Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,119 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: 1,689 out of 3119
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3119
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3119
3119 music reviews
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    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    S.O.S.
    SOS’s playful approach to genre-swapping carries a defined sense of artistic freedom across its varied tracklist. Not every experiment is a success—the wispy alternative elements of “Ghost in the Machine,” chiefly its indietronica instrumentation and unnecessary Pheobe Bridgers guest spot, never really cohere—but the album doesn’t linger on any one specific style or mood for too long.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heroes & Villains
    As a concept album about good and evil, Heroes & Villains mostly delivers. It’s not very ambitious as far as subject matter goes, but the majority of the guests, whose appearances never feel obligatory, at least cursorily touch on the central theme. ... To this end, Metro seems more like an orchestrator or curator. Unlike Khaled, however, Metro aims for a unified sound, and damned if he doesn’t achieve it.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Love You Jennifer B
    I Love You Jennifer B is filled with freewheeling musical pivots that confidently cover an ambitious amount of territory and find Ellery and Skye coming into their own as decisive talents.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    World Record
    What’s left is Young’s preternatural gift for melody (most of this album’s songs started as hummable tunes that popped into his head on his daily walks), Crazy Horse’s enduring chemistry, Rubin’s less-is-more studio hand, and, of course, the most important subject there is: this old planet.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Premonition
    Once again, they infuse their brand of punk with a hefty dose of pop songcraft and meticulous production, courtesy of producer Jesse Gander, Premonition conjures a dark, enticing dynamism unparalleled even by their own extraordinary output.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    This Is What I Mean
    Far too often, Stormzy sounds crushed under the weight of his own unrelenting seriousness.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Profound Mysteries III
    Despite several standout moments that are worthy additions to Röyksopp’s illustrious catalog, Profound Mysteries III can, like its two predecessors, sometimes feel too indulgent for its own good.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Family
    The album is so fragmented and so determined to forsake easy pleasures, with most of the songs hovering near the 90-second mark, that it comes to suggest a hip-hop version of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention releases from the 1960s. ... For better or worse, The Family may, paradoxically, be Brockhampton’s most honest and adventurous effort since their debut.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    King's Disease III
    By adhering to a creative formula typically associated with many foundational Golden Era classics, King’s Disease III often feels like a spartan exercise in pure technical ability. ... We get 100% pure, raw, unfiltered Nas spitting over a variety of velvety soul samples and invigorating instrumentation, which is, more often than not, a pretty good thing.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
    Though rose-colored, its sentiments don’t feel cheap because Mering’s buttery vibrato and earnest vocal performance ably convey the necessity of accepting a lack of assurance about the future while embracing temporary comfort.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Only the Strong Survive
    Only the Strong Survive is an expertly crafted collection, but a rougher hewn approach, with a sound closer in style to Stax Records than Dionne Warwick and Phil Spector, would have better honored the spirit of its source material.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Work
    It’s a shame that his first album in over half a decade doesn’t push his musical ideas a little further, and in some moments, The Work feels almost like an addendum to 2016’s Good Luck and Do Your Best, but the results are still undeniably affecting.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Her Loss
    Uneven. ... There’s simply too little give and take between this pairing to justify calling this a mutually beneficial partnership.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ultra Truth
    While the almost hour-long album does suffer the occasional lull, at his best Avery effortlessly pushes the sounds that influenced him into new territory.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alpha Zulu
    Both the title track, with its exclamation of “Woo-ha! Singing hallelujah!,” and “All Eyes on Me,” with its whip cracks and anxious synths, attempt to strike a more dastardly and vaguely dangerous vibe that they don’t really pull off. But for the most part, Alpha Zulu delivers the kind of deceptively simple, fleet pop for which Phoenix is best known.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Svengali
    Even the most dance-oriented songs on Bradshaw’s second studio album, Svengali, are mellower than his past efforts, especially his two Muvaland EPs. The album also brings a new conceptual focus to his work.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Got Issues
    Whenever he’s feeling especially vicious toward his adversaries, YG can seem like a schoolyard bully. ... Even when YG is effectively able to place his misogyny within a more acceptable context, like cussing out the supposedly negligent mother of his child on “Baby Mama,” his venom lacks creativity.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Midnights
    Folklore and Evermore felt innovative in how they rebuilt Swift’s sound from the ground up, but despite its own idiosyncratic delights, Midnights ultimately feels too indebted to her past efforts to truly push her forward. If nothing else, the album proves she’s unwilling to operate on anyone’s terms other than her own.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Car
    The direction they’ve taken here finds them flexing their muscles in a way that sheds the cheeky irony of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino in favor of a more plaintive earnestness, while at the same time building on that album’s sense of adventure.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Loneliest Time
    With The Loneliest Time, Jepsen strikes a delicate balance.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's Only Me
    For the most part, though, the writing on It’s Only Me is rife with rich details.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Only Built for Infinity Links
    In the absence of Offset, Quavo and Takeoff still adhere to a strict hierarchy of talent: Predictably, the former remains at the top, singing the vast majority of the album’s hooks and leading nearly every song.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Being Funny In A Foreign Language
    The songs click almost immediately, but they’re subtler and pricklier than a first listen would imply, with unexpected twists like faint spoken-word samples and odd bits of distortion on guitar and piano. And the 1975 uses these textures more tastefully than much of the music that inspired them.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ForeverandEverNoMore
    The album is hampered by Eno’s overly didactic messaging. His pensively exhortative lyrics work fine within their specific contexts, where the songs themselves lean into the existential terror that their pessimistic worldviews provide. But on more delicate offerings, like “Icarus or Blériot” and “Sherry,” the songwriting feels counterintuitive to Eno’s elegant musicianship, becoming an obtrusive supplementary element.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quiet the Room
    Despite its often-startling beauty, Ballentine’s songwriting can’t help but feel derivative at times. ... Still, Quiet the Room isn’t without its unique charms—the ominous drones of “Lullaby in February” cast indie folk into the gloomy depths of dark ambient—and Ballentine offers copious moments of hushed self-reflection and aching sadness.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    ILYSM
    Taken individually, the songs on ILYSM are all downright gorgeous, but by the time you get to “War on Terror,” a trembling five-minute acoustic ballad, after a string of several other trembling five-minute acoustic ballads, things start to feel monotonous. Whatever Ross’s limitations as a singer and arranger, though, when he brings his guitar playing to the fore, the results are much more expressive and gratifying.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dirt Femme
    As a collection of slightly melancholic, occasionally catchy dance-floor filler, it would be hard to quibble with Dirt Femme’s simple pleasures. But it’s burdened with a concept that’s under-explored, weighing down an album that promises to be so much more than what it is.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Suckerpunch
    Too often, the album’s songwriting seems to be in service of odd aural components that overburden its 13 succinct tracks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Most Normal
    Aside from sludge rock veterans like Cherubs or fellow experimentalists like Lightning Bolt, it’s hard to think of another act capable of creating such daringly deranged slabs of noise.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    $oul $old $eparately
    Even with all of its guest spots and expensive-sounding beats, $oul $old $eparately is a frustratingly unambitious effort.
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