Splendid's Scores

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For 793 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Humming By The Flowered Vine
Lowest review score: 10 Fire
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 654 out of 793
  2. Mixed: 119 out of 793
  3. Negative: 20 out of 793
793 music reviews
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    • 52 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Transmission
    They might not have the lyrical substance necessary to be the new Manics, but Gay Dad's unpretentious take on modern glam makes snorting coke while wearing striped hot-pants and sprinkling stardust on passers by sound like a hell of a lot of fun.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dust
    It's encouraging to see Murphy, twenty-odd years into his career, moving so confidently in new directions rather than rehashing old glories.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    About A Boy [Soundtrack]
    The songs on About a Boy are all exactly what we've come to expect from Gough, and the disc's lack of cohesion is its only real failing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Romantica
    The songs are simpler, livelier, a little more direct and a lot more hummable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stereo
    Stereo/Mono is less polished than Westerberg's other solo efforts, but the song quality is consistent.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
    The sheer scope of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is so utterly breathtaking that repeat airings only reinforce its stunning songcraft and otherworldly sonic splendor.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wood/Water
    For all the divergent stylistic ground Wood/Water covers, nothing seems forced, signaling that the changes in the group's sound have come on their own terms and are not simply change for change's sake.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Denali
    While Davis's performance draws from a broad and intriguing range of influences, she has the makings of a singer in a class of her own. And rather than allowing Davis's uniqueness to carry them, the other members of Denali clearly favor a similarly eclectic aesthetic, riddling their music with pleasant musical surprises.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Control
    Control stands apart from previous Pedro the Lion releases because its harder material is among its most satisfying.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Electric Sweat
    Producer Jim Diamond has distilled the manic energy of one of the world's greatest live bands in Electric Sweat, and if the result is not letter-perfect, it is raw and true and powerful.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Plastic Fang
    The album is never anything more or less than it pretends to be. It offers a good time, and it delivers. As a soundtrack to mindless partying, it is first-rate.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere
    This is a solid (and yes, more polished) effort, not likely to disappoint their ardent fans, and I expect that it will draw many new listeners to the band's somber world.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In The Afternoon
    Like Tindersticks without the strings, and with a better sense of vocal clarity, L'Altra is the kind of band whose releases would be best sold with some cheap red wine and a carton of cigarettes for those long, lonely nights in.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    On Top
    One of the year's best knock-down-drag-out rock 'n' roll records.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    First Album
    Take a Casio keyboard or any other early '80s dance machine, wheel it out and blow the dust off and you would most likely be able to produce an album at least as enjoyable as this one.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cover Magazine
    This is a welcome addition to the Giant Sand corpus, and an impressive demonstration of the continuing relevance of the band, more than two decades into its existence.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Attak
    The quality is uniform, but below par.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Something Wicked This Way Comes
    A winning combination of hip-hop beats, horns, strings and cinematic soundscapes, the album is spiced with precise scratching and effectively abrupt changes in direction.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Skyscraper National Park
    Hayden has released an album of magnificent proportions.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Buzzkunst
    There wouldn't be a problem at all if Buzzkunst wasn't such a maddeningly forgettable record.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I
    If you set the more gratuitous avant-gardities aside, you're left with a fair amount of haunting, beautiful and challenging music.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sha Sha
    While Sha Sha is certainly ripe with hooks and strong in stylistic concept, the songs are woefully one-dimensional and marred by immaturity.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Walking With Thee
    For all of Walking with Thee's obvious musical accomplishments, its most impressive facet is the ability to transcend all the hype, hoopla and haranguing surrounding its release.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sound Go Round
    This straightforward pop bias makes the disc sound more like a greatest hits package than an album.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Source Tags & Codes
    Source Tags and Codes is phenomenal. It's one of those albums that starts the listener on a seeminlgly unsustainable high note, and uses that as a launching point.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fog
    Broder gently provokes your senses with curious combinations of divergent instruments, creating a collection of progressive musical oddities that is entertaining as well as musically fascinating.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Trouble Every Day [Soundtrack]
    As spectacularly successful as the Tindersticks have been in their tribute to the horror of Trouble Every Day, I'm hoping for a lighter confection from their next collaboration with Denis -- something more along the lines of Nenette et Boni.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    C'mon
    You can listen to the disc over and over and never get bored; there's always a new musical idea to discover in a place that you didn't expect to hear it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Is A Woman
    The album sounds full whether you're in the next room or sitting right beside the speakers. Details -- a horn here, a steel guitar there, a lilting piano figure that appears out of the ether -- fill every cranny in a sound that's still as spacious as Giant Sand's Southwestern soundtracks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wanna Buy a Monkey?
    What this strange cast of characters eventually creates is a groovy mish-mash of up/down tempo breaks, hip-pop sound collages and the odd bout of guitar-driven frenzy that, while nearly impossibly to dance to, manages to expose most other DJs as the talentless, not to mention painfully derivative crate-raiders they truly are.
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