Sputnikmusic's Scores

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For 2,391 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 The Seer
Lowest review score: 10 The Path of Totality
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,770 out of 2391
  2. Mixed: 542 out of 2391
  3. Negative: 79 out of 2391
2391 music reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Apple
    You will hear the first song five times on this album and the second song twice. Some might argue that mellow synthpop brain-emptiers of “The Darkness” and “Lifeline” constitute independent third and fourth songs, but these are such bland re-re-ree-renditions of A. G.’s longstanding crusty pop Cookbook that flattering them as autonomous entities demands a greater creative effort on your part than the man himself was ever minded to put into them.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Laugh Track
    Laugh Track makes several welcome adjustments to their present-day formula, but it’s hardly a wholesale reorientation – and make no mistake, the National are still very much in need of one.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Water Curses [EP]
    Water Curses sits just shy of being worth the price of admission, even if the individual tracks are.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Origins
    As far as simplistic and generic post-rock goes it’s fantastically inoffensive. Yet with the face of the genre ever changing, God is an Astronaut and their sixth are slowly becoming a relic of the past.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Live from the Underground
    Live From The Underground offers nothing game-changing, but is definitely enjoyable (especially on high energy jams like "Yeah Dats Me"), emulating its influences well.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Made In The Dark
    There’re a lot of fumbles here unfortunately, a couple tepid ballads, a lot of irritating goon-hop, and a couple songs that go on for far too long (though most of those fall under one of the former categories.) However, the band impress again on ‘Touch too Much’, possibly the album’s best track.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    TANGK
    IDLES wanted TANGK to be their Kid A, but they ended up delivering their Tranquility Base Hotel Casino.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Clinging To A Scheme
    The Radio Dept. are comfortable in their safety, the masters of indie pop/shoegaze fence-sitting, neither here nor there in message or meaning. It’s a stance they’ve refined with each release and Clinging to a Scheme rocks back and forth cautiously over a safety net of the softest cotton, never in any danger of losing its footing in the first place.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Leveler
    With Leveler August Burns Red have reached the limitations of the metalcore rule book that they have been glued to ever since their debut.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twelve Years
    Twelve Years might not put Daytrader on quite the same level as recent releases by labelmates Hot Water Music, Cheap Girls, and Sharks but they're well on their way.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Awakened
    That consistent album we're waiting for still hasn't come just yet.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Songs from the North I, II & III
    Swallow the Sun should have released this as three separate albums. The connection between the three pieces is frail, and given the relative lack of direction this is not a surprise. The album’s strengths are numerous, yet scattered, and its weaknesses are unfortunately a lot more concentrated.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sick, The Dying... And the Dead
    A mixed bag that gathers the good, the average, and the bad. A melange of familiar echoes which, while not a symphony of destruction, still do enough damage to keep the brand alive and kicking.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Perfect Picture
    Picture Perfect's silver lining comes in that it is, at the end of the day, a perfectly serviceable pop record replete with euphoric headrushes and the occasional tenacious earworm ("Impossible").
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Desire Lines
    Yet even Campbell can’t save Desire Lines from coming off as creatively stagnant, just as pretty as ever but overwhelmingly pedestrian.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Odd Blood
    Odd Blood delivers a series of earworms that are undeniably catchy but leave a legitimate question in their wake: why should we care? Yeasayer ultimately fails to answer this question, and Odd Blood sort of just runs its course unimpressively.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Mercurial World
    Mercurial Bay is bland and overpolished and probably insecure and definitely destined to make mincemeat of fickle hearts all over the web. It is good and shiny like an overviewed but freshly refiltered Instagram photo of a Hollywood sunset.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bloom
    Bloom has continued making Beach House a Thing in indie music, a band that has a feasible future, that won't be just forgotten and left by the wayside. It's nothing to get excited about.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Terrestrials
    Even with the missteps and occasional ennui, Terrestrials is a welcome merger between two insuppressible forces in the industry today, which should leave us all curious about what their next cloak-and-dagger collaboration will sound like.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Kingdom Of Rust
    For better or for worse--you'll like it because of the music it reminds you of, but you won't love it for exactly the same reason.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Plastic Beach
    All these songs just sound too much like Gorillaz songs, in an uncomfortable, self-conscious way.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Root For Ruin
    It's so smooth, this record, that it's sometimes too smooth, to the point to being slight.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit
    Architects have made another harmless, inconsequential rock album that’s worth spinning once or twice for curiosity, as there are some decent – dare I say great – moments here.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Cool
    Surprisingly, The Cool works as an album despite its many obvious flaws: the pop tracks are as good as anything from his debut, and his attempts to branch out are at least hit and miss, with exciting tracks like ‘Little Weapon’ and ‘Dumb It Down’ breaking the monotony of his soapbox moments.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    At War with Reality
    The speed at which the songs are played sounds not only like they are stuck in the mud, but that the weight tethered to them is also dragging them backwards. The final result is an anemic, lackluster 52 minutes.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    ...So Unknown
    ...So Unknown is a flawed record, but still a worthwhile one to check out. Underneath its misguided bells and whistles lies a grueling trench of hatred and rage, one that demonstrates Jesus Piece’s capability to pulverize their audience with a sort of backwards grace.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Axe To Fall
    In general, 'Axe to Fall' speaks towards the stagnancy of most bands in the metal genre. The collaborators here can't even help a band as good as Converge make a solid record and when examining Converge's almost flawless discography that is wholly unexplainable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Signed and Sealed in Blood
    Signed and Sealed in Blood is a pleasant addition to the Dropkick Murphys' discography, but the reliance on their trustworthy, time-tested conservatism is somewhat unfulfilling here.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The King Is Dead
    The end result is a tepid, lifeless album devoid of everything that we've come to expect from them in this part of their career, leaving only the most traditional aspects of their sound intact.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
    It's not that it's post-rock-by-numbers, although at times it really is, but more so that it doesn't even sound like there are painters behind the palette.
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