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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    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Atrocity Exhibition
    The music is dementedly, nihilistically danceable. The propulsion of certain tracks seems designed to irrevocably drag the listener into Brown's contemplative, paranoid psyche and deep-welled emotionality and, though stylized, intimates the horrors he's seen and felt.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Semper Femina
    The result is an album that seeks to push folk's innate naturalism into an even more progressive space, eschewing any trace of outmoded roles and stereotypes. In doing so, Semper Femina never feels strained or disingenuous, the effortless antithesis to the studied, conservative posing of so much modern folk.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    El Rego et Ses Commandos
    [It] works both as a general career summary and a standalone album, identifying another vital, exciting voice from a continent whose musical significance is still being discovered.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Things Have Changed
    Songs like those find Things Have Changed making good on its promise: the chance to hear a legendary interpretive singer reach deep into one of pop music's richest songbooks, and to refashion its contents in her own image.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Good News
    While Megan is still figuring herself out stylistically, she’s undeniably in touch with herself. Throughout Good News, Megan doesn’t spend all that much time referencing her beloved alter egos: the pimp persona of Tina Snow, the lustful Hot Girl, and the relatable Suga. Rather, she coalesces qualities of each in her lyricism and delivery, suggesting that the mask is off and she’s being wholly, 100% herself.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ultra Truth
    While the almost hour-long album does suffer the occasional lull, at his best Avery effortlessly pushes the sounds that influenced him into new territory.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Veckatimest
    The album dips and tips and ultimately soars as a result, Rossen and company having turned near-disaster into sonic triumph.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Bitte Orca
    They've done it here, and Bitte Orca is close to a masterpiece.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Devotion
    Despite the myriad references [Sade, Aaliyah]... it's clear Ware has found a voice of her own on Devotion.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Classic Objects
    Perhaps above all else, Classic Objects is thoughtful or, really, defined by thought. The song structures are clever, the production is deeply layered, and the lyrics, which largely catalog Hval’s thoughts, are writerly and complex.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Walking Proof
    On Walking Proof, she’s emerged wiser and more confident, ready even to dispense advice of her own. She also finds herself in full command of her broad stylistic palette, melding influences as disparate as backwoods country and garage punk into a cohesive signature sound.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Chemistry Of Common Life
    Chemistry is a natural and seamless masterpiece that might never have happened but for the band's own need to thumb its nose at expectations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Girl with No Face
    Almost every song on Girl with No Face was written and produced by Hughes, and this creative autonomy gives the album a personal touch that past releases like 2017’s CollXtion II lacked. The songs here are imbued with an obvious newfound strength and confidence.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vertikal
    Mirroring the Fritz Lang film's portrayal of man operating and essentially becoming a part of a machine, the Swedish band plays their instruments meticulously and repetitively.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Water Made Us
    Water Made Us is an undeniably human album, authentic and sincere in its navigation and preservation of love, all told through the lens of Woods’s own experience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Pure Comedy
    It's something of a miracle, too, that he's managed to wring such beauty and profundity out of the mess of a society he sings about.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Hands
    Ranging from guttural yowling to barely contained explosiveness, Lenker’s voice is the perfect vehicle for Big Thief’s dark, pretty songs about personal and political wreckage.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For Your Consideration
    Mixing R&B and electronica isn’t uncommon in pop music today, but For Your Consideration boasts an unusual combination of production polish and musical eccentricity, harking back to Björk’s early solo albums and Timbaland’s work with Aaliyah.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ys
    The album is a precious--in every sense of the word--masterpiece.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Home Video
    Ultimately, it’s less the nuances of Dacus’s writing than her willingness to expose herself and her past so freely—even the most difficult parts—that make the strongest impression on Home Video.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers
    The rest of The Moon and Stars is a similarly ambitious, dizzying jumble of genres and tones, and June manages to hold everything together on the power of her beguiling voice and charisma.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Revolution
    A dense, challenging record, Revolution once again finds Lambert setting the benchmark for the country genre even as she begins to consider the possibilities beyond its borders.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Harvest
    Their aural magic is as evocative as ever, and with their alchemical skills, they could well invent a fifth element, or more.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Strange Mercy
    Yet, far from a liability, Clark's bare, sedate St. Vincent persona is the highlight of Strange Mercy, reflecting all the terror, beauty, and allure of her music more effectively than any cantakerous narrator could muster.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Brash, insightful, wry, and, above all else, smart, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend confirms that Miranda Lambert is far more than just the latest in a long line of bad girls: She's a country music legend in the making, and the most vital artist Music Row has produced in a generation.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Montero
    Lil Nas’s expressions of anxiety and self-doubt are served with honesty and tenderness, as well as some awkwardness.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Don't Live Here Anymore
    Though the War on Drugs may take a slightly more straightforward approach on I Don’t Live Here Anymore than they have in the past, they still find new ways to engage with complex arrangements. The result is a nimble balancing act of accessible pop-rock anthems and experimental soundscapes.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Critterland
    Challenging, startling, and deeply powerful, this rallying closer confirms what the previous nine songs already suggested: that Carlisle is a singular artist and that Critterland is a worthy addition to the canon of country-folk classics.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    High Violet
    High Violet is an expertly handled balancing of the airy and the dense, and nowhere is that better exemplified than on the triumphant "England."
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