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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    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dusty Notes
    Fortunately, though an old-school country aesthetic defines the album—the banjo picking on “Nine Pins,” the sweet hillbilly harmonies on “Outflow”--Curt’s irrepressible songwriting quirks make the rest of Dusty Notes anything but formulaic. The post-Bostrom Meat Puppets have often veered much closer to modern alt-country than the hardcore of their early days, and Dusty Notes is no exception; in fact, it might be the mellowest of their albums to date.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shadows in the Night
    The songs chosen are elegiac, and Dylan balances out any hints of winking self-awareness by freighting his new compositions with a heavy air of wistful sadness.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lie Down In The Light
    The arrangements and production are all stunning--like with "Master and Everyone," the performances are so intimate and recorded so well you can hear floorboard creaking in spots--but the tunes are a touch uneven.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Is Country Music
    Even when the album isn't up to Paisley's typical standards, This Is Country Music is still an interesting, ambitious project from a man who need not apologize for the things he does awfully well.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Beggar
    It proceeds in the same white-knuckle way as the group’s last four releases. It is, though, defined by the quality and craftsmanship that’s expected of Swans.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Monitor
    The Monitor is an album about perpetual rebellion, and whether that strikes you as exciting or wearying will have a great bearing on how much you get out of it.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Parallax
    Though it often finds him treading familiar ground, Parallax is the first record in which Cox fully embraces the role of a magical-realist storyteller, recounting dreamily desolate tales as much to himself as to his audience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
    I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass is a bloated, overreaching long-player in the tradition of bloated, overreaching long-players like Sign O' The Times, Exile On Main Street, and London Calling. But it's also business as usual for Yo La Tengo.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Information
    His latest album plays like a subdued collection of greatest hits, dropping in on the sounds and themes of each preceding album with graceful brevity.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Pebble To A Pearl
    Costa was often overshadowed by the slick production on her previous two albums; here, her vocals are foregrounded in the mix, and the depth and range of her performances really shine.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Preoccupations
    Preoccupations, by design, neither grips nor pays off with the same level of gleeful improvisational intensity [as 2015's Viet Cong].
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bride
    That The Bride works best as a song cycle rather than a collection of pop hooks is a testament to its cohesion and intrinsic intertexuality, but what's missing here is Khan's knack for grafting avant-art-rock concepts onto mainstream forms.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Keys To The World
    For the most part, Keys To The World is a definite step forward and demonstrates that Ashcroft is finally hitting his stride as a solo artist.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Admiral Fell Promises
    Judged as an expansion on Kozelek's craft, Admiral Fell Promises is a slight effort; it offers intimate perspective, sure, but the object of observation remains the same.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Air Force
    If lacking the thematic coherence of the politically-charged La Foret or the alternately furious and vulnerable Fabulous Muscles, the songs on The Air Force trade in volatile sexual energy and a degree of self-loathing that's more fully-realized than most goth-metal bands would dare record.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Remember [Live]
    Remember will not win the Fiery Furnaces very many new fans, but as it is likely the closest thing to a greatest hits album the unconventional Friedbergers will ever produce, it goes a long way toward definitively documenting their trippy, ingenious maunderings.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Integrated Tech Solutions
    So while the album may play it a little safe, it also smartly plays to its creator’s strengths.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968
    Sugar Mountain is less impressive than Massey Hall but it offers more insight, catching Young at a peak of undiscovered exuberance, sharing loose stories between songs, strumming aimlessly and joking with the crowd.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Humor Risk
    Humor Risk isn't a perfect album by any stretch, but it does provide another striking glimpse into the picaresque, tongue-in-cheek tragedies that mark McCombs's unique songwriting.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nina
    The album's energy grows out of a band taking chances, and while not every reimagining works, there's something satisfying about listening to a group of artists crash head-on into an experiment and find clarity among the fragments.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Reflection
    The result is one of his most nuanced and meticulous pieces but not one dependent on--nor effectively displaying--its little deviations.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Common Existence
    In places, the album is tremendously affecting, but it's also the first time a Thursday release is not an unambiguous improvement on its predecessor.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Club Future Nostalgia: The Remix Album
    Though Club Future Nostalgia lacks the joyous, adrenaline-fueled arc of the best DJ sets, it honors both Future Nostalgia’s original spirit and that album’s unintentional service as a gateway to a virtual dance floor.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Marissa Nadler
    Marissa Nadler still retains the ghostly inscrutability that has always kept the singer's insistent weepiness from sounding pathetic.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Haiku from Zero
    Pervasive throughout is the sense that yearning for the unobtainable is its own reward, and the band successfully imbues Haiku from Zero with the notion that both pleasure and pain remind us that we’re alive.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Car Alarm
    Sam Prekop and company serve up their characteristic concoction of jazzy rhythms, softhearted melodies and crystal-clear production aesthetics on Car Alarm, a record equally appropriate to romantic afternoons and late-night drink-offs.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brighter Wounds
    An album that's grimly effective at conjuring unease.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Why Make Sense?
    Why Make Sense? is the electronic fivesome's characteristically polished, generously tuneful tribute to wearing your heart on your sleeve.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Random Access Memories
    RAM is an album that ultimately comes off having more respect for its spiritual predecessors than its listeners.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Feast of the Broken Heart
    While Butler has for the most part an uncanny ability to match singer to material, his own personal lyrical touch is left slightly remote (he co-wrote many of the songs with his collaborators). Instead, he's a curator par excellence who's once again assembled an aggressive and varied collection of voices who together form an earnest plea to choose compassion over division.
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