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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    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cerulean Salt
    This is an album of unlikely dichotomies: of confidence and vulnerability, of yearning and forgetting, and of the simultaneous danger and attractiveness of self-destruction.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Opposites
    Opposites is ultimately a surprisingly immediate and rewarding listen, compensating in consistency for what it lacks in depth.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Like a Rose
    For the rest of its admittedly brief running time, Like a Rose is a keenly observed and rewarding album that's a standout in what, only a few months in, has already been an uncommonly strong year for country music.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Exai
    Exai represents a career-spanning work, one that encapsulates almost every phase of their evolving aesthetic, and whether you're a fan of their early work or their recent output, it stands as a remarkable synthesis that coheres only through the deftness of its sonic architects.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    People, Hell and Angels
    People, Hell and Angels offers the clearest sense yet of how Hendrix was preparing an evolution of his own.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Old Yellow Moon
    Old Yellow Moon, which walks a line between retro-country and retro-rock with a sure and satisfying sense of balance, is a touching paean to an age, an idiom, and a man.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vertikal
    Mirroring the Fritz Lang film's portrayal of man operating and essentially becoming a part of a machine, the Swedish band plays their instruments meticulously and repetitively.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Amok
    Yorke and Godrich have quite ironically produced a fairly solid, if not stellar, Radiohead album.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    My World Is Gone
    My World Is Gone is an enveloping, at times even uplifting album, its charms diminished only by moments of jumble and overreach.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honeys
    It's this balance between relatable situations and off-color humor that makes Pissed Jeans' songs so dynamic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Untamed Beast
    What a voice it is: rich, raw, and totally indifferent to formal conventions set by neo-soul sisters and indie-rock frontwomen such as Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    M B V
    A few twists and turns shy of perfection, m b v is the innovation and sonic warmth of My Bloody Valentine rekindled and made anew.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jamie Lidell
    What sets Lidell apart from, say, the many pleasant but posturing Justin Timberlakes out there is that Lidell is clearly conversant in the forms others exploit for decorative effects. And with his latest album, Lidell proves himself downright fluent.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Push the Sky Away
    In Push the Sky Away, an album of thrilling darkness pierced by moments of brilliant light, Cave may have crafted his defining statement.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pedestrian Verse
    From Hutchison's newfound enthusiasm for life to the band's stadium sound, Frightened Rabbit has finally created a reasonable glimmer of hope--sans blind optimism, of course.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Centralia
    Centralia is the most sophisticated and cultivated Mountains album to date.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Regions of Light and Sound of God
    There's a certain variety to the approach here, but it coheres for the most part on James's insistently tuneful interrogation of himself. He remains a smart commentator on the voyeuristic elements of attraction.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hummingbird
    While there's nothing as immediately engaging on Hummingbird as Gorilla Manor's "Wide Eyes," the album compensates with beauty and seriousness.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Flower Lane
    The Flower Lane succeeds mostly because of Mondanile's dedication to purity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fade
    In collaborating with McEntire, Yo La Tengo has found a format that accommodates their ever-adventurous musical excursions while beckoning new listeners unaccustomed to 15-minute instrumental soundscapes.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1977
    Beyond their immediate allure, the tracks here benefit from a profusion of weird touches that elevate and separate them from boilerplate exercises.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pale Fire
    One of the most beguiling and unique offerings of the Swedish pack.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cut the World [Live]
    Perhaps to some, the lack of a slow, methodical musical structure surrounding these thoughts, or the fact that in spelling his concerns out through conversation instead of veiled insinuation, he notably drops that perilous, outside-of-sane tremolo, might pull the curtains down around his highly cultivated dramaturgy. Only partially.... The rest of the album is more comparatively straightforward.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays, Vol. 1
    The musical ideas on Holidaydream are notably original. They float with delicacy, leaving an impression like a snow angel-precious, a little sad, and bound to fade all too quickly.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
    Where Good Kid, M.A.A.D City really succeeds is in its powerful emotional core.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Luxury Problems
    The album is at its best when its space is utilized not to build additional patterns, but to simply frame the raw nature and intrinsic beauty of sound.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
    Vicious Lies may not be revolutionary in its sonic palette, but the very excellence of the music on its own merits seems like an industry bellwether, the ante upped on production expectations going forward.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood
    The world Cale has created here is conflicted and weird, but it's also fascinating.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    DJ-Kicks
    Despite its strict adherence to traditional and relatively straightforward dance aesthetics, the album is often showy, flaunting both its nods to authenticity and an impressive showcase of the genre's low-tech production style.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness [Deluxe Edition]
    The songs from the Mellon Collie sessions speak not only to the quality of that abundance, but also to the Smashing Pumpkins' status as some of the most creative and successful purveyors of sensitive but cerebral art rock.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bish Bosch
    Bish Bosch may sound a little strained at times, but it's still a big, ballsy achievement, the work of a committed artist delving further into a land of vaguely sketched nightmares.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dead in the Boot
    Even as the album moves between sleepy, whispered gentility and brief outbreaks of shaking guitar noise, the sullen mood and expansive echoing textures make Dead in the Boot feel of a single piece.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Flip Is Another Honey
    The album is at its best when Doughty allows himself to stray from his source material.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Koi No Yokan
    Taken as both a culmination and a sign of more good things to come, it further solidifies the band's status as far and away the most long-lasting and consistent act of the maligned subgenre from which they came.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wreck & Ruin
    One outright dud of a song and a handful of lazily written lines don't outweigh all that Chambers and Nicholson get right on Wreck & Ruin, an album that tempers its genuine, heartfelt romance with the darkest comedy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
    After 18 years, the revered nonconformists have compiled an album that feels like a career-spanning retrospective.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lux
    Lux could be thought of as another reminder that music doesn't always need to engage the entirety of the brain, functioning as a welcome excuse for half-occupied reflection, a friendly companion for quiet evenings and Sunday afternoons.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Abbey Road Sessions
    Minogue's early material fares well, if only because any incarnations would be an improvement over the cheesy Stock, Aitken, and Waterman originals, but it's the songs that receive the most drastic revisions that elevate the album above a mere exercise or cash grab.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sing the Delta
    Sing the Delta... conveys a one-of-a-kind perspective that, somehow, manages to be as unassuming and humble as it is powerful and authoritative.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cee Lo's Magic Moment
    The dark songster offers a bright disc full of pudding-rich arrangements and a number of worthy soul hits--just with a little more twinkly tambourine.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hands of Glory
    While it's still a triumph of moody, Appalachia-drenched indie pop, Hands of Glory exists as merely a portion of a divided project that should have remained whole.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1612 Underture
    1612 Underture is most effective when the curious synth tones play over quips about poky limestone villages and "suppers for the worms and the owls."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Psychedelic Pill
    It's longwinded, taxing, and crunchily dissonant, bereft of even the token acoustic gem-not an album to be tinkered with by anyone who isn't already firmly in the Crazy Horse saddle. For those who are, the album will be something close to a revelation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Haunted Man
    While the album's comparatively restrained arrangements occasionally wilt in the face of Khan's fierce melodrama, The Haunted Man is still a worthy, often gorgeous entry in the Bat for Lashes canon.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Two Eleven
    Two Eleven is at its core a singer's album, and it's the clearest portrait yet of Brandy's instrument.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Napalm
    Napalm comes on in old-school fashion, with beats as mere vehicles for lyrics, and lyrics that work on a reassuring number of levels.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran
    Johnson and the small army of country stars he's enlisted to collaborate on the project all wisely keep the focus on Cochran's extraordinary songwriting, making for an album that highlights the depth and range of Cochran's catalogue and the monumental influence his writing has had on country music.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sunken Condos
    It's an album built on monotony that still has a sense of narrative.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pour Une Âme Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone
    Pour Une Âme Souveraine both honors Simone's legacy while allowing Ndegeocello to build on her own.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Unfinished Business
    Earle's decisions are always in service to the individual songs and complement Jackson's dynamic performances without overshadowing them.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shut Down The Streets
    For the most part, though, Shut Down the Streets manages to avoid the ennui nipping at its heels, and in its best moments, reinforces Newman as both a skillful wordsmith and a masterful purveyor of Dylan-esque folk rock.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sugaring Season
    The album slows to a crawl in its latter half, and that sense of lethargy ultimately detracts from the things Orton gets really right throughout.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    St. Peter & 57th St. [Live]
    St. Peter & 57th St. shows the current Preservation Hall lineup in a flattering light--that is, as exponents of a musical sensibility not so much trapped in amber as preserved via community.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mumps, Etc.
    Mumps, Etc. is an assured, thematically united set.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transcendental Youth
    Transcendental Youth, Darnielle's strident delivery and all, can be an exercise in sadomasochism, but at times a very rich one. Still, Darnielle seems willing to walk over coals that most of us would rather experience secondhand.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moms
    As memorable as the lyrics are on Moms, its biggest strength is the way Harris and Seim's already quite similar vocals and contrasting worldviews effectively intertwine.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    End of Daze [EP]
    A five-song EP that summarizes the band's strengths better than any of their work so far, while also highlighting how little this material gains from linear sequencing.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Push and Shove
    By and large, the more interesting tracks are stacked on the front end of Push and Shove, and the songs on the second half of the album are comparably safer, blurring together upon first listen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Runner
    This striving for variety, and the fact the Sea and Cake run with every idea regardless of how soon it tires, is also one of their charms.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Sebenza
    The expertly produced Sebenza creates a flowing, carnival atmosphere packed with ideas and stripped of the pomposity often associated with world music.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kill My Blues
    The arrangements are organic and lived in, and the distinct influences of each member of the band figure prominently in the album's overall style, making it far more than just a showcase for Tucker.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Total Loss
    By focusing both on overt dynamics and dozens of quiet, underlying ripples, Krell has lent his work a subtle weightiness that becomes clear only after repeat listens.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Putrifiers II
    The music here never has too clear of an antecedent, and the directions the album takes are generally unexpected-unsurprising for a band with such fondness for the unusual.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Spirit Indestructible
    Whether her strategy is to sing-song her way beyond the abrasive edges or to conversely turn her voice into an even more abrasive element, Furtado makes it all work.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mirage Rock
    While Mirage Rock may want for a certain degree of ambition and creativity, Band of Horses have, at the very least, figured out how to bring Americana music to a mainstream rock audience without succumbing to the genre's most dire, comatose conventions.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tornado
    That they're singing material that's worthy of their vocal skills further elevates Tornado above their previous efforts.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tempest
    This crustily hammy, crowd-pleasing side of Dylan is one of his most satisfying.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Keys to the Kuffs
    Decades deep into his career, Dumile hasn't lost a step lyrically. His raspy-voiced rhymes even appear to be gaining depth and complexity without sacrificing anything in flow or entertainment value. His delivery remains as fluid as ever.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As Above So Below [EP]
    What makes As Above So Below such an effective mood piece are the sparse, forward-thinking arrangements producers Andy LeMaster and the Faint's Todd Fink, Orenda's husband, give the duo's straightforward songs, creating a real sense of tension by contrasting the nature imagery of the lyrics with haunting, otherworldly sounds.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sun
    A collection of songs that represent a dynamic snapshot of the singer-songwriter in steady command of her craft while still occasionally giving way to passages of thin-skinned, deeply revealing storytelling.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Seer
    A raucous, thrilling beast, a hectic palimpsest of brutal noise and gentle ambience, with dueling sounds caught in an ongoing battle for control.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Thing Called Divine Fits
    The album is an assemblage of smart, new wave-tinged garage-rock tunes, less a labor of love than a near-effortless studio session between two post-punk revival veterans that might have been recorded in the space of a few afternoons.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Devotion
    Despite the myriad references [Sade, Aaliyah]... it's clear Ware has found a voice of her own on Devotion.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tracer
    One of the most consistent EDM albums of the year, Tracer refuses to simply alternate between disco and electronica; it blends the two, and should prompt enough repeat listens to confirm Weiss and Takahashi's place alongside the pioneers they've collaborated with.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Instinct
    Flourishes like the instrumental outro on "Last Night" and the shifting tempos of "The Fox" speak to the duo's willingness to experiment with tone and rhythm in ways that are forward-thinking without being labored or self-indulgent.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dance Again...The Hits
    The quality of the material on Dance Again varies ... but it's clear much of the blame for Lopez's disappearance from the pop charts prior to "On the Floor" was a precipitous decline in quality that began with 2005's irritating "Get Right."
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    God Forgives, I Don't
    The beats are huge, varied enough that they don't become tedious, and the guest talent is deep and broadly selected.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Cherry
    Goldfrapp know how to draw you in and, more importantly, hook you.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Channel Orange
    Channel Orange is so textured, complex, and mature that Ocean's recent coming out feels like a footnote, rather than the entire story. It's a revelation that only further colors the tales of longing and disappointment found on this impressive album.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Life is Good
    What makes Life Is Good stand out is what also made his celebrated debut, Illmatic, so compelling. There's a sense of narrative unity here, a wide-angle look of the artist as a grown man.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carry Me Back
    What's most impressive about the songs on Carry Me Back is that, in composing their original material, OCMS manages to apply their old-timey frame of reference to contemporary issues with subtlety and control.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Swing Lo Magellan
    Wild, wooly, and willfully chaotic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Uncaged
    There's something to be said for an album that's such a refreshing and clean break from what has become country music's rather depressing norm.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Confess
    While both of Lewis's albums are brimming with nostalgia, Confess jettisons Forget's sense of caution for adventure and a greater spectrum of genres, making it an altogether superior effort, and one of the few modern indie releases that handles its '80s reverence with dexterity.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Celebration Rock
    Celebration Rock is a tipsy toast to the very best moments in life.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amanda Mair
    A winning debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WIXIW
    WIXIW puls[es] with strange, inimitable energy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
    A deeply rewarding album.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
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