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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    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bubblegum
    Bubblegum may be the sound of growth, but its progress is directed in a strangely traditional direction for a band formerly disinterested in such ordinariness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neon
    When Neon provides him with a song that's actually worthy of his considerable chops, Young really shines. It's a shame, then, that most of the set finds Young fighting an uphill battle against some lackluster material.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Breakthrough
    Whether or not her risks work, it's taking chances that pays dividends, not placing safe bets.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy
    Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy--though a significant step up from their last album--doesn't break much new ground.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Light Of X
    Yet while thousands of tons of this dross are produced on a yearly basis, Richards's work stands safely above most, drawing on offbeat influences such as Mazzy Star and compositions that, despite sounding borderline soulless, are for the most part coldly dazzling.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Whatever's On Your Mind
    The five-strong troupe play fast and loose with the same elements that have served them so well across the last decade.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    Divided between these sorts of small successes and outright failures, Mosquito is nowhere near a coherent album, which at this stage in the band's career feels like a refreshing return to form.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heartbeat Radio
    Sometimes willfully precious, sometimes more solid, Heartbeat Radio is largely at the mercy of its orchestration, which further hurts the weak moments while improving the good ones.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Record Collection
    Three albums in, it's hard to imagine a Mark Ronson album not brimming over with a crowd-pleasing, inter-genre collection of guest stars.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Life Death Love and Freedom
    His world-weariness feels legitimately earned rather than affected keeps Life from being just an exercise in pessimism.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Freakout/Release
    The band’s tendencies to go through tonal permutations throughout the not-unaptly titled Freakout/Release often feels more disjointed than it does dynamic. Ultimately, neither their desire to create irresistible dance numbers nor their expressions of disenchantment are ever allowed to fully take shape.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Together At Last
    The album won't ever take a place among the landmarks in Tweedy's catalogue, but it does provide a fresh way to hear and appreciate them.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    3121
    While the hooks don't reach out and grab you the way you long for them to, and though the lyrics aren't as smart as we've come to expect from a composer who once claimed to literally write songs in his sleep, 3121 is a wholly listenable and consistent(ly funky) addition to the catalog of one of music's pop pioneers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bankrupt!
    It's cool and pleasant, but easy to forget.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Deeper Understanding
    The album's lyrics, however, can't match this same level of musical precision, and Granduciel too often repeats the same vague sentiments using threadbare imagery.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    The worst of Pocket Symphony is dull and overly familiar; the best is familiar and gently gorgeous.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Which Side Are You On?
    DiFranco's sincerity is never in question, but on Which Side Are You On?, the candor simply serves her better on her intimate, personal songs than on a set of political songs that are uncharacteristically dated.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Draw The Line
    The knock on Gray has always been that he's a bit boring, and Line, despite some genuinely nice moments and affecting vocal turns, isn't likely to change anyone's mind on that point.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Born In The Echoes
    Born in the Echoes is frontloaded with star power, and so it comes as a slowly dawning relief that that album isn't the Chems' Random Access Memories, but rather an attempt to strip away the detritus of the now and play to their own strengths.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nurture
    Nurture is at its best when it revels in Robinson’s dexterous instrumental tinkering. The album is occasionally too precious by half, as on the mawkish classical-guitar-based ballad “Blossom,” but bolstered by Robinson’s infectious sense of discovery and ear for experimentation, it boasts a prevailing spirit of optimism that’s hard to resist.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Keep On Loving You
    It's a good thing that McEntire is in such fine voice, because her performances elevate some awfully pedestrian material and overcome some strident contemporary country production choices.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oblivion With Bells
    It clearly meshes with their previous incarnations and eventually emerges as a listenable album in its own right.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Grand Theatre, Vol. 1
    Taken on its own merits, though, Volume One is mostly a success, and it's great to hear the alt-country vets sounding more alternative and more country than they have in years.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Far Field
    Songs about unrequited love will never go out of style, but The Far Field would be better served by occasionally taking the road less traveled.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Positive Force
    When Marion makes more creative use of his varied, globe-spanning influences, however, Positive Force is every bit as compelling as its predecessor.... [yet] far too many of the melodic hooks are merely adequate, and he doesn't pull any surprises.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twang
    Risky or not, Twang is nonetheless one of the more interesting permutations of the prototypical George Strait record.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel
    Mariah is in fine voice throughout the album, and there are plenty of inspired moments to be found....Which makes it all the more disappointing that the album's final stretch devolves into a mess of old-school Mariah rehashes that should have been left in the past.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pick A Bigger Weapon
    [Riley's] lyrics are simultaneously clever and uninteresting: he rarely transcends an ABAB or AABB rhyme scheme, practically never rhymes within the lines, and his meter and diction lack intricacy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honeymoon
    It's a full hour of expressively expressive-less music--unmitigated solipsism as an aesthetic choice.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Featuring Ty Dolla $ign
    Featuring Ty Dolla $ign has the air of a haphazard playlist. Griffin is still a formidable center of gravity for a small army of eager collaborators, but the final product wants for some necessary fine-tuning.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Big
    Unfortunately (and not surprisingly), Gray's already weathered voice is more worn than ever; she struggles to reach and sustain notes that should be comfortably within her range.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Paper Airplane
    Krauss and Union Station are extraordinary musicians, and it's their impeccable skills that are the main selling point of Paper Airplane.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On The Outside
    Nothing on On The Outside is truly awful--it's just, well, good, which these days, isn't quite enough to get the attention of a well and truly fickle nation.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Out in the Storm
    After a while, Crutchfield's melodies also blend together, especially during the album's middle stretch, where the similar-sounding “Sparks Fly” and “Brass Beam” are sequenced back to back.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Growing Pains
    She keeps her most salable characteristic, her emotiveness, under duress, which provides tension but no release.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lady Antebellum
    There's nothing revolutionary here, just a solid set of songs performed with definite skill and enthusiasm.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Exotic Birds Of Prey
    At just seven tracks, the album proves to be paradoxically sparse in its loose, leisurely construction but dense in its intense inscrutability. Exotic Birds of Prey’s resistance to form, accessibility, and interpretation will either draw you in or push you away—and that’s probably the point.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Horses and High Heels
    As with most of her material, Horses and High Heels often sounds overblown and showy, but it identifies Faithfull's persistent ability to merge individual personality and musical connoisseurship.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Joanne
    Although Joanne lacks the indelible pop hooks that those two influences [Elton John and Prince]--not to mention Gaga herself--are famous for, the album is more sonically consistent and thematically focused than the singer's last solo effort, the regressive Artpop.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Truth About Love
    Pink thankfully hasn't gone soft, and there are no real clunkers here, but the truth about The Truth About Love is that it's competently, often frustratingly more of the same from an artist who still seems capable of much more.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heartworms
    On paper, Mercer's lyrics too often engage in heavy-handed wordplay (“I take the drugs, but the drugs won't take”) or drift off into abstraction (“I dine like an aging pirate”), though the vocals aren't always featured prominently enough to easily decipher on a casual listen.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nothing Gold Can Stay
    When Felice and Burke show a bit more restraint and keep the focus on the storytelling, Gold works as a compelling, soulful folk record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Earthly Delights
    The highlights demonstrate that these guys have yet to exhaust their uncanny vision, but by and large this is Lightning Bolt doing a Lightning Bolt album.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse
    Undisciplined R&B pastiches, however, the album has in spades, especially ones that hearken back to her own career.... With surprising internal logic, the album's two unabashedly uptempo ditties are also the forums for Mariah's most serious-minded performances.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crystal Castles
    Crystal Castles' most rockist moments seem to wish to appear arty by being as annoying as possible. It's a tricky maneuver, and the fact that the group doesn't quite pull it off screws up the coherence of this otherwise strong record, but that doesn’t make them any less promising.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cavalcade
    It’s an atmosphere-focused album that attempts to express the nastier side of being alive. The result is evocative but not necessarily satisfying.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Are You In?
    De La Soul has always worked better in lo-fi, and the cheesy Rock Band-like guitars and drums in the middle section sound suspiciously like Moby's disastrous collaboration with Public Enemy a couple of years ago, but this is still an album that clearly belongs to De La Soul, and they're not shy about it.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Liberation
    “Accelerate” never takes off like one might expect, content to bustle along on a perpetually shifting beat, rumbling electro bassline, and skittering trap effects, fading out while the singer sensually vamps over a minimal backing track. Unfortunately, the rest of Liberation plays it frustratingly safe, with smooth, competent R&B like “Deserve” and “Pipe.”
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tourniquet
    Unfortunately, tracks like "The Pacemaker" amount to a lot of electronic pitter-patter and not a whole lot of substance, revealing a collection of songs that's less ambitious and tightly woven than 2004's exquisite On Your Side.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    This Is Acting
    Sia deserves credit for so easily slipping into the personas of her muses, but “Sweet Design,” which harks back to the go-go sound of Beyoncé's B'Day, and “Move Your Body,” whose unabashed 4/4 beat and clattering EDM percussion are straight out of Rihanna's Loud, seem more like dated outtakes than underappreciated gems.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Somewhere Gone
    Cervenka edits herself well on much the album, making Somewhere Gone a promising start to a new direction in her already storied career.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    21
    For most of 21, she's cast as a fortress of old-school soul besieged by lifeless jingles, a force of nature restrained by multiplatinum fetters.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ocean to Ocean
    With Ocean to Ocean, it seems as if Amos has all but given up on pushing the limits of her instrument. Which would be more forgivable if the songs themselves didn’t play it quite so safely.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wildwood
    There's also no faulting the band's performances. Banjoist Chandler Holt and mandolinist John Teer remain two of country music's most unheralded musicians, and bassist Greg Readling and guest percussionist Zeke Hutchins give the songs strong rhythm sections. There simply isn't anything innovative.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Broken Side Of Time
    A brave but clumsy attempt at expanding and refining the EP's dressed-down folksy rock, Broken Side's sound never coalesces enough to truly electrify, and though the ever-reaching, sprawling coarseness that Alberta Cross mines so well is still present here, it's noticeably less profound.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pretty In Black
    It should be noted that what Pretty In Black lacks in vigor is made up for in variety... now if only they could find a way to fuse the two, maybe The Raveonettes would make an entire album as good as their singles.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shields
    Pretty but formless, Shields plays like a calculated retreat into something altogether indistinct and inconsequential.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Better Tomorrow
    A Better Tomorrow mostly proves that, no matter what conflicts may be simmering, there's enough sustained talent at work here to keep the usual material feeling fresh. It's forays outside that established template that make for the worst moments.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Onion
    Onion mostly attempts to wring earnest feeling from platitudes.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brave
    If the album builds up a nice head of steam all the way up to the double-time wall of sound that is 'The Way It Is,' the problem is it's not necessarily Lopez's head of steam.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    7 Days of Funk
    It's a welcome sign of life from an MC who many assumed to be over the hill, and where it fails, it fails on its own terms--and that's a kind of success in itself.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fasciinatiion
    Ultimately, Fasciination has enough passable triumphs mixed in with the misfires that the album is brought to a level of acceptable fluff.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A La Sala
    Apart from a few key songs that continue down the lyrical path charted on Mordechai, A La Sala is largely a retread of Khruangbin’s idiosyncratic brand of dubby psychedelia.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The London Sessions
    It isn't more than the sum of its highlights, but on the surface, it's fun. Like a diary written in a bunch of different, eye-catching fonts.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Begone Dull Care
    Junior Boys will always be too careful to lapse into something as liquidly hedonistic as, well, Nick Straker Band, but with Begone, they sound like reasonable antecedents.
    • 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.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fiction Family
    Whether Fiction Family moves forward or remains just a one-off side project, most of the chances that Watkins and Foreman have taken for this record pay off, making for a project that is sure to appeal to their existing fanbases and which stands on its own merits.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    And Never Ending Nights
    It's true that some of the tracks on And Never Ending Nights come across as process-oriented and unfinished, which makes sense when you consider them as exercises in Willner's attempt to develop a different aesthetic vocabulary than the one he's already proven fluent in.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fear Inoculum
    Sadly, there’s nothing on Fear Inoculum as immediately accessible or anthemic as past Tool glories like “Sober” or “The Pot,” but what is here will reward repeated spins, even if listeners initially find themselves waiting for those mammoth riffs to show up, a la “7empest,” or for Maynard to finally kick into high gear, as in the rousing refrain of “Descending.”
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    We Bought a Zoo [Original Soundtrack]
    We Bought a Zoo might just hook newcomers who are intrigued by what they hear.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Both Sides of the Sky
    While none of it is of the caliber of the music he released in his lifetime, the album includes material from some of the last studio sessions by the Experience and the earliest by Hendrix's final outfit, Band of Gypsys, offering a glimpse at a transitional phase in his work.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Seeing Sounds
    To be fair, there aren't any real clunkers to be found on Seeing Sounds and lead single 'Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in Line for the Bathroom)' and album closer 'Laugh About It' are perfectly serviceable Neptunes tracks, but only two tunes, 'Spaz' and 'You Know What' are very visionary.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Holy Fire
    It's a somewhat disappointing change of pace, but one that can nevertheless be appreciated by adjusting expectations; even if the band isn't pushing new boundaries, this new stance sort of fits them, coming across as a culmination of their previous material rather than a misstep.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Daisy
    Brand New confronts listeners with an impressive variety of sound and fury, but, taken as individual songs or as a cohesive album, Daisy wants for the type of overarching vision that would hold the drama together. That's frustrating, but then again, this is the type of fierce and aching rock that sounds best when one is frustrated. So maybe that's the point.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    My Dinosaur Life
    Taking on the whole album without the aid of the skip button is likely to leave one feeling over-caffeinated and under-stimulated; you're better off going straight to the highlights, which are so generously hook-laden as to withstand any number of compulsive replays.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Battlefield
    As nice as it is to hear Sparks continuing to dabble in dance-pop, though, one wonders if it would have been a smarter move in terms of career longevity to try to build on the urban audience she started to cultivate with 'No Air.'
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Showtunes
    There can be too much of a good thing, and making your way through all 26 tracks of Showtunes will definitely leave you with a tummy ache.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Department of Disappearance
    It's difficult not to get swept away by, and even admire, the unrelenting sweetness of the songs [for much of the album's first half]. Eventually, though, it becomes equally hard not to gag on the twee preciousness.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You and I
    Whether it was classic rock or the blues, Buckley’s covers were never simply exercises in imitation, always revealing a part of him, but it’s his original material, too little of which is found here, that truly provides a glimpse into his soul.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Glasvegas
    Frustrating but intermittently brilliant, Glasvegas could have made a strong EP, but instead stands as a flawed full-length that's been primped and stretched beyond its means.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Discipline
    At 22 tracks, Discipline is anything but disciplined, but it's also Janet's most cohesive album in a while.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Gimme Some
    This might be a more natural and relaxed PB&J having the time of their lives, but it certainly doesn't find the band at their most creative.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wolf
    While Wolf definitely feels like progress on some fronts, it's also a resolutely conservative effort, marred by a neurotic sense of self-involvement that recalls Eminem at his worst.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Didn't It Rain
    If Laurie hasn't produced something new under the sun, he nonetheless brings more light to certain dark places of the songbook than all too many American interpreters.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Night of Hunters
    Night of Hunters is a beautiful, smart record, but it's also, by design, an obtuse and insular album by an artist who already skews pretty far in those directions.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Push The Heart
    The Devics' music is chamber pop at its most lush and dreamy.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    White Lies For Dark Times
    The lack of originality on White Lies for Dark Times is a major hindrance, but the execution of these stylistic pastiches by Harper and Relentless7 is so dead-on that it's easy to appreciate the record on its own modest terms.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Thr33 Ringz
    Thr33 Ringz emerges as such a polished and self-fulfilling collection of hip-pop singles that it almost makes one wonder why T-Pain insists on drawing attention to the most derivative aspect of his musical career at the expense of some of his other, modest but real talents.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hillbilly Bone [EP]
    To Shelton's credit, he seems to have taken a cue from his girlfriend, Miranda Lambert, on how to consider the overall thematic coherence of an album: Even the weaker songs on the record include some details of rural living and a genuine wittiness that attempt to put some meat on this Bone.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cervantine
    Ultimately, for all its globalized interest in mixing world cultures, Cervantine is about noodling, fooling around with different styles via extended jams, which the band at least has the good sense to spice that up with a worldly palette. Yet too often the songs seem drained of any feeling.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Away
    Despite some conceptual shakiness and a few instances of turgid sentimentality, Sheff is doing fine on his own, continuing to detail unsteady emotional ground with a characteristic mixture of self-assurance and existential dread.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Around The Bend
    Around the Bend is still worth hearing and a welcome return, but what works so brilliantly about it makes its shortcomings all the more disappointing.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Codes and Keys
    Thanks in no small part to Death Cab, there's now a permanent niche for indie pop that's smart, sad, and refined, and Codes and Keys fills it nicely.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    World Wide Rebel Songs
    His voice here, a husky and burly drawl not too far removed from Johnny Cash's, is a constant delight throughout and is seemingly tailor-made for launching his volleys of criticism and cries for activism.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Animal Years
    Animal Years sounds unsettled: the arrangements are far too bombastic for this record's purposes.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Gifted
    With The Gifted, his second album for Maybach Music Group, Wale continues to struggle to define himself, which proves even more difficult on a label dominated by broad caricatures.
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