Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,115 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: 1,685 out of 3115
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3115
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3115
3115 music reviews
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    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Water Made Us
    Water Made Us is an undeniably human album, authentic and sincere in its navigation and preservation of love, all told through the lens of Woods’s own experience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pure Comedy
    It's something of a miracle, too, that he's managed to wring such beauty and profundity out of the mess of a society he sings about.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Hands
    Ranging from guttural yowling to barely contained explosiveness, Lenker’s voice is the perfect vehicle for Big Thief’s dark, pretty songs about personal and political wreckage.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ys
    The album is a precious--in every sense of the word--masterpiece.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Home Video
    Ultimately, it’s less the nuances of Dacus’s writing than her willingness to expose herself and her past so freely—even the most difficult parts—that make the strongest impression on Home Video.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fossora
    “Ancestress” is one of the most accessible songs on Fossora, not just for its mortality-confronting emotional narrative, but its more recognizable song structure. The album’s other highlights get mileage out of their heavily multi-tracked and harmonized vocals. ... Where Fossora missteps is in how it pulls all of its disparate musical influences together.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    The rest of The Moon and Stars is a similarly ambitious, dizzying jumble of genres and tones, and June manages to hold everything together on the power of her beguiling voice and charisma.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Revolution
    A dense, challenging record, Revolution once again finds Lambert setting the benchmark for the country genre even as she begins to consider the possibilities beyond its borders.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Multitudes
    The album eschews the extroversion of the singer’s best work, like her 2007 breakthrough, The Reminder, and ultimately struggles to fully elucidate her multifaceted talents.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Harvest
    Their aural magic is as evocative as ever, and with their alchemical skills, they could well invent a fifth element, or more.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Mercy
    Yet, far from a liability, Clark's bare, sedate St. Vincent persona is the highlight of Strange Mercy, reflecting all the terror, beauty, and allure of her music more effectively than any cantakerous narrator could muster.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Brash, insightful, wry, and, above all else, smart, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend confirms that Miranda Lambert is far more than just the latest in a long line of bad girls: She's a country music legend in the making, and the most vital artist Music Row has produced in a generation.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Montero
    Lil Nas’s expressions of anxiety and self-doubt are served with honesty and tenderness, as well as some awkwardness.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Don't Live Here Anymore
    Though the War on Drugs may take a slightly more straightforward approach on I Don’t Live Here Anymore than they have in the past, they still find new ways to engage with complex arrangements. The result is a nimble balancing act of accessible pop-rock anthems and experimental soundscapes.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    High Violet
    High Violet is an expertly handled balancing of the airy and the dense, and nowhere is that better exemplified than on the triumphant "England."
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bloom
    The songs that leave the most lasting impression are the most downbeat.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Singles
    As a whole feels like a more complete and satisfying journey than either of Goldfrapp's last two albums, progressing confidently from crushing guitar-driven boogie to weightless space pop.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beyoncé
    What makes the album significant is the fact that its creator is a bona fide superstar who, apparently, seems to care more about following her creative bliss than scoring easy hits. And it takes her (and us) to some mighty weird and exhilarating places.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Emeritus
    If this is truly the end for Scarface then Emeritus is a backdoor exit, an unassuming, professional album that quietly gets the job done.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    evermore
    The stories she tells are about how her narrators’ choices impact others, often in ways that cause irreparable harm. That makes the songwriting a bit riskier than on Folklore, and not all of those risks pay off. If that means Evermore isn’t quite as strong as that album, she nonetheless managed to release two of the finest albums of her career in the span of just a few months.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Before Today
    There are times when the garish rehash feels a tad too on the nose.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kaputt
    Not all of Kaputt is so dynamic, and many of the songs require a few listens before they begin to assert their individual identities. But Kaputt does contain riches to rival the previous highpoints in the Destroyer canon.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mental Illness
    Mann's best work has always lingered on such private reverie, and Mental Illness is one of her most ravishing and affecting hymns to solitude.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Little Oblivions
    She successfully translates her confessional tone and subject matter into melodically and atmospherically engaging songs, resulting in an album that represents a significant step for one of contemporary music’s most eloquent artists.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Chicago Sessions
    Even if it isn’t necessarily a pivotal effort, [The Chicago Sessions] is marked by an endearing lack of affectation that only one of the greatest country songwriters can achieve.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    And Nothing Hurt
    Motivated more by financial necessity than the hubris it must take to even believe such an undertaking would be feasible, Pierce nonetheless constructs a thickly layered album. And while its inherent limitations are evident at times, it's a work of characteristic ambition and poignancy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Warm
    None of Tweedy’s studio work has ever quite captured how funny he can be in this format, and for the most part, Warm is no exception. But the album comes close, in both timbre and tone, to reflecting the unvarnished Tweedy that shows up at his solo shows.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Silent Hour/Golden Mile [EP]
    No matter how sublime Rossen's voice may be, Silent Hour/Golden Mile simply can't transcend the limitations of its origin as a collection of incomplete Grizzly Bear B-sides.
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