Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,121 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: 1,691 out of 3121
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3121
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3121
3121 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Boy Named If
    The tail-end of The Boy Named If finds Costello suddenly back in crooner mode with the soft-shoe swing of “Trick Out the Truth” and the moonstruck “Mr. Crescent.” Both tracks are quietly exquisite and provide a comedown from the adrenaline-fueled highs of the album’s first half. They underscore the ways in which The Boy Named If is as complete and often thrilling as anything Costello has recorded in years.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wincing The Night Away
    If the album isn't quite up to the lofty standards of their earlier work, it isn't off by much, meaning that Wincing The Night Away gives 2007 its first great pop record.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Dreaming Fields
    While it's easy to miss the occasional flash of wiseass wit from her earlier albums, it's clear that Berg understands the relationship between the production and content of a song.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    30
    On 30, she displays the confidence to share her boldest vocal, stylistic, and thematic interests.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
    Not every song on Praise a Lord, though, is as fully developed as “Parody” and “Operator.” ... Still, these moments further highlight Tumor’s idiosyncratic approach to experimental indie-pop.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Family
    Like most everything else about Family, it's a calculated risk that pays off.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Detours
    Crow has managed the nearly impossible: recording an album that's as intensely personal as it is fiercely political.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Le Noise
    Le Noise is the sound of a singer-songwriter playing to his strengths.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ventura
    Ventura serves as a reminder of the magic that can result from looking to the past to inform the future.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Take Off and Landing of Everything
    The Take Off and Landing of Everything gives us mostly familiar surroundings, but it makes for fine company.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin
    It's the rare, grin-inducing Wilson indulgence that doesn't involve some drug-inspired nonsense about enchanted transistor radios. The entirety of Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin reeks of a newfound arrogance that lifts this Beach Boys aficionado's spirits.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hurricane
    It may sound beside the point to exclaim that Jones sounds as good as she looks, or vice versa, but she's always been as attentive to her image as her performance, so I don't think she'd take issue with me praising Hurricane by calling it as lean, mean, and close to the bone as she herself remains.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Anniemal
    Annie the songwriter is breathless and unsure of herself, her voice barely registering above a church-wafer-thin whisper for most of the record.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lonely Avenue
    Lonely Avenue definitively exfoliates its ersatz-'70s, one-off joint-effort stance; more than anything, it's proof that pop can push back against middle-class maturity woes with both rhetorical and diatonic thickness.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Encore
    East has such a commanding presence that anything he does is bound to be a triumph of performance, but Encore is also a master class in arrangement. ... The album’s original material is slightly less memorable, if only because the lyrics sometimes trend toward the generic.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Robyn
    Robyn is definitely a slow-burner (unusual for a dance record, which typically provides a more immediate, transient gratification), but it's also everything pop music should be: provocative, poignant, inventive, and fun.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wondervisions
    Delicate Steve uses their African-inspired rhythms as a foundation for more forward-thinking experimentation. That their experiments manage to be successful without sacrificing basic tunefulness makes Wondervisions a winning debut record.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Day Gentle Hold!
    All Day Gentle Hold is rife with expressive touches that point to Maine’s growing confidence, and the feeling of access to his innermost thoughts accentuates the album’s tenderness.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Modern Boxes
    Tomorrow's Modern Boxes successfully pulls off a transitional balancing act that maintains the trademark elements of a Thom Yorke release while injecting subtle moments of fresh invention that hint at new sounds to come.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Relax
    Despite the many highs, Relax is still a debut, and at times finds the group struggling with the specifics of their sound.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skeletal Lamping
    Taken in isolation, the individual movements in these songs and the different voices of the narrators are never less than engaging.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Civil Wars
    The Civil Wars have gone from blithely conjuring a co-ed version of the Everly Brothers to making a tense, assertive Southern gothic album, complete with religious undertones, images of decaying locales, and tales of troubled relationships.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    War & Leisure
    Even if the commercial tea leaves don't come together in his favor, War & Leisure has shown that, artistically at least, Miguel is exactly where he needs to be.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    News And Tributes
    If there's nothing quite as instantly gratifying as was The Futureheads' "Hounds Of Love," the whole of News And Tributes still stands as a more accomplished album, muscular without being overpowering and stylish without being vacuous.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Turn The Lights Out
    Three records into their career, The Ponys still sound like a really young band. And I can't be more complimentary than that.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    El Rego et Ses Commandos
    [It] works both as a general career summary and a standalone album, identifying another vital, exciting voice from a continent whose musical significance is still being discovered.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Delta Kream
    Picking up largely neglected threads from their early work, the album solidifies the Akron duo as one of the most vital and credible blues-rock bands active today.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Take My Breath Away
    Take My Breath Away is a heavily populated but still carefully fashioned landscape, never feeling crowded and skipping effortlessly between lush ambience and driving techno.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mind Bokeh
    As its name suggests, Mind Bokeh is fluid and formless, committing to pop structure and melodies one moment only to eschew them the next, often all within the same track.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    jj no 3
    As darkly elegant as that pairing might be, no 3 manages better when its somber front is married to blithe surrealism, a feat jj accomplishes with skill and regularity.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chris
    Unlike most ephemeral pop music today, Chris--like the gender-fluid character at its center--feels consequential and everlasting.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drum's Not Dead
    Every minute of the album demands patience and something resembling concentration.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mantaray
    Mantaray's sound is distinctly modern, filtered through the lush electronic textures of Garbage, Portishead, even Björk, but it's Siouxsie voice--trembling and echoing all at once--that reaffirms the album's urgency.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sparrow
    With Sparrow, she's topped even that achievement [The Blade], creating a rich and emotional album that feels deeply connected to the past but also fully engaged with the present.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Currents
    Although Currents is, in many ways, a showcase of difference (from his previous guitar-driven efforts, from some previous influences, even from other recently successful forays into disco-pop such as Daft Punk's Random Access Memories), Parker also toys with repetition as a unifying theme, sonically and lyrically.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Mouse And The Mask
    The Mouse and the Mask, while it may not be answering life's questions, is an enjoyable and highly original achievement.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Between Two Shores
    An album that wrestles with heartbreak but always balances it with warmth and sincerity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic
    I'll grant you that Magic is uneven, but I cannot admit that it is anything other than constantly captivating.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As I Am
    Keys isn't quite a superwoman come to save R&B from itself, but the timeless quality of As I Am is right on time.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lucky
    Nada Surf have matured into a strong enough band to make an album like Lucky, which is full of such existential hand-wringing and one of the year's first great pop records.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hummingbird, Go!
    Andersson has outsourced wisely, with poet Jessica Faust and Fröberg splitting lyrical duties throughout. The trio achieves a kind of symbiosis of character on Hummingbird—without a credit sheet, you might not even know who did what.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interiors
    It takes only one listen to realize the album's title refers not to any physical place, but instead, those intimate mental spaces that contain the ideas that become art and music and other acts of human creativity, spaces that Mesirow taps into with uncommon regularity.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Remains
    Despite its conceptual underpinnings, Love Remains never sounds overburdened by theory, which is a real danger for Krell, a guy whose day job involves translating books on Kantian philosophy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Them Crooked Vultures
    From tip to toe, Them Crooked Vultures is composed with an endearing confidence and swagger, executed with aplomb by musicians at the peak of their prowess.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Off On The Pain
    The material explores a broader range of complex and wrenching emotions, and it marks the most consistent set of songs Allan has yet recorded.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Payback
    Lyrically, Swain brings it, and the album's conceptual structure is sturdy enough to support nearly 90 minutes of nimble versification.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hell On Heels
    None of this would work if the songs weren't actually good, but they're frequently brilliant.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Partie Traumatic
    Black Kids merits your attention, and Partie Traumatic is a confident, fun debut.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honeys
    It's this balance between relatable situations and off-color humor that makes Pissed Jeans' songs so dynamic.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You
    It's a tribute to Case's ever-growing strength as a songwriter that she refuses to take the sharp edges off the vicissitudes her songs depict while still acknowledging the humor and occasional beauty of those edges.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Up Sequences, Pt. 1
    The production is generally crisper and louder here than on the Go! Team’s earlier work, but it preserves their music’s signature noisy exuberance.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pressure Machine
    Pressure Machine, stands as the band’s most sonically restrained effort to date. The hooks are still there, and songs like “Quiet Town” and “In the Car Outside” nod to the group’s early synth-driven sound, but the album’s 11 songs take their sweet time unfurling, luxuriating in subtle details like the swooning strings of the title track.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Highway Companion
    These 12 often-elegiac tracks are machine-shop sleek, effortlessly buffed to a precision gloss that buoys Petty's irresistible harmonies and layered compositions.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger
    Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger is likely the most unabashedly fun album since Caribou's Swim, which played with the connection between organic and electronic elements the same way that Mahjongg here toys with everything, viewing familiar sounds as plastic trinkets: things to be picked up, shaken around, and then tossed away.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Us
    The smart tracks build up the complexity of Ali's persona, while the dumb ones diminish it. The juxtaposition of these two different modes creates a fuller exposition than what you'll find on most hip-hop albums.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Daddy's Home
    An impeccably produced album that deeply honors her arty influences and leaves room for complex and difficult lyrical themes that should please poptimists and indie kids alike.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No World
    The results are dark and slinking, but also highly exquisite, as No World boasts a moody set of tracks that are neither loud nor aggressive, but still possess a very raw and beautiful power lurking behind the whispers.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Further Complications
    The result is an album thick with a humid sense of decaying sexuality, a desperate voraciousness made even grimier by the gritty production.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I See You
    It's by taking these types of chances and stepping out from their established aesthetic that the xx bares their self-professed anxieties, moving themselves into an audacious new direction.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Antifogmatic
    For all their peerless technical skill, it's the gutsiness they display throughout Antifogmatic that makes the album one of the year's finest, most ambitious records.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trágame Tierra
    Left to his own devices, Bates's skittering effects and big, cavernous soundscapes can leave a metallic aftertaste like a mouthful of antibiotics, but the album's female guests--including Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør--provide the blood for Trágame Tierra's big, beating heart.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Britpop
    If Cook’s career is defined by one thing, it’s pushing the boundaries of the genre to their limits. With that in mind, Britpop is some kind of culmination of that effort, challenging the listener’s assumptions about what pop is, and offering an exciting glimpse of what it could be.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Under The Skin
    Under The Skin... washes over you like a summer breeze.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pale Fire
    One of the most beguiling and unique offerings of the Swedish pack.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Julia with Blue Jeans On
    The album puts Krug front and center, armed with nothing but piano and voice. It's a ballsy move, but it pays off in spades.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Certain Feeling
    Certain Feeling might be a little strange, and sometimes even seemingly meaningless, but it's also singular, rich and vast.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Soul of a Woman
    The loving details with which she and her band fill these songs transcend the same R&B clichés they reinforce.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Shadow in Time
    By comparison, “A Shadow in Time” is atmospheric, cohesive, and less discernably a loop. Its fogginess and amorphous instrumentation brings to mind a long, somber walk through thick and uneven woods, or a slow submergence into the sea; the strings seem like wisps of wind, the synths like sluggish sands, and the sound effects imitate light pinging off glass.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Thirstier
    Some of her most nuanced, delightfully disparate songs to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mordechai
    Mordechai finds Khruangbin coming into their own, thanks to the band’s lyrical development and the honing of their fusion of intercontinental influences. As the adage goes, there’s nothing new under the sun, but Mordechai makes a case that maybe there just might be.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Whiteout Conditions
    The New Pornographers may be sounding more and more like robots these days, but they remain uncommonly attuned to the preferences of the human ear.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marauder
    These measured musical and lyrical tangents complement more than contrast the album's thematic focus on reckless impulsivity. Rather than simply dwelling on the potential for ruin, the band acknowledges the euphoria that can greet those who follow their whims, resulting in an album that crackles with the energy of embracing life's unpredictable turns.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dedicated Side B
    The dozen songs that comprise Dedicated Side B, all leftovers from the original recording sessions, are less musically adventurous than those particular tracks, but they double down on pillow talk, lending the album a uniformity that its predecessor lacked.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wrath
    Wrath demonstrates Lamb of God's superior musicianship and creative songwriting, but above all else, the band's desire to innovate without abandoning the formula that serves them well.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kiss Each Other Clean
    This is not an edgy or restless record, but rather introspective, warm, and almost tropical.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    New York City
    New York City sees the Men attacking their no-frills rock with a raw passion that they haven’t displayed this plainly in some time.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Loon
    A sprawling delight that only gets richer with each successive listen.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Are Born
    While We Are Born may not be as immediate or distinctive a statement as its predecessor, there's ultimately very little about it that doesn't work.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    The rest of The Moon and Stars is a similarly ambitious, dizzying jumble of genres and tones, and June manages to hold everything together on the power of her beguiling voice and charisma.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    Mountain Battles is a wonderful, trippy record that's full of invention and Deal sister sass.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
    Washed-out electronic textures, vocodered singing, and gentle piano envelop much of the album in a pastoral haze, and while Mogwai's signature guitar dynamics are both present and predictably melodramatic, they eschew the balls-out heavy-metal tantrums that Burning so capably highlighted.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the Grace of Your Love
    If there's a major difference here, it's that the Rapture has never sounded so confident in what they're doing.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Years
    Her music boasts the building blocks of potential crossover success: impeccable compositional construction; a distinctive songwriting voice; superb musicianship. For now, Shook is content to wallow in country's grimy underbelly, embracing the genre's traditional tropes while pushing them to unexpected places.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here and Nowhere Else
    It's all part of the sizable growth demonstrated on Here and Nowhere Else, which more than anything is defined by the sound of raw energy giving way to coherence and control.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WIXIW
    WIXIW puls[es] with strange, inimitable energy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Bright Mississippi
    Toussaint gives each of the instruments room to explore, breaking free of the structure of the song and marking it with his own distinctive stamp. It's this loose, spirited mood that makes the album's interpretations so smooth and effective.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Logos
    The album is intimate, tuneful, and exciting. You don't even have to know who Bradford Cox is to get a lot of enjoyment out of Logos, and that's saying something indeed.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Doris
    Earl may be one of the quieter voices on Doris, but his dense, evocative sensibility dominates the album both lyrically and musically, making for exciting confirmation that one of rap's most technically accomplished voices has also got his conceptual vision firmly in place.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Extraordinary Machine
    For every song that's been improved there's one that's been unnecessarily tooled with.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Free Reign
    Clinic long ago proved themselves capable of startling listeners, surprising them with odd sounds, fast songs, and strange melodies; now they've proven themselves capable of persuading the listener, taking them slowly from relaxation to unease to fear.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sucker
    Someone needed to author the aural equivalent of the body shot, and Charli XCX has provided the platonic ideal of just that: a party album charged equally with punkish rebellion, hip-hop cool, and pop universality.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sound & Color
    [Brittany Howard's] performance only confirms that she's the kind of pop vocal talent that only comes along a few times in a generation, while Sound & Color as a whole is proof that Alabama Shakes have got the chops to be a lot more than Muscle Shoals revivalists.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time To Die
    The hurtling pace the Dodos maintain and the complexity they manage to fill into these tight spaces is fascinating, at times amazing, fitfully matching complexity with speed.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jinx
    Though their sonic palate is monochromatic, their music is both cogent and engrossing. Jinx feels like a hallucination that proves hard to shake.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    David Comes To Life
    David Comes to Life contains plenty of evidence that Fucked Up is still one of the strangest and most inventive guitar rock bands on the planet.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hunter
    As a first stab in the direction of avant-garde pop-metal, The Hunter is pretty damn compelling.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Underdressed at the Symphony
    Not content to be tied to a single genre, location, or mood, Webster finds pleasure in the discomfort of feeling like she doesn’t belong.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    FU##IN' UP
    Though Fu##in’ Up maintains the same track sequence as Ragged Glory, the titles have changed, each borrowing a lyric from the songs themselves. And when the album does deviate musically from its source material, it does so with subtlety and purpose.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Repave
    It's an abstract and occasionally disjointed album that ultimately finds a rewarding balance, both sonically and lyrically, between the obscure and the deeply personal.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    That Lonesome Song
    That Lonesome Song has the point of view, style and sheer quality of craft to kick off such a movement; even if that doesn't happen, it's one of the best, purest country albums to come out of Nashville in ages.
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