Slant Magazine's Scores

Select another publication »
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
view
per page
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forgiveness Is Yours
    With Forgiveness Is Yours, Saoudi and company achieve that objective—with a patina of sophistication.
    • 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.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All Born Screaming
    The album finds Clark at her most fragile and ferocious, seeking beauty among the waste and wreckage of 21st-century life. Itself a beautifully ugly thing, All Born Screaming is a visceral examination of art and nature when both are pushed to the brink.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
    The Tortured Poets Department plays out as a pop album that sounds fine enough but sure is long-winded.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Don't Forget Me
    The album’s 10 brisk, lightly rocking songs evoke the radio-friendly pop-rock of early-2000s Sheryl Crow or Jewel while sometimes, as on the title track, looking further back to ’70s soft rock a la Carole King.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Only God Was Above Us
    Only God Was Above Us is ultimately just another (very good) Vampire Weekend album rather than a radical shift. It essentially sees the band dressing up their patented medium-paced, occasionally frantic, symphonic rock in see-through disguises.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    COWBOY CARTER
    It’s an album of Americana not in the banal, produced-by-Dave Cobb sense, but in the truest senses of narrative and musical form.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For Your Consideration
    Mixing R&B and electronica isn’t uncommon in pop music today, but For Your Consideration boasts an unusual combination of production polish and musical eccentricity, harking back to Björk’s early solo albums and Timbaland’s work with Aaliyah.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tigers Blood
    The way Crutchfield’s crystalline voice penetrates her music’s often beautiful, serene instrumentation on Tigers Blood dovetails with her gutting truth-telling.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bright Future
    With Bright Future, Lenker stands on the confidence of her talent, complemented by production choices that neither distract nor detract from the emotion of her songwriting.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WORLD WIDE WHACK
    WWW may be a candid and sophisticated analysis of the dark side of fame, but it’s also eminently entertaining and occasionally funny, and it (re)establishes Whack as one of the most creative rappers in the game.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Deeper Well
    But if the album’s unwaveringly restrained instrumentation holds it back from ranking alongside Musgraves’s best work, it’s still a welcome shift away from the country pop of 2018’s Golden Hour.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eternal Sunshine
    If there’s a primary critique to be leveled at Eternal Sunshine, it’s that the midtempo R&B that defined Grande’s last two albums, Positions and Thank U, Next, is once again so prominent. The house-pop “Yes, And?” is a bit of a bait and switch, as only two other tracks on the album, the disco-infused “Bye” and the Robyn-esque “We Can’t Be Friends,” stray from Grande’s preferred musical mode. That’s not to say that the album’s R&B fare isn’t satisfying in its own right.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blue Lips
    Blue Lips epitomizes what a return to form should strive for: to serve as a reminder of past greatness, yes, but to also be a bold departure from what’s come before, embracing risks and pushing boundaries, even if it occasionally teeters on the edge of excess.
    • 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.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Playing Favorites
    Playing Favorites proves that Sheer Mag can show off their softer underbelly just as skillfully as they do their fangs.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    2093
    Repetition is a big one, and not just in the sense of saying the same word over and over again—which Yeat does on “Psychocainë,” whose chorus has him shuffling through several permutations of the phrase “I forgot”—but in songs that, though they’re certainly cutting edge when compared to what else is out there, begin to blur together over time. But while that prevents 2093 from sounding quite as forward-minded as its title suggests, Yeat is finally tapping into a style he can confidently call his own.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Got Heaven
    Mannequin Pussy offers an answer in their refusal to accept the status quo. Through a balance of firebrand punk and intoxicating power pop, I Got Heaven is a musical expression of self-governance and all the pain and pleasure that comes with it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Still
    Even as de Casier explores the experience of uncertainty, she exhibits confidence in her identity as a singularly detail-oriented artist.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Girl with No Face
    Almost every song on Girl with No Face was written and produced by Hughes, and this creative autonomy gives the album a personal touch that past releases like 2017’s CollXtion II lacked. The songs here are imbued with an obvious newfound strength and confidence.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Untame the Tiger
    With Untame the Tiger she’s left behind the world of magical animals and imaginary beings she once used to sing about, but her melodies and arrangements retain a touch of the timeless and otherworldly.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Loss of Life
    After spending most of their career up to now signed to a major label, MGMT seems to have found space to make the kind of music they want without sacrifice here. The anxious tension of unmet expectations that used to hang over them is gone—and you can hear it in the songs.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Past Is Still Alive
    Despite confronting such daunting themes as grief, addiction, and identity, The Past Is Still Alive rarely feels heavy. Much of this owes to Segarra’s reliably triumphant outlook in the face of adversity. .... Credit also goes to producer and co-engineer Brad Cook, who helps couch Segarra’s words in unfussy Americana that’s easy on the ear.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    What Now
    Sonically, it’s a triumph, a delicately textured musical realm that begs to be luxuriated in. What’s missing is the same level of songwriting that elevated Howard’s previous work. There are a few standout tracks, but no burrowing hooks on the level of “Don’t Wanna Fight” or “Stay High.” The only time she comes close to those earlier songs is on the propulsive “Red Flags.”
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    TANGK
    Tangk underpins its more personal and emotional lyrics with rich, layered arrangements. It’s in this delicate balance of sound and sentiment that the album finds its groove—not always in the heights it occasionally struggles to reach, but in its earnest exploration of love.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
    There’s a tension in Wolfe’s music between a tendency to overdramatize or cloak her pain in gothic imagery and a genuine yearning to be heard and understood. While the former can feel facile, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She more often manages to arrive at the latter. Wolfe’s songs might avoid specific details about her actual life, but the sturm und drang coursing through them is potent and deeply felt.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Critterland
    Challenging, startling, and deeply powerful, this rallying closer confirms what the previous nine songs already suggested: that Carlisle is a singular artist and that Critterland is a worthy addition to the canon of country-folk classics.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wall of Eyes
    Whether Wall of Eyes is a last stop for the Smile or merely a layover to some yet-undefined place, it’s an undeniably mesmerizing trip.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What an Enormous Room
    On her sixth studio album, What an Enormous Room, she pulls back on the eccentric, stadium-ready rock of 2021’s Thirstier in favor the kind of introspective dirges that characterized her early work. As a result, the album offers slightly less in the way of hooks but homes in further on themes of anxious attachment and personal growth.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Rope
    Tucker and Brownstein deserve credit for continuing to take risks and experiment with Sleater-Kinney’s established sound, resulting in another solid effort in an unexpectedly fruitful late period.
prev
Page: