Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,121 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: 1,691 out of 3121
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3121
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3121
3121 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hive Mind
    The result is the Internet’s most musically diverse and synergetic album to date.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lately
    Lately reveals itself to be Hiatt’s most daring and experimental work to date. The songs’ relative lack of polish knocks down what few layers of pretense may have previously existed between the listener and the characteristically unvarnished inner thoughts that compose most of her lyrics.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pure Heroine
    The nihilist pop of Pure Heroine makes a strong case for the less-is-more maxim. What's left is a remarkably unpretentious and almost raw set of vignettes mostly powered by Lorde's modest, affectation-free performances.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Night Music
    Bathed in cloaking shadows, Night Music captures the macabre power of darkness, where ordinary shadows are stretched into ominous significance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lazers Never Die
    The remixed versions of the songs from Guns Don't Kill People all demonstrate an intuitive understanding of what worked about those songs in their original forms, while the new songs continue in Major Lazer's exploration of the sounds found on nearly every dance floor in the world's tropical climates.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    April
    The effect of all this quietness and patient exploration of song structure can be transcendent or it can be incredibly boring, and for both better and worse, April is more of the same.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Making a Door Less Open
    A set of dizzyingly creative and often uncategorizable songs.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WORLD WIDE WHACK
    WWW may be a candid and sophisticated analysis of the dark side of fame, but it’s also eminently entertaining and occasionally funny, and it (re)establishes Whack as one of the most creative rappers in the game.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Privateering
    The pleasure isn't in the gimmick or the dress-up, but in the disciplined play of emotion behind them.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Thousand Shark's Teeth
    Originally conceived as an album of string-quartet pieces, Shark's Teeth evolved into something more musically full-bodied.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Beacons Of Ancestorship
    Beacons demonstrates that Tortoise is still more than capable of releasing an exciting album.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Why Should The Fire Die?
    While their lyrics do tell compelling stories, Nickel Creek's selling point remains their technical gifts and, again, Why Should The Fire Die? showcases a phenomenal learning curve.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hercules And Love Affair
    Hercules and Love Affair is relentlessly listenable--Hercules's songs are too good to be classified as tributes--but it is nevertheless defined by the inspirational pull of a golden age that's gone.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    National Ransom
    Costello is a seasoned lyricist, clearly a very smart man, and his prose throughout National Ransom is a lustrous testament to that.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nine Types of Light
    Nine Types of Light may fall somewhat short in comparison with TV on the Radio's other albums, but it's a strong, smart effort from a band that continues to push resolutely forward.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fade
    In collaborating with McEntire, Yo La Tengo has found a format that accommodates their ever-adventurous musical excursions while beckoning new listeners unaccustomed to 15-minute instrumental soundscapes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Seventh Tree
    Seventh Tree is most compelling for the way in which the band's regained austerity and naturalism contrasts with their more recent hedonism.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Free the Universe
    Free the Universe is, after all, a party album, and by using an energetic mix of faces both famous and obscure, Diplo keeps his grungy dancehall rave running on all cylinders.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Little Birds
    Aside from those gratifying but superfluous detours into the well-trodden, though, Strange Little Birds emerges as the band's most compelling, adventurous album in 15 years.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Country Music
    It's the spectacular collection of songs as much as Burnett's ace production and Nelson's first-rate performances that elevates Country Music above the recent spate of country covers records and makes the album an essential addition to Nelson's rich catalogue.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Business Is Business
    Even if one were to dismiss Business Is Business as nothing more than an anthology of loosies, Thug’s ostensible leftovers, like the brassy “Uncle M” and heart-wrenching ballads like “Jonesboro,” are still electric. In this sense, the album’s greatest strength is keeping things strictly business.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Untamed Beast
    What a voice it is: rich, raw, and totally indifferent to formal conventions set by neo-soul sisters and indie-rock frontwomen such as Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Paracosm
    Paracosm is essentially a travelogue, albeit wrinkled, scuffed, and faded so as to match the love-worn tastes of its creator.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Halcyon Digest
    At the end of the first album on which he's managed to keep all of his organs inside his body, it's like Cox is finally letting us see his heart.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sunken Condos
    It's an album built on monotony that still has a sense of narrative.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Psychedelic Pill
    It's longwinded, taxing, and crunchily dissonant, bereft of even the token acoustic gem-not an album to be tinkered with by anyone who isn't already firmly in the Crazy Horse saddle. For those who are, the album will be something close to a revelation.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cuz I Love You
    Expertly sequenced in a concise, 33-minute package, Cuz I Love You moves from strength to strength. Even its more minor tracks feature standout moments.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brill Bruisers
    Like the band's best work, Brill Bruisers keeps you on your toes with its unrelenting minutiae.
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