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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per page
    • 71 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Arm's Way
    As a fully realized, bombastically confident artistic statement, Arm's Way is Nick Thorburn's "69 Love Songs." Hereafter we will only seek to understand him according to his own pop- and violence-addled logic, mapped perfectly on this thrilling album.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    For Your Entertainment
    Over the course of the album's 14 tracks, Lambert struts and vamps and brings a real sense of spectacle to his vocal performances.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Glory
    By eschewing the harsh, dubstep-influenced EDM of her past two albums and embracing subtler pop and R&B sounds, Britney's made her most daring, mature album in years.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beacons Of Ancestorship
    Beacons demonstrates that Tortoise is still more than capable of releasing an exciting album.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dungeonesse
    The group's music is far more pointed and focused when she's standing at its center, proving that it's not just the parts (polished and hummable though they may be), but Wasner's transformative presence that ultimately sets Dungeonesse apart from the rest of the '90s-mining pack.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Coco Beware
    Coco Beware is actually such an inviting album you can keep it on repeat and just bask in the cozy melodies and gently propulsive percussion.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sing: Chapter One
    Sing is such an interesting project, though, because there's a real honesty to the whole of it, including the parts that are kind of insufferable.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sondre Lerche
    It may not be the most exciting or innovative record, but Sondre Lerche emphasizes all of the artist's strengths, making it far and away his most mature album to date.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    See Mystery Lights
    The failure of its intellectual structure to fully intersect with the music represents something of a conceptual misstep, but also allows See Mystery Lights to be enjoyed without engaging with any of its ideas, as catchy summer music that leans toward the bizarre.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dance Mother
    Even when they occasionally stumble ever so slightly under the weight of their own ambition, the reckless, adventuring spirit that comprises Dance Mother is one of the compelling things that makes it sound like one of the more exciting debut albums to emerge in long while.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sea Of Cowards
    So, yes, Sea of Cowards is something of a jumble. But it's an entirely ecstatic one. White uses the side project as an opportunity to vent his more stridently ludicrous material, the kind of megaphone announcement, blues-jive moments that he tries out every so often with the White Stripes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Foreign Landscapes
    Treatments like this ferret out the striking undertones of quotidian places, making clear the shape of their influence on Bertelmann, while still leaving room for some measure of the listener's own.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little French Songs
    Her sense of humor, her impetuous moments at the mic, and her sheer likeability as a vocalist carry Little French Songs, a modestly scaled disc from an otherwise larger-than-life celebrity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Parking Lot Symphony
    If there's a weakness here, it's that Shorty's lyrics feel like placeholders. ... The same could certainly not be said of the music, which is as rich and as complex as any he's made.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Buoys
    Buoys may not mark a major departure in Panda Bear’s sound, but it bristles with the creative energy of an artist confronting his deepest, most destructive demons.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Lemonheads
    The Lemonheads is nearly as great as the band's masterpiece, It's A Shame About Ray, and far more dependable than the runner-up Come On Feel The Lemonheads. And it may be more fun than either.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dissolver
    Dissolver is a solidly catchy, guitar-driven jaunt, finding equal time for fuzzy rock progressions and slowly sketched, shimmering landscapes.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forgiveness Is Yours
    With Forgiveness Is Yours, Saoudi and company achieve that objective—with a patina of sophistication.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    O
    The Tillys have managed to keep the tap alive by focusing on quality songwriting while at the same time preserving their youthful wonder and elegant sensibilities.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Amanda Leigh
    Moore's sincerity and her pleasant vocals bring a great deal of charm to the project as well, and that goes a long way toward overcoming production that is perhaps a bit too slick to recall the homespun appeal of her favorite records.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Interiors
    It takes only one listen to realize the album's title refers not to any physical place, but instead, those intimate mental spaces that contain the ideas that become art and music and other acts of human creativity, spaces that Mesirow taps into with uncommon regularity.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Garden
    The songs are good, but the production is even better.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
    While not all of those risks pay off, what works about Tonight speaks to the band's greater maturity and vision.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is All Yours
    The band achieves a surprising degree of poignancy by consistently handling these potentially outrageous moments without the slightest trace of irony.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    World Wide Funk
    World Wide Funk is a timely and welcome reminder of Collins's place in popular music. Long may he funk.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Another Eternity
    The pair largely eschews such so-called guffaws on their sophomore effort, another eternity, but they display a willingness to more intrepidly embrace the pop underpinnings of Shrines.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ride Your Heart
    Ride Your Heart is an above-average debut that proves the Calvin sisters are willing to shed a good deal of their rough exteriors while still maintaining the alluring audacity that elevated them from relative unknowns to L.A. indie-rock keystones.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Pinkprint
    This is a big step forward for the genre, and makes one wish that Minaj's content could be as good as her form, that more attention was paid to crafting complex rhymes and less on floating through halfway conceived tracks in a sing-song burble. Yet even if she hasn't fully nailed the balance between her different modes, at least Minaj is doing something challenging, offering a third different approach on her third album.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Introduction
    An effortless triumph that should appeal to Red Krayola fans and newcomers alike.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit
    The result is that, in both content and form, The 400 Unit is an unapologetically Southern album, and the lived-in authenticity of its performances, masterful songwriting, and fierce intelligence also make it one of the finest albums of what has already been a strong year for popular music.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Madame X
    Madonna has a reputation for being a trendsetter, but her true talent lies in bending those trends to her will, twisting them around until they’re barely recognizable, and creating something entirely new.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturdays=Youth
    And though analog synthesizer remains definitional of the M83's sound, they open the arrangements to include more naturalistic instrumentation as well. The approach allows this band named for a galaxy to seem more grounded, and yet more universal, than ever before.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    FutureSex / LoveSounds
    It's a lot like Justified in that it's a solid collection of expertly produced pop songs whose flaws will be devoured by its almost guaranteed string of hits.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Family
    Like most everything else about Family, it's a calculated risk that pays off.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chemistry
    The tropical closing track, “That’s Right,” feels even more leftfield, a quirky but apt conclusion to an album that captures the fickle, out-of-body aftermath of heartbreak.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Archive 2003-2006
    If Archive 2003 - 2006 is at times a runaway mess, it's consistently a beautiful one, and a triumphant example of Rossen and Nicolaus's penchant for chilling, intricate soundscapes.
    • Slant Magazine
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    B'Day
    Whereas Beyoncé's debut was accomplished in its diversity, albeit a sure sign of a new solo artist trying to find her voice, B'Day sounds like the album "Crazy In Love" initially forecasted.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Orchard
    The Orchard is no less sweet or sentimental than its predecessor, but it's a stronger, more complete record.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Within and Without
    Much as its title suggests, Within and Without is a juxtaposition, matching an assortment of warm, decades-old retrograde styles with the despondent, isolated, and decidedly modern mood of Greene's alienated narratives.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Atlantis: Hymns For Disco
    While Atlantis doesn't exactly "rip apart" the "stereotypical art" that is mainstream hip-hop, as the rapper-singer claims on the track "Equalizer," it's a pretty good start.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Intuit
    Intuit contains four or five tracks that are absolutely as ambitious and, ultimately, as good as anything the indie scene has produced this year, and it's unfortunate that they may well be heard less because they share album space with a few too many failed experiments.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
    ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is a trim 35 minutes in length, with 11 tracks and eight proper songs, zooming through its disjointed structure without much padding. This slimness functions as a counterweight to the often stifling subject matter, as the group employs its soul-influenced backdrops in a way that feels totally opposed to what most modern hip-hop is doing.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    That Lucky Old Sun
    In many ways, Wilson updates his style, while still paying tribute to the things he loves.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
    Unlike Costello's other excursions, Secret waters down his pretensions without losing his welcome pop sophistication.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fantasy
    If the songs on the first half of Fantasy trigger the chemicals in your brain, the captivating tracks that comprise the second half implore you to submit to them completely.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Songs
    Wall’s band approaches the tropes of western swing with a perfectly light touch, keeping the mood grounded and intimate, never hokey or ironic.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mirrors the Sky
    As "Feather Tongue" definitively establishes, it's Foy's voice--hushed and mellow enough for this synth-pop era, but also stirring and dexterous enough to transcend it—that can flourish in and even transform any sonic environment or genre simulacrum.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rapor [EP]
    Grossi's ability to deftly assimilate these more pop-oriented artists into his oeuvre is a testament to his growth since You Are All I See, resulting in his most confident release to date.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mechanical Bull
    The band is just about out of transgressive fury, but they manage to muster enough rigor and discipline to keep Mechanical Bull kicking.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    For the Good Times
    While the album sticks to the general formula of its predecessor (covers of classic country tunes with a focus on thoughtful, creative arrangements), the consistently on-point execution of that formula makes For the Good Times an endlessly likable record.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Running For The Drum
    Even if Drum is a bit too frontloaded, the album hits more often than it misses, and it marks a welcome return for Sainte-Murray.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Be Myself
    Be Myself might lack the quirks that made Sheryl Crow so distinctive (it opened with a song about aliens, after all), but the album proves that some alliances can outlast even the latest planet-shrinking technology.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Day & Age
    While Day & Age manages to patch over most of the cracks in the Killers's façade, they still aren't done growing into the World's Biggest Band.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Culture II
    With Culture II they've given us just enough to keep us on the hook.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Our Pathetic Age
    As is frequently the case with double albums padded with filler, Out Pathetic Age’s biggest problem is that too much of it feels disposable, anodyne, or tossed off. But Shadow still manages to get some strong work out of both himself and his guests, and he deserves credit for not trying to merely recreate the same trick over and over.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    VIEWS
    Drake is still skilled enough to carry off this pose with the effortlessness needed to make it credible, freighted as Views may be with cheeseball lines and repetitive refrains. These soft points have always been part of the charm, however, and while the album is overlong and presents nothing truly explosive or exhilarating, it generally works as a steady low-key collection of modish, contemplative mood music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Common Era
    Making good on their somewhat condescending promise, Belong takes the ambient noise-rock of their October Language LP and recalibrates it for a slightly less overwhelming listen.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nocturnes
    Hesketh's shrewd choice of collaborators is often squandered on rather rudimentary song structures and lyrical ideas. That doesn't make Nocturnes any less enjoyable of a dance-pop album, but it's ultimately what will keep Little Boots from becoming the next Madonna, or the next Robyn for that matter.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bring Ya To The Brink
    If still a bit too far from the mainstream to make for a full-fledged commercial comeback (which "The Body Acoustic" might have provided if not for Sony's "rootkit" debacle), Bring Ya to the Brink recaptures Lauper's artistic relevance and stands as a hipper alternative to Madonna's "Hard Candy."
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
    In addition to being the most sonically adventurous collection of songs Gallagher has released to date, these are also his best since (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is...
    While most of the concerns expressed in This Is... seem wafer-thin, the innovative production and diamond-hard songcraft suggest something else entirely. Icona Pop has few equals in the current landscape when it comes to immaculately crafted radio-dance music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Smilewound
    The album is easily Múm's most commercial to date.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Warzone
    That whimsical spirit is perhaps Warzone‘s defining characteristic, despite a tracklist that leans heavily on songs about war and other forms of violence. .... Also fully intact is Ono’s trademark shriek, which has, if anything, grown richer and more resonant with age.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Safari Disco Club
    Yet due to the combination of the singer's delicate voice and the insistent distance these songs puts across, itself partially a consequence of the language barrier, Budet never seems to develop a definite personality.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Broken Hearts
    By revealing some carefully chosen, deeply personal details and by building elaborate façades for the sake of drama, Jones has crafted her headiest, most complex album to date.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Perfectly Clear
    Even if it doesn't sound more like a country album than any of her previous work, the best songs on Perfectly Clear do show an awareness of genre form that gives Jewel a more distinctive presence than many of her contemporaries on country radio.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Amanda Mair
    A winning debut.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heart on My Sleeve
    Even if certain passages verge on the heavy-handedness that one might find in a high school literary magazine, there's a brazenness to Lambert's self-exposure and a particularity to her diction that distinguish her from other open-hearted songwriters.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Look Alive
    “Don’t Go” transplants a prototypical Guster melody into a synth-soaked songscape, while the title track seems expressly engineered for Spotify’s Left of Center playlist. Still, the album never feels like the work of aging musicians struggling to stay relevant; it buzzes with inventiveness, charm, and youthful dynamism.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    4:13 Dream
    The new album has a more nuanced sound and a wealth of interesting songs.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Out Among the Stars
    Out Among the Stars is a reminder of how easy Cash made it all look even when he was slumping.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Roll with the Punches
    It's the first Van Morrison album in over a decade that doesn't just rest on his legacy, but actually expands it.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hard Bargain
    Though her voice has begun to show some signs of wear, Harris remains one of popular music's most compelling, evocative vocal stylists, and that makes Hard Bargain an easy sell.
    • 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.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Notes on a Conditional Form
    It might not live up to its lofty goals, but the sheer amount of daring on Notes on a Conditional Form solidifies the four guitar-wielding dudes of the 1975 as the biggest, boldest, and brashest purveyors of something resembling what we used to call rock n’ roll, which, as Healy knows well, was always at least as much a pose as a sound. He wears it well.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nick Jonas
    With a mix of urban-leaning tracks and more radio-ready Top 40 fare, the album shrewdly distances Jonas from his former band's straightforward pop-rock.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood
    Barnes's willingness to use it as a mechanism for bearing his deepest fears and vulnerabilities--even through the highly stylized filter of a paranoid retro-futurist nightmare--makes White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood deceptively relatable.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Man on the Moon, Vol. 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager
    Pursuing genius at the expense of consistency might work out just fine for Cudi: I'm not convinced that he's a good rapper, but I'm pretty sure he's an important one.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Painting With
    This is, after all, Animal Collective's attempt at stuffing a decade's worth of changing tastes into 12 disciplined, bite-sized songs. What's most impressive is that they accomplish this feat without ever letting accessibility compromise their individual preferences as artists, and vice versa.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Is This Heart?
    A collision between complex, elegant songwriting and soppy bedroom angst, it's not the most coherent collection of songs, but that disorder works, ending up as a function of Krell's ultimately fascinating sense of experimentation.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Here Comes the Cowboy
    Like 2017’s This Old Dog and 2015’s Another One, the album doesn’t represent a progression so much as a broadening of what DeMarco has already proven himself to be capable of as a songwriter.
    • 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.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Absolute Garbage
    'Tell Me Where It Hurts' is an undeniable sign that, despite their extended hiatuses and internal turmoil, Garbage is very much alive with ideas and ambition.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Funhouse
    If the album doesn't always make that point in its words, it consistently makes that point by being as fun a pop record as Pink's albums tend to be.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Woman
    Ultimately, Woman‘s choral and orchestral contributions make the album stand out not only from Justice’s own prior work, but also from the throng of more repetitive electronic music that’s prevalent today.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Throwback to the Future
    BROOKZILL's cultural synthesis wouldn't be possible without the skillfully realized instrumentation: 808-style breakbeats are masterfully mixed with samba percussion on “Raise the Flag,” “Mysterious,” and “S. Bento MC5,” creating unexpected rhythms, but ones which still make sense within a traditional hip-hop framework.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Oczy Mlody
    What makes Oczy Mlody so enthralling is that the Flaming Lips are ambitious in their exploration of the aftermath of their typical spectacle.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Forcefield
    Tokyo Police Club operates as a kind of derelict garage band, and their offbeat lyrical imagery and crunchy guitar-drum combinations work to enhance the album's messy, unpretentious charm.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Solar Power
    On the whole, the 12 songs here are quieter, more meditative, and more grown-up than Lorde’s past efforts. But while Solar Power doesn’t traffic in the booming emotional catharsis of Melodrama, it doesn’t succumb to navel-gazing solipsism either.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Classics
    Laid back as it is, what Classics lacks is the force of purpose to overcome its target audience of hipster kids' aversion to--or limited ability for--dancing.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall
    By turns baroque, jazzy, morose, and enraptured, they're a perfect opportunity for Wainwright to showcase his capacity as a singer in terms of tone and melodic emphasis. And showcase he does, deploying his dulcet foghorn of a voice with subtlety, grace, and elasticity
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kleerup
    This one is as strong and consistent as it is makes it all the more special.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    American Doll Posse
    If still too uneven and entirely too overstuffed to rank among her most essential albums, American Doll Posse is certainly Amos's most ambitious record, both for the breadth of its sound and for the scope of its driving concept.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To The Races
    Finally Bachmann's songs sound familiar and not derivative.
    • 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.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Between Two Shores
    An album that wrestles with heartbreak but always balances it with warmth and sincerity.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Are Born
    While We Are Born may not be as immediate or distinctive a statement as its predecessor, there's ultimately very little about it that doesn't work.
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