Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,122 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: 1,692 out of 3122
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3122
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3122
3122 music reviews
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    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hello Happiness
    It’s worth applauding Khan, who turns 66 next month, for continuing to make an album as vital and contemporary-sounding as Hello Happiness.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Terrible Human Beings
    Rather than saturate Terrible Human Beings with these thrilling, if grotesque, excesses, the Orwells use them sparingly, which strengthens their impact and punches up the flavor of an otherwise measured album.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    True Sadness
    While the experiments in modern techniques here vary in effectiveness, they at least spur the band to capture the spontaneity and jubilance of their often rapturous live shows--a spirit that often gets lost when they pack their albums with painfully sincere, stone-faced balladry. In fact, it's when the Avetts lean back on their standard neo-bluegrass style that True Sadness is at its dullest.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    One Of The Boys
    While One Of The Boys isn't a good country album by any stretch, it also isn't offensive or reductive in any of the ways that made her two prior albums such problems.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sea Sew
    Unassuming and refreshingly lacking in the pretension of so many contemporary folk-pop records, Sea Sew makes for both a challenging and a charming proper introduction for Hannigan.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Comedown Machine
    Comedown Machine remains a pretty good album, possibly the least characteristic thing they've released to date.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Understanding
    Even the best tracks bobble like a helium balloon tugging from a child's clenched fist... but not quite forcibly enough to pull free.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Good Time
    Good Time, however, too often finds Jackson adopting unfortunate trends in modern country music in place of the thoughtful songwriting that characterizes his earlier work.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Visitor
    Listeners who've already given up on Young's current output are unlikely to be lured back by anything here, but for those of us still following his uniquely meandering path—in and out of the proverbial ditch--it's a ride well worth taking.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Man Of Aran OST
    As a soundtrack, it works (mostly) well, but as a standalone album, it feels drearily wan and insignificant.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dos!
    While the album is agreeably jejune in a way that recalls the band's Dookie era, only a handful of its tracks are truly essential additions to the Green Day catalogue.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Time Is Over One Day Old
    In their current form, Bear in Heaven may indeed be far more accessible than they were in the mid to late aughts when a song sporting a verse/chorus framework was the exception rather than the rule (even now it's more of a suggestion). Nevertheless, a brazen and workmanlike confidence marks the album as a more recognizable creative evolution than its predecessor's endearing, but ultimately canned, artistic departure.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love at the Bottom of the Sea
    There's still a feeling of something missing here, and while the material is much stronger than on the band's most recent releases, there's also a sense that these are the first 15 songs Merritt wrote for the project and not the best of a larger selection.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gloria
    For as much as Smith tries to step out of the box, they still sound most comfortable playing to their previously established strengths.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Free Your Mind
    Considering their rather straightforward musical blueprint, every Cut Copy album is a bit of a recycle job, but Free Your Mind seems excessively so, almost to the point of motorized lifelessness.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Achin' And Shakin'
    Bundy's music may not always sound like that of country legends like Parton or Loretta Lynn, but she shares with those women a clear understanding of how to create both well-crafted music and an artistic persona over the course of a set of songs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Good Life
    What elevates Good Life over, to pick the obvious parallels, Hank Williams III's Risin' Outlow and Shooter Jennings's Put the 'O' Back in Country is that Earle's debut isn't limited to simple retro-minded mimicry.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go
    The whole album is relentlessly gloomy, comparable to the general glumness of a Xiu Xiu record but without the fun of a WTF factor.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky
    As it stands, Blue Colour is no more than a better-than-average paean to '80s-era Prince by a band that has yet to find its voice.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    G I R L
    G I R L may have benefited from a few more introspective trips back to the drawing board.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Starboy
    He remains an exceptionally talented vocalist, yet none of the many studio wizards represented in the album's by-committee structure is capable of wrenching him out of his usual morose rhythms. To be fair, none of them really try, playing to his basic talents while also coddling his laziest inclinations, swaddling songs in scintillating soundscapes that coat these sour centers in layers of sweetness.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Kingdom Come
    If all of Jigga's future records sound as labored and flat as Kingdom Come, do we really need him back?
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Volume 3
    Each song is winsome enough, but rarely does a track distinguish itself from the easy, revivalist indie-swing of the whole.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Rebel Soul
    It's a very safe affair, full of platitudes and conspicuous all-American gestures.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pebble To A Pearl
    Costa was often overshadowed by the slick production on her previous two albums; here, her vocals are foregrounded in the mix, and the depth and range of her performances really shine.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With Love And Squalor
    Despite losing some steam towards the finish, With Love And Squalor marks this threesome as a band worth watching.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Classics
    Considering the fact that classics on Classics have already been rendered hundreds of times by some of the most legendary musicians and singers of the last century, Deschanel and Ward's versions are surprisingly engaging.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everybody's Coming Down
    He's right that the troubadour and his feeble attempt at greatness really are small potatoes in an indifferent universe, but at least his band can still manage to make albums worth a few spins.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    X
    If the fundamental conflict between his need to meet certain expectations and his apparent desire to record better material keeps the album from being a truly great artistic statement, X nonetheless finds Adkins proving that 12 years and 10 albums into a career is not too late to start taking meaningful, productive risks.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Different Me
    Like Blige, Cole luckily possesses the vocal talent to carry the album through weaker moments.
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