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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All of This Will End
    The album’s greatest asset is its immediacy, with its best songs seemingly allowing De Souza to get things off of her chest after years of holding it all in. It’s a shame, then, that All of This Will End often also indulges indie-twee clichés.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dreamer
    Although Iqbal demonstrates a profound understanding of genre and influences, Dreamer occasionally only dabbles in these styles rather than fully immerses itself in them. ... Nevertheless, Iqbal’s prowess as a singer and songwriter shines through with richness and depth.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    72 Seasons
    While the grooves are solid, there are few truly memorable riffs or solos to speak of on 72 Seasons. Even when the band does manage to recall the trappings of their early days, as on the thrillingly breakneck “Lux Æterna” or the Iron Maiden-style “Room of Mirrors,” the arrangements generally lack the intricacy and dynamics of their classic albums. ... This is more than made up for, though, by James Hetfield’s vocal performances.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ...So Unknown
    Most of Jesus Piece’s experimental tendencies are confined to intros and outros on …So Unknown. The album feels more defined by genre than the band’s past work. But there’s no denying that the anger running through it is contagious, and creates a stark contrast to the majority of recent pop-rock, which carries a mood of depressed resignation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sremm 4 Life
    Perhaps the album could have felt a tad more engaging if it attempted to do a little more both sonically and lyrically, but Slim and Swae, as well as longtime producer Mike-Will-Made-It, know exactly what they excel at and they do an excellent job at doing just that.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    No Highs
    The album serves as a continued refinement of the talents that he displayed on 2006’s immense Harmony in Ultraviolet and 2016’s confrontational Love Streams, even if it’s ultimately not as consistent. Its atmosphere is so suffocating that “Anxiety” may accurately sum up most listeners’ emotional states after listening to the album in full—and considering No Highs’s ambitions, that’s perhaps the highest possible praise one could bestow upon it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1982
    Compared to some of their iconic contemporaries, A Certain Ratio never quite got their due, but the niche they’ve settled into in recent years serves their legacy well.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rat Saw God
    All of the wobbling between tempos and styles might sound haphazard, but it’s executed with precision. And Hartzman’s snatches of Americana imagery—rain-rotted houses, parking lots, “piss-colored bright yellow Fanta”—ultimately cohere into an evocative portrait of the fringes of American life.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With a Hammer
    But for each jagged, dissonant song that Yaeji hurls into the mix, there’s a smoother, more melodic counterpart, showcasing the artist’s intuitive sense of balance. The album’s more straightforward tracks, like “For Granted” and “Done (Let’s Get It),” serve as a testament to Yaeji’s ability to craft infectious hooks without sacrificing her distinctive experimental edge.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Stereo Mind Game
    Even as the album’s lyrics shift focus to the normalcy of life after loss, the production remains varied. “Future Lover” is swathed in distorted electric guitars, while “Isolation” embodies its title by stripping back the album’s emergent indietronica style in favor of a lone acoustic guitar. These shifts, however subtle, keep Stereo Mind Game from stagnating.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Price of Progress
    The Price of Progress proves that they haven’t forgotten what made them great.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Continue as a Guest
    At the stage in their career when most bands are content to just repeat themselves, the unfamiliar palette of Continue As a Guest is a revelation, and certainly doesn’t preclude the other members of the New Pornographers from making their presence felt. Most notably, Zach Djanikian contributes tenor and alto sax on several tracks, expanding the album’s timbre in new and unexpected directions.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Good Luck
    Good Luck fits roughly into similar experiments by Backxwash or JPEGMAFIA, but it’s even harder to pin down to a single genre. It’s an album that testifies to the liberating potential of making a racket.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    10,000 Gecs
    While the twosome’s rambunctious revelry may appear wholly flippant upon first listen, their music, and 10,000 gecs as a whole, is far more sophisticated than it seems.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fantasy
    Gonzalez’s tendency for self-indulgence and penchant for repetition keep Fantasy from reaching the previously attained heights of albums like Saturdays=Youth. Yet, even as M83’s throwback sound has lost some of its novelty due, in part, to pop culture becoming saturated with (comparatively vapid) ’80s nostalgia, Gonzalez’s non-ironic sensibilities and bright-eyed ambition effortlessly outshine even his most reverent copycats.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    UGLY
    Despite its allusions to seeking therapy, listening to the album feels like accompanying a friend on a disastrous Saturday night bender.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    WOW
    There’s also a strong sense of unity in how each song eventually comes together, and the album as a whole cohesively flows from one impressive moment to the next, ebbing and flowing between states of serenity and chaos.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Follow the Cyborg
    Unfortunately, the album’s avoidance of conventional pop structures means these songs fail to lodge in your mind, but Miss Grit sings with a plainspoken, almost whispery intimacy that’s hard to shake.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quest For Fire
    Tonal contradictions, while at points jarring and a tad distracting with how little they ultimately coalesce, provide the album with a punchy sense of dynamism across its 15 tracks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All Fiction
    Their unwillingness to resort to cheap pop gestures stands out in an era where few acts even bother to cloak their crass commercialism. But above all stands the music, and All Fiction—the title of which is a reference to our culture’s increasingly fractured ideas of what constitutes truth—marks yet another extraordinary entry in the band’s discography.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Optical Delusion
    They’ve explored spacey atmospheres and grim, political content before, but Optical Delusion feels more like a document of the times than a sci-fi fantasy: a rave just before the end of the world.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pollen
    The common thread connecting the album’s real and imagined romantic scenarios across its 10 tracks is escapism, whether it be the isolation of the open sea or the insular behind-the-scenes goings on of a hotel.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Raven
    No matter the tempo or setting, though, Raven is fully aware of how the body can both entrap and liberate. It’s an innovative use of music as a vessel to capture both.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Compositions
    But even as he eschews evocative song titles and instrumentation, Compositions nonetheless makes for a haunting, gloomy, and often challenging experience. And when the repetitive throbs finally subside after 41 minutes, the silence left in their wake feels nothing short of monumental.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    One Day
    Although it has some thematic overlap with Glass Boys, One Day amalgamates its disparate lyrical and musical ideas, as well as the confidence of its performances and compositions, into a novel, thrilling 40 minutes.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Furling
    While country and roots music inform many of the arrangements here, slide and steel guitars are employed mostly as texture, creating a blur of sound. This is very much “vibes” music, emanating from a wide swath of influences, blending English folk, American roots music, and dubby trip-hop in ways that are both heady and nebulous.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    La La Land
    Not only does the band’s output remain as inexhaustible and freewheeling as ever, the album stands as some of their best late-career work.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    12
    Unlike albums such as David Bowie’s Blackstar or Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s Skeleton Tree, both of which confront death head-on, 12 is decidedly more reserved in its reckoning with human impermanence. Yet, even if it’s less forceful in its execution, Sakamoto’s poetic, metaphysical approach—a paradoxically delicate yet fearless plunge into the unknown—is equally as daunting and devastating.
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