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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    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Radical Romantics
    Fever Ray circa 2023 feels admittedly a little quainter than they used to.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Eye To The Telescope
    If she doesn't quite justify her place in the company of Antony & The Johnsons' I Am A Bird Now or M.I.A.'s Arular on the short-list for the Mercury Prize, Tunstall certainly holds her own against the likes of [Kelly] Clarkson and [Sheryl] Crow.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Marshall Mathers LP 2
    The album's production offers little that's new. Dr. Dre and Rick Rubin have crafted, or at least enabled, a few too many of the power-ballad slow jams that Eminem has grown increasingly fond of, alongside several guitar-driven anthems that come on as subtle as Jock Jams. Eminem is no one's hack, though, and the album has tantalizing moments of vintage performance.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's A Bit Complicated
    The band's arrangements show a more robust sense of melody than they did on their debut.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Woman on the Internet
    Of the moments on the album that invoke the titular themes and deliver on Gartland’s stylistic ambitions, most are mired in lyrical clichés and abstractions. ... If you can look past the awkwardness of some of Gartland’s lyrics, her emotionally charged vocal delivery and attention to sonic detail are admittedly enchanting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sam's Town
    The Killers may have grown a heart for Sam's Town, but they also grew even bigger egos, and it's unlikely that the album's bombast and self-importance will convert any new fans.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Washington Square Serenade
    Earle racks up more wins than losses on Washington Square Serenade, but while the high points are in line with his best work, he didn't dispose of his excess baggage before the move.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Devil, You + Me
    It's not that The Devil, You + Me is particularly bad; it merely and consistently recalls the band's more emotionally satisfying earlier work, while rarely equaling or surpassing it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Last Rider
    In the end, The Last Rider isn't quite as memorable as Retriever, on which Sexsmith hit his stride as a pop songwriter, or Blue Boy, which boasted a charmingly ragged production courtesy of Steve Earle. But the album has its pleasures.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Demolished Thoughts
    After a decade of pensive chamber-pop lullabies from a number of artists, it feels like there's no new ground to break in this particular subgenre.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Walk It Off
    An uneven album that just barely avoids the sophomore slump.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Small Craft On A Milk Sea
    The album may lack consistency, but it isn't short on order, each track bearing some indelible marker of Eno's touch.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Brilliant! Tragic!
    With fewer memorable songs than superior efforts like Art Brut vs. Satan or Bang Bang Rock & Roll!, Brilliant! Tragic! is neither as good nor as bad as its title suggests. In the interest of accurate advertising, I propose that the band renames the album Decent! Enough!
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    19
    Critics have favorably compared Adele to Amy Winehouse, but most of 19 plays like the quieter moments on Kate Nash's "Made of Bricks;" the production is largely simple and organic, wisely showcasing Adele's voice, which is appropriately soulful and imperfect.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Haywire
    Haywire is pure vanilla, pleasant enough but not adding anything of note to Turner's catalogue beyond a couple of new singles for his eventual greatest-hits anthology.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    To Find Me Gone
    It's a compelling, forward-thinking album that's as likely to please fans of melodic indie-pop and roots-rock as it is fans of the current crop of folk troubadours.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hello Love
    While their talent keeps Hello Love engaging... the album is nonetheless The Be Good Tanyas at their most laid-back.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Knew You When
    When Seger sticks to growling out his lyrics over jagged riffs and a relentless beat, as he does on the driving “Runaway Train” and the synth-driven “The Highway,” he proves that craft can be rewarding in its own right, and that he still excels at creating emotional investment in something as tried and true as barreling, locomotive rock.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Strange Folk
    Even if Kula Shaker never transcend their vintage influences, it's on the dreamier songs like the title track and 'Persephone' (billed as a bonus track, a move that's antiquated in its own right) that Strange Folk stands as an unexpectedly welcome comeback.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Love With Oblivion
    Crystal Stilts differentiate themselves from the herd with scuzzy, garage-rock charm and dissonant cool.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dreamland
    Dreamland’s best moments are propelled by slick drum machines and Bayley’s confidence as a frontman. His turn inward isn’t without humor and insight, but writing about other people on past albums provided a more enveloping experience, fleshing out imagined places and people with an intrigue that’s missing here.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Authentic
    The beats here don't always pop, but Authentic offers plenty of lyrical pleasures across 12 rather dense tracks--less bloated than the garden-variety, 18-song hip-hop album, but with plenty of substance nonetheless.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I'm Not Dead
    Pink's rhymes still rely too heavily on adolescent clichés and there's an air of contrived confessionalism throughout the album.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ursa Major
    The formula is dependable and timeworn but ultimately successful, as Third Eye Blind follows the paint-by-numbers blueprint with stunning efficiency.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cottonwood 2
    “Thug It Out” and “Pretty Brown Eyes” find the wunderkind tempering his energy, modulating his tone without flattening it. Would that he applied that approach to the album’s sprawl and structure too.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oxymoron
    He has the instincts of a good storyteller, and maybe even the potential to be a standard bearer for his art form, but when he falls back on tired "pimps and hoes" narratives, he sounds firmly, frustratingly rooted in the past.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Slave Ambient
    With a little more time to perfect their style, the War on Drugs would be well-positioned to win converts for both camps, and also their own.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Something Else
    Musically, Thicke's dick is in the right place, but when it comes to this genre, I don't trust any vocalist who spends more time eating his audience out than slapping his own engorged junk against the palm of his hand.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Talk a Good Game
    Talk a Good Game's standout tracks prove that she's closer to carving a niche for herself than she has been on prior efforts that suppressed rather than addressed that difficulty.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tarnished Gold
    The Tarnished Gold is a consistently lovely, unassuming set. But that same lackadaisical tone plays against Beachwood Sparks: There's nothing on the album that the band hadn't already done a decade ago.
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