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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    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mistake, Mistake, Mistake, Mistake
    The rare techno album that's worth digging into.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fundamental
    It would be unthinkable to imagine a more pleasurable listen coming along in 2006.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Loose
    Furtado's style-hopping nature makes her a never less-than-interesting artist, but it doesn't work to her advantage when it occurs within the same record, and that's what ultimately keeps Loose from cohering as a singularly great pop album the way her prior efforts did.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Under The Iron Sea
    What they have done, to their credit, is take the best elements from those bands--Radiohead's soaring melodies, U2's scope and volume, Coldplay's dogged earnestness--and combine them into something that, for much of Under The Iron Sea's running time, is a perfectly respectable alternative to, say, the likes of Train or The Goo Goo Dolls or to Coldplay's comparatively bland X&Y.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ganging Up On The Sun
    The album is often as strong as Fountains Of Wayne's Welcome Interstate Managers.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mo'Mega
    Mo' Mega keeps the bar set pretty high.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    Rather Ripped is probably one of the best records in Sonic Youth's catalog, and definitely one of the best albums of 2006.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Begin To Hope
    There's a fearless, uninhibited confidence to Spektor's voice, not to mention a delightful whimsy to her music, that sets her apart from artists like [Fiona] Apple.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Decemberunderground
    Both accessible and artistic, Decemberunderground is destined to give AFI that larger mainstream audience they missed out on the last time around.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Let's Get Out Of This Country
    While the songs are undeniably beautiful and even fun, the music provides a vital balance to the album's substantial thematic heft, and it's that combination that makes Let's Get Out Of This Country one of the year's best pop albums.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Garden
    The songs are good, but the production is even better.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Drift
    The album is powerful stuff, and though it's unlikely to be heard by many, it's even more unlikely to be forgotten by those who do hear it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's Never Been Like That
    This too-brief set of 10 songs is both a break with the past and a fervent glance toward the future.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The True False Identity
    As he routinely does with other artists' material, Burnett has outdone himself on the album's production; it's the material itself that's a bit underwhelming.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    St. Elsewhere
    As we approach the halfway point of 2006, it's unlikely that a more vivid or arresting debut will drop this year, marking St. Elsewhere as not only an audacious accomplishment, but one of the year's best.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ships
    Ships is very, very, very good, but it's not always enjoyable.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Just Like The Fambly Cat
    It's a likeable little niche that Lyttle has carved out for himself in the indie-pop landscape, and, as he bids adieu to Grandaddy, one hopes that he continues to explore this style in ways that are more challenging than parts of Cat.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Surprise
    What is startling about Simon's latest solo effort is how fresh and alive it sounds.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Without Feathers
    What impresses about Without Feathers is the depth and liveliness that the group brings to it.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pearl Jam
    It's got all the elements of a great album, but it doesn't evoke the feeling of listening to the band's first three seminal albums.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Wolfmother
    One of the stronger debuts of 2006.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Drowaton
    [It] finds the Mints becoming incrementally more accessible while continuing to fashion willfully obtuse pop songs that invite you in grudgingly.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Yes, Virginia...
    Yes, Virginia is hit-or-miss.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Blessing And A Curse
    As a whole, A Blessing And A Curse is the album that Drive-By Truckers have always threatened to make, a hard-rocking testament to the intelligence, sensitivity, and soul of a people often discredited for lacking all three.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Introduction
    An effortless triumph that should appeal to Red Krayola fans and newcomers alike.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    You In Reverse
    Without Ek's second opinion, the results of You In Reverse are mixed; some tracks rule and some tracks drool.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Garden Ruin
    It's the band's die-hards who will have to put in a good deal more work with Garden Ruin, an album that seems destined to be regarded as a "transitional" record a few years out.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vessel States
    There's plenty of melodic mope-rock and shoegaze-y reverberations to admire.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At War With The Mystics
    At War With The Mystics is impossible to digest in a single listen; it's a true headphone album that demands attention and rewards the patient with unexpected delights.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
    A terrific collection of thoughtful, energetic rock songs.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Loon
    A sprawling delight that only gets richer with each successive listen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Show Your Bones
    It may not be the album many critics and fans were expecting from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but it's undeniably the right record for them at the right time, a shrewd display of awareness of both craft and, more importantly, of self too often lacking in modern rock.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Back Room
    Leavening the melancholy with a tense, literate sense of foreboding, The Back Room flows like an obsidian wave from first song to last.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Keys To The World
    For the most part, Keys To The World is a definite step forward and demonstrates that Ashcroft is finally hitting his stride as a solo artist.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drum's Not Dead
    Every minute of the album demands patience and something resembling concentration.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everything All The Time
    With individual tracks that ebb and flow between emotional extremes, Everything is an album that has a definite sense of momentum for much of its running time, which it unfortunately loses in its home stretch.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Supernature
    Supernature picks up where its disco-pop predecessor left off, augmenting the remaining traces of Felt Mountain's ambience... with swathes of glam-rock and stabs of tinny new wave.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
    The 12 most ambitious, dense songs she's yet committed to record.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Old Road
    If the delivery is occasionally lacking, the writing, as anyone would expect, is This Old Road's selling point, and in that regard the album is undoubtedly a success.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Little Willies
    There will no doubt be finer country albums released this year, but there may not be one as irresistible as this one.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hello Young Lovers
    What makes Hello Young Lovers a more interesting album than many pop purists might give it credit for is how Sparks' anti-pop approach to song structure and instrumentation give their compositions both a weight and a replay value that they wouldn't otherwise have.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Young For Eternity
    Young For Eternity ultimately makes them a likable new addition to the rock scene.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    9th Ward Pickin' Parlor
    A surprising delight.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Life Pursuit
    The melodic hooks are huge, but what makes The Life Pursuit a legitimately great album is that Murdoch's lyrics are at turns witty, insightful, assertive, and sardonic.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Comfort Of Strangers
    Orton's assured hand throughout marks Comfort Of Strangers as a sturdy piece of songwriting that will stand among the more memorable albums of 2006 come year's end.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Minus 5 [The Gun Album]
    Wry, rollicking, and irresistible, The Gun Album hits the bulls-eye.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Magnificent City
    Refined attention to detail gives Magnificent City the kind of structural awareness that distinguishes exceptional records from merely great ones.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Idols Of Exile
    At his most direct, he fully holds his own against the likes of [Ryan] Adams or Ron Sexsmith, and for his compositional skill, Idols Of Exile is perhaps a more consistent album than either of those two has released.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Below The Branches
    Rates among the best releases of early 2006.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tales From Turnpike House
    A modest triumph.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Greatest
    A stirring, raw masterpiece.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rabbit Fur Coat
    A left-of-center delight that will tide over the Rilo Kiley faithful until their next album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Standing In The Way Of Control
    The Gossip's melodies are infectious and their beats propulsive enough... to get the sk8er kids to drop the self-conscious posturing and dance a little.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Colour The Small One
    Repeat listens reveal the album to be what the one-time Zero 7 vocalist describes as a "slow burner," a druggy mesh of acoustic guitars, keyboards, and lush, cinematic string arrangements.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light
    The first third or so of Recording A Tape lags a bit, mostly because Bell Orchestre seems reluctant to show all its cards right out of the jewel case. However, once you reach "THROW IT ON A FIRE," the horns and percussion begin to drive, and the album grows progressively stronger.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Confessions On A Dance Floor
    One of the few pop singers whose albums are best appreciated in their entirety and not lopped off into "hit singles," Madonna... has succeeded at creating a dance-pop odyssey with an emotional, if not necessarily narrative, arc.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    12 Songs
    One of the most indisputably interesting pop albums of the year.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Descended Like Vultures
    If not as easy to embrace as its predecessor, the album compensates with a great deal more ambition in its scope.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tournament Of Hearts
    There have been better albums released in 2005 than Tournament Of Hearts, but it's probably the album most ideally suited to be a left-field commercial success.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Thunder, Lightning, Strike
    It's so overwhelmingly happy and thrilling a musical statement that it would justify even a few more exclamation points.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Extraordinary Machine
    For every song that's been improved there's one that's been unnecessarily tooled with.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Z
    Dialing down the reverb and allowing more wide-ranging influences to show through, My Morning Jacket fashions a messy, transitory record that's head-over-heels giddy, curiously experimental, and patently weird in equal measure.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wildflower
    Crow typically does "melancholy" with panache, so more's the pity that Wildflower often sounds outright dull.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alive And Wired
    What Alive & Wired does best is reconcile the considerable charms of the band's studio output with the immediacy of their live shows' energy, and the Old 97's captured on this essential double-album is a band that lands at the midpoint between Wilco's high-minded songcraft and the ball-busting rock swagger of Drive-By Truckers.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Takk...
    As music that's beautiful simply for the sake of being beautiful, Takk… is an unqualified success.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Weight Is A Gift
    The electric guitars are grittier and the drums are more aggressive than those of many of their fellow indie-pop acts, giving Nada Surf a distinctive sound in an increasingly crowded genre and rocking hard enough that they rightfully should earn a second shot at radio.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oh No
    While there's nothing at all revolutionary in the band's combination of nihilistic lyrics and sunny pop hooks or in their use of dance rhythms behind their guitar power chords, it's nonetheless rare to encounter a major label pop or rock album as start-to-finish good as is Oh No.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Twin Cinema
    Best (and nearly perfect) when taken two or three songs at a time, as an entire album, Twin Cinema overstays its welcome. It's simply too much of a good thing.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Pixel Revolt
    It fully merits high praise as both the best work of Vanderslice's career and easily one of the best albums of what has been a refreshingly strong year for music.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Why Should The Fire Die?
    While their lyrics do tell compelling stories, Nickel Creek's selling point remains their technical gifts and, again, Why Should The Fire Die? showcases a phenomenal learning curve.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Okemah And The Melody Of Riot
    Okemah is heady stuff, to be sure, but it's also one of the year's best straight-up rock albums.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Cookbook
    The pages of this cookbook are a primer on how Missy let her head get fat.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Illinois
    From its framing gimmick and its anti-folk folk songwriting to its he-has-to-be-kidding song titles and its show-offy instrumentation, Illinois should reduce to a simple stunt performance. That it's pop-art of the highest caliber, instead, cements Stevens as one of the most vital voices in music today.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Multiply
    An album that, in its best moments, draws comparisons to at-peak Prince and, at its worst, lands in the respectable company of Nikka Costa’s Everybody Got Their Something.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wikked Lil' Grrrls
    Establishes her as the progenitor of what could be called electro-ethno-pop.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Electrified
    While there's a definite sense of in-studio spontaneity to Electrified, the album's only significant flaw is that the songs sound restrained in their current form.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Blame The Vain
    Represents a new peak in a career full of them.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Demon Days
    Demon Days is decidedly bleaker than its predecessor.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Emancipation Of Mimi
    But whatever the songs lack, they make up for in restraint--brevity keeps you wanting more, which is really Mimi's virtue.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bleed Like Me
    If Version 2.0 was techno-pop perfection posing as rock, Bleed Like Me is its noisy, long-haired cousin playing metal riffs in the garage.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Martha Wainwright
    Martha has proven to be not just a worthy pupil of such domestic tutelage, but a musician of equal caliber.
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