Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,120 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: 1,690 out of 3120
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3120
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3120
3120 music reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Idols Of Exile
    At his most direct, he fully holds his own against the likes of [Ryan] Adams or Ron Sexsmith, and for his compositional skill, Idols Of Exile is perhaps a more consistent album than either of those two has released.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mental Illness
    Mann's best work has always lingered on such private reverie, and Mental Illness is one of her most ravishing and affecting hymns to solitude.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables
    Agnostic Hymns impresses just as much for its tunefulness and Snider and producer Eric McConnell's unconventional choices as for its arch point of view.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LP1
    LP1 is more than just a confident debut album. It's primordial in a way that Björk herself has often attempted but frequently short-circuited letting her cognizance get in the way.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    That! Feels Good!
    What’s Your Pleasure? boasts a more sophisticated, diverse palette—including Italo, house, and funk—but its follow-up’s fluffier philosophy reflects Ware’s obvious elation at finally being able to bring her music to life in a club setting.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bad as Me
    A raucous self-celebration, full of scrappy beat poetry leavened with dark-edged Americana influences, Nelson Algren-style urban malaise, and off-kilter, strangely instrumentalized songs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything Is 4
    Occasionally, the more ambitious nature of Everything Is 4 reveals some of Derulo's weaknesses, like his insistence on indulging straight R&B (which feels basic compared to the unique mode of genre-bending he usually works in), but stretching musically also leads to arguably the most exciting moment here, the funk rave-up of album-closer "X2CU."
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lenses
    Combining a driving beat with melancholy vocals may not exactly be anything new in pop music, but the juxtaposition of the two here elicits an entrancing state more conducive to impassioned swaying than outright dancing.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sky Blue Sky
    Though it may not fit comfortably alongside any other albums in Wilco's catalogue, Sky Blue Sky is further confirmation that, even at their most retro, they're among contemporary pop music's most vital acts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    By the Way I Forgive You
    The most emotionally direct and revealing album she’s to released to date.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    True Love Kills the Fairy Tale
    True Love Kills the Fairy Tale flourishes in the complex tension between the Greenes' mellifluous vocal harmonies, their jarring, amorphous lyrics, and the haunted-house dream pop in which both are encased.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kiss Me Once
    In terms of the number of classic, summer-ready Minogue singles on hand, Kiss Me Once is pretty much par for the course. But there's an element of that that makes it better than your typical Minogue album, in that it's not content with pleasing the people on the dance floor.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wakin on a Pretty Daze
    He certainly has our attention.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Obsidian
    For Obsidian, Wiesenfeld has simply stripped off the top layer of fluff to expose the raw pathos beneath his work. It is, as a result, a much more thematic and personal effort.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Revolutions Per Minute
    This is brainy, energizing stuff, and sometimes (such as on "Just Begun," where Kweli trades sharp bars with J. Cole, Jay Electronica, and Mos Def over a beautiful sax loop), it hits like lightning.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Luxury Problems
    The album is at its best when its space is utilized not to build additional patterns, but to simply frame the raw nature and intrinsic beauty of sound.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Taste
    The result is an album that finds Segall expanding his sound while holding onto the blissed-out maximalist streak that has defined his work to date.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Half of Where You Live
    It's a remarkable exploration of self--an undoubtedly personal album, packed with a sense of history, circumstance, opportunity, love, and fleeting memories.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Manipulator
    Prior to this album, Segall was most notable for his music's exciting collision of manic energy and technical skill. Here he retains those basics while demonstrating a keener focus on song construction and mechanics, the work of an artist who's still intent on tearing things up, but possesses a newly lucid understanding of how to shape interesting music out of the remnants.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Future Ruins
    The band flips the traditional lexical of their genre, emphasizing the spaces between the anthemic, quasi-pavlovian verse-chorus-verse structure that defines classic rock n’ roll. The band’s sixth album, Future Ruins, similarly thrives in the spaces between the power chords and choruses.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Not Dark Yet
    None of the songs covered on Not Dark Yet really count as obscurities, but Moorer and Lynne's interpretations are loaded with surprises and packed with personal conviction.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Honey
    At nine lean but often seemingly formless tracks, Honey feels raw and incomplete, like a work in progress--and maybe that’s the point.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hum
    On The Hum, this delicate balancing act between abrasive aggression and unfettered tunefulness positions Hookworms as an uncompromising experimental act with festival-sized ambitions, capable of synthesizing disparate and often contradictory sounds into a cohesive and compelling whole.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    West is the rare artist who can turn a cry for attention into something more: a distillation of his artistic output to date that is quintessentially Kanye, whether you like him or not.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Something
    Something could end up a strong and satisfying default listen for forward-thinking pop fans.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bad Self Portraits
    Bigger, louder, and more eclectic works well on Bad Self Portraits, but smaller, quieter, and more precise was what made the band's earlier efforts so distinctive.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone
    Williams has assembled many guest musicians this time around, but despite all the disparate talent, the album is a tight, coherent work that never devolves into self-indulgent jamming, even at an epic 103 minutes.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Together Through Life
    Dylan leaves it to his unique vocals and a smoking set of sidemen to get his point across.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Body Talk Pt 1
    Who needs 18 tracks? The shorter format leaves you wanting more, which is the desired effect of the first plate in any three-course meal.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Poison Season
    What makes Poison Season a great album, though, is that it doesn't completely wallow in Bejar's newfound smoking-jacket-and-fine-brandy sophistication—as opposed to the tattered-plaid-shirt-and-fifth-of-Jack wildness of early Destroyer. Rather, refined balladry like "Solace's Bride" coexists comfortably next to upbeat, funky songs like "Midnight Meet the Rain," which sounds like the badass theme song for an '80s cop show.
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