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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    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Anjulie
    Levine's production style isn't quite as edgy or intricate as his former colleagues', but it provides a lush, retro-soul bed upon which Anjulie lays her confessional lyrics.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    White Women
    Derivative though White Women often is, and knows it is, Chromeo's level of engagement remains well above #TBT posturing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Callus
    Unfortunately, Gonjasufi's attempt to turn his solidarity with the angry and the dispossessed into a musical concept is too blandly realized to be convincing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dig Out Your Soul
    Those follow-up albums were disappointments because, aside from a catchy song or two, they were tedious. Dig Out Your Soul defies this trend and is their most compelling offering in years.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As I Am
    Keys isn't quite a superwoman come to save R&B from itself, but the timeless quality of As I Am is right on time.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chase This Light
    Chase This Light is also a return to form for the band in terms of their ingratiating power-pop.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This is PiL
    If lyrically This Is PiL marks a step forward for Lydon, then musically the album seems caught in a mid-'90s production rut, the color and texture of the band's rhythm section feeling leached out.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Only Place
    The band sounds like they're struggling to come up with a new template, a feeling that leaves The Only Place sounding shiftless and adrift.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trespassing
    Trespassing marks a strutting step forward for Lambert.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Naked Truth
    The preemptively defensive album's biggest problem is that it's surely nowhere near as interesting as its yet-to-be-recorded post-slammer follow-up will be.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    100 Miles from Memphis
    While it's admirable to hear an artist with such a well-established aesthetic branch out, 100 Miles from Memphis doesn't stretch far enough to work as either a contemporary soul record or as a purely retro-minded tribute.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crayons
    The music is harmlessly listenable, and the requisite nods to her dance-floor legacy, like the sweeping, dramatic house anthem 'I'm a Fire' and the lockstep 'Stamp Your Feet,' are (at the very least) no less opportunistic than the latest albums by Madonna and Janet Jackson.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Never Trust a Happy Song
    The Californian quintet returns with a full-length release that quite literally recycles the acmes of their EP: "Colours" and "Naked Kids" return untouched and unchanged, while the remaining 10 tracks suggest the band may be a one-trick pony.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As Above So Below [EP]
    What makes As Above So Below such an effective mood piece are the sparse, forward-thinking arrangements producers Andy LeMaster and the Faint's Todd Fink, Orenda's husband, give the duo's straightforward songs, creating a real sense of tension by contrasting the nature imagery of the lyrics with haunting, otherworldly sounds.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Adventures In The Underground Journey To The Stars
    Adventures is a bright, beautifully wrapped package filled with nothing but styrofoam packing peanuts.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Not Animal
    Not Animal is a more modest album that presents a shrewd view of Margot's strengths and weaknesses, indicating that the band is most successful when it doesn't try to be particularly complex.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Junk
    On a base, per-song level, Junk is a sturdy little workhorse of an album.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Told You I Was Freaky
    The material is better served in context, complete with music videos and framed with dialogue, whereas as a standalone record it misses more than it hits.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Party Ain't Over
    One of White's strengths has always been his ability to separate pastiche from a genuine aesthetic, and The Party Ain't Over is suffocated by its overly stylized, affected '50s put-on.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The Bedlam In Goliath
    Sadly, this album takes sound and fury, signifying nothing, to new depths.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Interpol
    Interpol may not be quite self-parody, but it's also not the sort of thing that's going to make them hip again anytime soon. Not that they would even care.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Anarchy, My Dear
    The biggest problem with "Admit It Again," and Anarchy, My Dear as a whole, is that its smart-ass barbs aren't aimed with the kind of precision that separates biting wit from regular old meanness.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Little Bit Longer
    Even if it stands to be one of the year's biggest sellers (which it most assuredly will be), Longer is hard to envision as an album that will allow the Jonas Brothers to transcend their place in this teen-pop cycle.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    1977
    Beyond their immediate allure, the tracks here benefit from a profusion of weird touches that elevate and separate them from boilerplate exercises.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Angel Guts: Red Classroom
    Angel Guts is yet another example that the world needs a guy like Jamie Stewart treating music the way Jamie Stewart does: painfully, harshly, intuitively, and with psychotic aplomb.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Places Like This
    Architecture's instrumentation is more varied than ever before. Though they could've made another fine record by sticking to the simpler approach of their previous albums, it's refreshing to see a band take a more ambitious route, and do it well.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Such Fun
    The band's sunny and melodic exuberance ensures that Such Fun is, above all else, a lot of fun.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Octahedron
    Octahedron is something of a new beginning for the band. It's uneven, sometimes clumsy, and a bit incomplete-sounding. But in spite of itself, the Mars Volta sounds exciting again.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    What Kind of World
    A strangely rockist album that ignores the importance of hooks and melodies and then makes the mistake of equating lo-fi production with seriousness.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Have Fun with God
    Compared to Dream River, Have Fun with God sounds like a featureless expanse of echoing congas, with the artist occasionally rising from the depths to sing something that doesn't make sense.
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