing them into very small boxes.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Circus
    Wildly if transitorily enjoyable at turns, vacuous and ignorable at others, Circus doesn't quite feel like a comeback, but I'm sure Brit's not above merely bringing pre-comeback.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Emeritus
    If this is truly the end for Scarface then Emeritus is a backdoor exit, an unassuming, professional album that quietly gets the job done.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
    By this point in his career, Byrne's voice has a comforting effect, and the rest of the album builds on this feeling, the lyrics clever if not a little standard, and the music catchy and inviting.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Electric Arguments
    Arguments impresses most for its lack of inhibitions.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    808s & Heartbreak
    Fresh off a trilogy of albums likely to be remembered as some of the most innovative and endearing in the history of hip-hop, has produced 2008's biggest musical conundrum, the hurried and ill-conceived Auto-Tune experiment 808s & Heartbreak.
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