Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,122 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: 1,692 out of 3122
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3122
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3122
3122 music reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Volta
    Every song on Volta sounds like it was birthed in no fewer than 10 months, if not five years. "Fun" hardly has an opportunity to enter the picture when Björk's now seemingly permanent fastidiousness remains her métier.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Night
    These songs aren't as transcendent as a Chemical Brothers comedown, but they'll suffice until the Chems reunite with Beth Orton.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Don't Like Shit: I Don't Go Outside
    I Don't Like Shit may be a master class in ominous mood-setting and a cutting excavation of a wounded psyche, but it also reveals that Earl is at his best when he engages the outside world rather than getting mired in his own emotional claustrophobia.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crash
    Though Charli’s latest jettisons some of the sonic adventurousness of her past releases, it still finds the singer workshopping the reckless abandon of her persona.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flood
    Flood sees Donnelly stretching into new sonic territory and refining the at times jagged indie rock of her promising debut. While there aren’t any songs here as immediate or infectious as “Tricks” or “Lunch,” or ones as lyrically potent as “Mosquito,” Donnelly’s growth as a musician reveals her to be more versatile than her past releases let on.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dissolver
    Dissolver is a solidly catchy, guitar-driven jaunt, finding equal time for fuzzy rock progressions and slowly sketched, shimmering landscapes.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Love & War
    In terms of personality and originality, Amerie's latest is on par with Solange's "Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams." As with that slept-on record, War is deserving of greater commercial impact than it is likely to earn.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Summer
    Friedberger's debut may not be as brilliant, but it goes about depicting summer in New York in a similarly organic fashion, casting a city full of mysterious old men and rambunctious kids on the F train.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Bloom
    The songs that leave the most lasting impression are the most downbeat.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Age of Pleasure
    While Monáe specializes in sprawling, ambitious concept albums, she’s often strongest in distilled form. And The Age of Pleasure sustains its energy in a way that her other, sometimes wildly variable albums have never quite managed.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gossip In The Grain
    Gossip in the Grain clearly shows he can do more than the typical singer-songwriter navel gazing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sukierae
    Cumulatively, it feels like there are just a few too many leftovers. It speaks to Tweedy's skill and experience as a songwriter that what is essentially the aural equivalent of him spending 72 minutes of quiet time with his family doesn't get boring sooner.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    12 Songs
    One of the most indisputably interesting pop albums of the year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Reprieve
    Much of Reprieve sounds, appropriately enough, like DiFranco is taking a much-needed breather.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Just A Little Lovin'
    If the result isn't a classic album like "Dusty in Memphis," it's at least a reminder of why Lynne merits those comparisons at all
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Modern Guilt
    Recently, Beck too often sounds like he's playing with his toys and not intent on making actual music, but the new album's brief 10 tracks prove that he's almost always more interesting when he's not having fun.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dedicated
    Dedicated, is a carefully calibrated attempt at brand extension, reprising the effervescent pop of her last two albums while at the same time acknowledging that the 33-year-old is now a full-grown woman. For the most part, Jepsen succeeds at threading that needle.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mirrors the Sky
    As "Feather Tongue" definitively establishes, it's Foy's voice--hushed and mellow enough for this synth-pop era, but also stirring and dexterous enough to transcend it—that can flourish in and even transform any sonic environment or genre simulacrum.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shamir
    Stylistically, Shamir is a hodgepodge of the different approaches the artist has employed in the past, synthesized into a mostly satisfying pop-rock sound.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Glory
    By eschewing the harsh, dubstep-influenced EDM of her past two albums and embracing subtler pop and R&B sounds, Britney's made her most daring, mature album in years.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In the End It Always Does
    Initially, the musician’s sophomore effort, In the End It Always Does, seems to follow suit, with a summery ambience, songs about emotional distance, and her unmistakable voice. As the album unfolds, though, her approach feels like it’s been flipped, with vocal hooks taking a backseat to highly textured folktronica instrumentation and a more impressionistic rendering of desire.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Masts of Manhatta
    For a record that, thematically, trades in adaptation to new environments, Masts of Manhatta boasts real structural depth, as Bonham finds an effective balance of contemporary folk and modern rock.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Visitor
    Listeners who've already given up on Young's current output are unlikely to be lured back by anything here, but for those of us still following his uniquely meandering path—in and out of the proverbial ditch--it's a ride well worth taking.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Make Sure They See My Face
    There's no getting past the fact that the oft-delayed Make Sure They See My Face feels like a compromised work. The Neptunes know Kenna has talent; they're just looking for a way to sell it. If so, then at least the formula is tried and true. Everything about the album is impeccably produced.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vince Staples
    Vince Staples is another microcosmic release from the rapper, his leisurely approach suggesting a newfound confidence.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    See Mystery Lights
    The failure of its intellectual structure to fully intersect with the music represents something of a conceptual misstep, but also allows See Mystery Lights to be enjoyed without engaging with any of its ideas, as catchy summer music that leans toward the bizarre.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Skin
    If the burden on electronic producers is to establish personality beyond a dense network of light displays and computer processing, this album gets Flume halfway there: It shows him as unquestionably human (overeager, alternately flashy and timid, sometimes more in awe than in control), but still a bit faceless.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Disagree
    I Disagree is decidedly “post-genre,” tossing Poppy’s pop aesthetic into the shredder with heavy metal and industrial rock, previously only hinted at on the tail end of 2018’s Am I a Girl? “Concrete” shifts abruptly between tempos and genres, between commercial jingles and Beatles-esque chamber-pop, all shot through with roaring electric guitar riffs. That might sound incoherent, but it serves as a bold, deftly executed mission statement.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Little Dark Age
    For better or worse, Little Dark Age is an album for its time: moody, backward-looking, a little depressed. ... This is a soundtrack for the long hangover.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Christmas Cornucopia
    After almost a dozen similarly classic melodies being reworked so thoughtfully, the album's sole original-and secular-composition, the borderline-soft-rock "Universal Child," sounds remarkably bland, like a Yuletide "We Are the World." Still, Lennox seems more inspired on A Christmas Cornucopia than she has in years.
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