Stylus Magazine's Scores

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For 1,453 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Fed
Lowest review score: 0 Encore
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 987 out of 1453
  2. Mixed: 361 out of 1453
  3. Negative: 105 out of 1453
1453 music reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having
    The result may be, in a manner of speaking, the most consistent Atmosphere album to date. That is, You Can’t Imagine is consistently okay.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Black Acetate
    Cale faces a problem that neither recent Tom Waits nor Leonard Cohen have overcome: he can't sing anymore.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You Are The Quarry
    Of course, anyone expecting a new Smiths album from this was always going to be disappointed. However, anyone expecting a good album from it is going to be disappointed as well.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Invention
    It quickly becomes apparent there is a lacking element in many of the tracks on the album. Memorable melodies. What remains are non-descript tracks that feature synthesizer melodies that go nowhere and cribbed samples from records.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Lost Marbles And Exploded Evidence
    It's not bad; it just feels like a stopgap to hold fans over until Enon has recorded enough material for a new release.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square
    There are dozens of bands that do this kind of stuff better, including Wheat themselves.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Honkytonk University
    Honkytonk University is one missed opportunity after another.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Schizophrenic
    On Schizophrenic Chasez attempts to reanimate early-80s electro, disco and new wave back into pop.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    This Island
    Theirs is an unwelcome indie lyricism that lives in a vacuum, devoid of guttural expression and left to vacant, bumper-worthy slogans.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Around The Sun
    The good news is things pick up, eventually. The bad news is the album ends just as it starts getting interesting.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hypnotize
    Even if Hypnotize is full of missteps, its existence as a separate entity is what makes Mezmerize nearly perfect.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Invisible Deck
    So much here rests on formulaic indie tropes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Venomous Villain [VV:2]
    Sounds like a retreat.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Below The Branches
    Stoltz's musicianship and songwriting are engaging and technically inspired while remaining loose and comfortable. It's just there are too many obvious references.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Runaway Found
    They’re a perfect opening band: professional and sufficiently appealing on a sonic level without risking upstaging the headliner with any distinct personality or emotional resonance.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Paris
    If an army of songwriters and million-dollar producers can make Paris Hilton listenable, even for only 38 minutes, then no one else with a major-label budget behind them has any excuse.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Darkel
    When Dunckel moves away from pop immediacy, the results are often puzzling.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Neighborhood Watch
    They can’t rap. Period.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Descended Like Vultures
    Descended Like Vultures snuggles down between Wolf Parade’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and Modest Mouse’s 2004 release, Good News For People Who Like Bad News as a competent, half-slapped together, half-methodic slice of evolved indie-rock.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fuckin A
    The crisper production gives the music an extra bite.... Paradoxically, though, the increased fidelity also reveals the band’s deficiency with musical dynamics, making a half-hour seem surprisingly long.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Catastrophe Keeps Us Together
    Too many songs are caught between the band’s fading post-punk tension and their more professional desires.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School
    Give Friedberger credit for diversity, craftsmanship, and the unprecedented ability to release a double album that actually feels composed of two separate entities. The rest of it? Too much, too fast.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The World And Everything In It
    The handful of slower songs drag more than they have a right to, and fail to hint at any depth or versatility that’s missing from the straight-ahead rockers.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Music By Cavelight
    The biggest problem with the album is that most of the tracks feel like there should be a rap over them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Equatorial Stars
    Beginning with third track, "Lupus", a certain lifelessness starts to creep into The Equatorial Stars.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    With The Tides
    Once you vacuum out the fluff there’s barely half an album left.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    She Loves You
    A record lacking in a substantial amount of soul, grit and sensuality.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Broken Ear Record
    Broken Ear is limited and bogged down with its exacting and overriding sense of rhythm and lack of true sonic experimentation.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Magic
    Little on Magic outright falters, which is why it's hard at first to explain how unappealing it is.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ten Silver Drops
    While it's admirable that The Secret Machines are trying to solidify their niche as the go-to guys for soundtracking laser light shows (or at least My Morning Jacket for indoor kids), Ten Silver Drops is a sideways moonwalk that won't get them any further away from the planetarium circuit.
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