Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,117 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: 1,687 out of 3117
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3117
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3117
3117 music reviews
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    • 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.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Changing Of The Seasons
    Unlike "Treehouse," "Puzzle" or the melancholic "The Fall," which rank among the singer's best to date, there's not a whole lot at stake, making for a somewhat uneven album.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rocket Juice & the Moon
    Rocket Juice & the Moon is a sincere and charming homage to Afrobeat, one that provides a glut of alluring moments, if a shortage of truly memorable ones.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Love And Its Opposite
    Still, for as remote and guarded as Thorn comes off in these 10 vaguely embittered tunes (two of which are covers: "Come on Home to Me" and "You Are a Lover"), and for as sparse and reserved as their arrangements are, there remains one connective thread between this and Thorn's lullabies of clubland: She still summons drama with just the force of her voice.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Profound Mysteries III
    Despite several standout moments that are worthy additions to Röyksopp’s illustrious catalog, Profound Mysteries III can, like its two predecessors, sometimes feel too indulgent for its own good.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    25
    25 is, like its predecessor, weighed down by its soggy, vanilla ballads, few of which manage to escape their '70s- and '80s-indebted singer-songwriter schmaltz the way “Hello” (just barely) does.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fantasy Ride
    While Fantasy Ride doesn't include as many obvious peaks as Ciara's previous discs, the only major disaster is 'Like a Surgeon,' which is filled with creepy, ill-conceived metaphors for sex and should not to be confused with Weird Al's "Like a Virgin" parody. And that makes Fantasy Ride Ciara's smoothest ride to date.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Feed the Beast
    While it’s admirable that Petras is willing to show her vulnerable side on the midtempo 808 ballad “Thousand Pieces” and the bubbly “Minute,” Feed the Beast plays it safe compared to Petras’s audacious Slut Pop EP.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded--the Re-Up
    The original Pink Friday was a competently crafted blend of rap and pop that, even when it skewed to one extreme or the other, did so with style and skill. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded - The Re-Up appears to try to replicate that formula, and with predictably mixed results.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    $oul $old $eparately
    Even with all of its guest spots and expensive-sounding beats, $oul $old $eparately is a frustratingly unambitious effort.
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