The A.V. Club's Scores

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For 4,544 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 The Life Of Pablo
Lowest review score: 0 Graffiti
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,663 out of 4544
  2. Mixed: 771 out of 4544
  3. Negative: 110 out of 4544
4544 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
    As promised, the disc is a journey through vintage British rock, but her simmering, brooding John cover shows just how freely she’s chosen to adapt some of the most famous songs in the pop canon. That liberty is well taken.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Spirit Youth
    The lyrics’ sometimes-dark intent is another detail to chew over among the songs’ many fine details, and provides a needed complication on an album that’s otherwise so thoroughly agreeable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Relayted
    Relayted isn't quite as much fun as it could've been. (Though the shimmering "Faded High" could be an actual pop hit.) But Olson has found the right people to make his utterly unique lite-FM fantasies a reality.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    If I Had A Hi-Fi
    It's the best sort of covers album, reverent to the source material but not beholden to it.
    • 100 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Exile On Main Street [Reissue]
    Everything that made it on the album--and much of what didn’t--belongs exactly where it is. (Yes, even the blazing but unfortunately named blues jam “Turd On The Run.”)
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bride Screamed Murder
    After its so-so start, the disc settles into a grinding yet angular groove that feels as fresh and energized as anything the group released during its â??90s heyday.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    White Crosses
    Packed with bloated hooks, White Crosses is meant to be easily digestible: "Suffocation" and the title track glide effortlessly on shining guitar riffs, while "I Was A Teenage Anarchist" and "Bamboo Bones" explode with soaring harmony.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Destroyer Of The Void
    Void is an album by a band that’s mature enough to know what it wants and to focus its sound, but there’s a restlessness to these tracks that indicates it won’t be long before Blitzen Trapper strikes out for new territory.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Champ
    The push-and-pull between the desire to charge ahead and to create something deeper-presuming the latter is what they're after-makes Champ a compelling, joyous listen, especially once it's had a few spins to sink in.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Body Talk Pt 1
    Robyn's icy, controlled vocals and cool synth textures are almost alienating in their precision, but there's a beating pulse underneath the dance-bot artifice that captures the celebratory catharsis that can be found on the dance floor.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    See You On The Moon
    See You On The Moon still occasionally veers toward the kind of generic lite-roots music that dominates rom-com soundtracks and commercials for long-distance service, but more often, Merritt tries to do a little more with what she has.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Black Dirt Sessions
    Most of the music on Deer Tick's third album, The Black Dirt Sessions, was recorded back in 2008, during the sessions for the rollicking Born On Flag Day, but it'd be a mistake to think of these songs as leftovers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Thank Me Later
    Drake may be powerfully conflicted about stardom, but on his cohesive, bittersweet, assured debut, he proves himself worthy of the sometimes-blinding spotlight.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Further
    Rowlands and Simons have a tighter grip on the material-an odd thing to say about an album with eight tracks built to sprawl, maybe, but Further really does flow from beginning to end, just the way its makers intended it to.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Admiral Fell Promises
    Kozelek's Dylan-esque knack for delivering intensely internal narratives over simple folk melodies stretched out for several hypnotic minutes has once again resulted in top-notch mood music.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Praise & Blame
    Praise & Blame is a stark, soul-probing study in imminent mortality.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    King of the Beach
    King Of The Beach benefits from a timely team-up with Jay Reatard's former rhythm section and scrubbed-down vocals courtesy of Modest Mouse producer Dennis Herring, who provided just the push into the deep end that Nathan Williams needed.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Antifogmatic
    While its previous album, Punch, took that sophistication to a level bordering on esotericism, the new Antifogmatic is as warm and welcoming as the bracing 19th-century drink that gave it its name.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Totaled
    Totaled dives even further into the realm of the progressive-or at least post-punk's idea of it-with songs like "Look Alive" and "Never Been Better," dystopian downers that share more DNA with This Heat and Cabaret Voltaire than with Roky Erickson.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Budos Band III
    Whoever has the spotlight at any given point, III is The Budos Band's most confident-sounding album, like a soundtrack to a Shaft In Africa if it were actually made in Africa.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Alive As You Are
    At times warmly sunny and loose and at other times coolly subdued, Alive As You Are is undeniably personal, with a depth lacking in the group's previous reverb-soaked fuzz anthems.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hawk
    Two more complementary sets of pipes have rarely been paired-and while that's been the intention all along, the duo's third full-length, Hawk, still banks on that delicious friction, and does it well.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tomorrow Morning
    Everett is a complicated dude, and perhaps he'll return to the dark stuff soon. That said, Tomorrow Morning proves a welcome change of pace.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    That's How We Burn
    Jaill's hard-working breeziness is what ultimately makes That's How We Burn such an effortlessly enjoyable listen.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Band of Joy
    What was once Plant's bold reclamation of self has become a little pat, but it's hard to complain about the predictability of Band Of Joy when the songs sound so good, with their softly sawing guitars, syncopated rhythms, and voices rising from the fuzz, strong and sure.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Business Casual
    The record opens with a powerful three-part salvo crafted for maximum dance-floor penetration.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Grinderman 2
    Cave and Co. have moved further toward balancing their Grinderman skuzz with Bad Seeds sophistication-which means it's not always as bust-you-up-on-the-barstool fun, but it's still a sleazy good time.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    False Priest
    On False Priest, the spirit of collaboration does for Of Montreal on record what it has done for the band's live show, building a thrilling, carnival-like atmosphere around Barnes' fractured perspective.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Minotaur
    Minotaur's back half is fairly trifling, but the EP's first five songs are as strong as any in The Clientele's catalogue.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Castle Talk
    Her solos are occasionally undone by Castle Talk's thin, untreated production-but a record that could so convincingly slip into the back catalog of SST or Kill Rock Stars shouldn't sound state-of-the-art anyway.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    It's just a shame that, with the exception of a single original that understandably doesn't measure up to the high standards set by the covers, Legend and The Roots had to reach so far into the past to find songs that comment so powerfully and insightfully on the issues of today.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Invented
    Invented is less a return to form than a compendium of what Jimmy Eat World does so well.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bubblegum
    In spite of the obvious artiness, Clinic's music has a lived-in warmth that matches its skill.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Familial
    Even though this style of music has been done, and done well, by many others since the late '80s, the familiarity of Selway's debut makes it that much more agreeable.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Marnie Stern
    Soaring hooks wax and wane in an intentional emotional flow, and even at her most energetic, she remains poignant and personal. She still occasionally shows off, and there's plenty of epic bombast, but a cleaner production showcases the music's most interesting complexities without letting them get swallowed in the chaos.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Swanlights
    Even when Swanlights doesn't always take corporeal form-that looseness also means several of its melodies simply fade into the shadows-Antony's voice remains a spectral wonder.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Light Chasers
    Minowa, who also produced, dives in with typical gusto, building the album into a sprawling, intricately interconnected 56-minute concept that often soars into emotionally operatic, cathartic heights.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Come Around Sundown
    Kings Of Leon's fifth album, Come Around Sundown, is just as much of a crowd-pleaser as Only By The Night, but the four Followills bring back more of the chasing-a-whim personality of their earlier albums.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Airtight's Revenge
    Airtight's Revenge boasts a present-tense immediacy; there's no psychological distance between Bilal and the psychological torment he sings about, which gives the album a brooding, airless intensity.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    It's What I'm Thinking, Pt. 1: Photographing Snowflakes
    Nothing diverges too far from that model here, and even though two more albums of the same might tax the bedroom-pop-processing part of the brain, this is clearly Gough's most accomplished work in years.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Fool
    Despite all evidence to the contrary over the past 30 years, post-punk doesn't have to be built out of cold, sharp angles. The Fool, the full-length debut by Los Angeles' Warpaint, coasts instead on a humid, hazy, oozing pulse that's less ice age and more malarial swamp.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Epic
    Epic might be a transitional work, but it finds Van Etten moving toward a strong, exciting sound.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    National Ransom
    There's never been an Elvis Costello album like National Ransom, even though nothing about the record is especially new.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Undercard
    Undercard peddles in a more mature, assured--though no less skeletal-kind of songcraft.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Return of the Century
    Like a lot of these polished indie albums, Return Of The Century is more about the overall vibe than distinct, individual highs.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Authenticity
    It's a work of hushed intimacy and unabashed romanticism that uses synthesizers to create incongruously organic, natural-sounding grown-folks R&B.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Promise
    The two-disc The Promise collects 22 leftovers (including "The Way," an excellent unlisted bonus track), none of them previously included on Springsteen's Tracks box set, all of them polished, to one extent or another, in recent years. Some, like "Breakaway" and the title track--a longtime fan favorite previously released only in a version rerecorded in 1999--fit Darkness' themes perfectly.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Libra Scale
    With nearly as many producers as songs, Libra Scale, Ne-Yo's fourth album, nevertheless hangs together sonically-these tracks move more fully into the synth-drenched Europop sheen that typified the first half of Year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Silver
    Some of Eternal Summers' music sputters for liftoff and never gets off the ground, and the dull album-closer "Bully In Disguise" sends listeners out on a bum note. But catchy, simple songs like "Safe At Home" and the exultant title track confirm the worldview that Yun and Cundiff express on Silver's opener, "Disciplinarian."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pilot Talk II
    The rare misstep "Silence," full of murky warbling, highlights the delicate balance between chill and boring. Still, when it works, it works.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    All Day
    All Day is just a refinement of Gillis' technique. The samples are somehow more karaoke-machine-universal than ever.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Love Letter
    Warm, reassuringly familiar, and as soothing as a cup of cocoa on a frosty winter afternoon, Love Letter delivers.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Valhalla Dancehall
    That simplicity doesn't translate to the music-which continues to pile on the backing choirs, electronic squiggles, and never-ending ethereal builds-but Valhalla adds an even more alluring undertow to the band's usual crashing wave.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Red Barked Tree
    On Red Barked Tree, that negative space - a reflection of pop's false warmth, and perhaps of humanity's greater estrangement from itself - is frozen even harder than usual.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Showroom of Compassion
    Fans of the band's old stuff should find plenty to love, even though it all feels pretty familiar.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Fall
    The Fall at first listen seems more interesting as a concept than as music. Still, there are plenty of rough-cut pop gems.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rolling Blackouts
    The Go! Team still has spirit, yes it does, and with Rolling Blackouts, it's given fans of ecstatic pop one more thing to cheer about.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Live: The Storyteller
    The Storyteller's two discs lean a little toward Snider's funnier latter-day material, padding it heavily with banter and stories, as well as a fair amount of the more earnest, tear-jerking fare he's always snuck in between the laughs.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Four Stars
    Fox and crew have held their ground, dug in deep, and scored another win for timelessness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The People's Key
    He delivers a truer, less emotional, album-length confession about wanting to believe the unbelievable, and loving others for wanting the same.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Palace Guards
    The surprising thing about The Palace Guards is that Lowery still writes sarcastic, knowing David Lowery songs about as well as he ever has.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The London Sessions
    On the one hand, there are no screaming yahoos baying requests; on the other, there's none of the give-and-take energy so crucial to live performance. So why bother? Mostly, it's the little things.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kmag Yoyo (& Other American Stories)
    The spontaneity isn't always the best showcase for Carll, who has a tendency to lean too often on either his mid-'60s Bob Dylan cadence or his two-stepping Hank Jr. voice.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Year of Magical Drinking
    It's an album that might seem superficially bright and shiny, but the edges are sharper than they appear.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    12 Desperate Straight Lines
    While the hooks on 12 Desperate Straight Lines sink in easily, they're far from painless.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The King of Limbs
    As is Radiohead's custom, The King Of Limbs hasn't been designed for immediate comprehension or acceptance.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Going Out In Style
    Besides being one more fun and heartfelt slab of well-crafted, Celtic-rooted punk, Going Out In Style serves another purpose: It provides that much more source material for Mark Wahlberg's inevitable Dropkick Murphys biopic.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wounded Rhymes
    At her core, this new snarling, burned Lykke Li is unfamiliar, perhaps even to herself, but it's to our benefit. We get to meet her all over again.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dead Reckoning
    It helps that the production, rather than being hushed or atmospheric, is viciously sharp, full of punch-drunk drums and the stinging twang of strings.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pyramid of the Sun
    The pleasure of Pyramid comes from hearing the whole thrive on elegant friction among the parts. One of its makers is gone now, but he'd have plenty of reason to be proud.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Thrawn
    For a crème-de-la-creme collection, Thrawn is a little too spotty, as a surfeit of clever lyrical and musical ideas war with each other within some songs. But given how many uninspired, guitar-plucking singer-songwriters walk the Earth, it's hardly a major flaw that King Creosote has too much to offer.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Collapse into Now
    It's another very good album from a band that's getting back into the habit of making them.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Smoke Ring for My Halo
    Smoke Ring For My Halo is a repetitive album in the best possible sense, even if some of Vile's distinctive sound was shorn off along with the fuzz.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Build a Rocket Boys!
    It isn't the type of album that will easily find its way into the hearts of those in need of a quicker, simpler fix.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Last Night on Earth
    The Last Night On Earth might leave some of Noah & The Whale's old audience behind, but the band appears to be headed in the right direction.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Middle Brother
    Typical for a "supergroup," Middle Brother sounds more like a collection of strong musical personalities crowded into the same space than an actual band on its charmingly ragged, self-titled debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Charlatans At the Garden Gate
    With the self-assurance of someone who began her songwriting career at just 14 while holed up in her father's home recording studio, Tristen Gaspadarek has crafted a confident, poignant folk-pop debut that never wants for hooks, and manages to undercut its sing-songiness at every turn with unflinching lyrics and mature songwriting.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Angles
    Once miscast as game-changing saviors of the underground, The Strokes have proven once again with Angles that they are actually one of the era's top mainstream pop-rock acts, uniquely gifted at crafting catchy, radio-ready rock songs at a time when such a thing seems like a quaint remnant of a distant past.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Scandalous
    This is a party record, wholly unconcerned with painstakingly recreating the past (à la Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings) or pushing the genre into the future (à la Cee Lo or Janelle Monae).
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Femme Fatale
    While Spears' vocals are inevitably the least impressive element of any given song, she doesn't exactly disappear into the production on Femme Fatale; she settles into it, game for whatever and confident in the hands of trusted professionals who know how to best utilize her.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    All Eternals Deck
    All Eternals Deck is one of the smoothest, most delicate iterations of Darnielle's thorny storytelling to date, though the infamously word-wise, lo-fi pioneer hasn't exactly buttoned down since signing to Merge Records last year.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Belong
    More than anything, Belong shows ambition, with The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart clearly aiming for something bigger--a bigger sound, maybe a bigger audience. It nailed the sound part. A larger audience seems inevitable.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    WWII
    This sugary trio supposedly formed over pizza and pop a few years back, and while that almost sounds too good to be true, it's also fitting; WWII's songs are just begging to be the soundtrack to an evening of food and fun.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Apocalypse
    Far sparser and spacier than 2009's Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, Apocalypse is embellished mostly with surgical bursts of distortion and the odd flutter of Astral Weeks-esque fiddle and flute.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Family Sign
    The best songs are like these-sad, minimal, and instrument-driven.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    House of Balloons
    House Of Balloons' hook is its canny incorporation of indie-rock attitude into R&B songs. But Tesfaye's lurid, unrepentant depiction of hard drugs and empty sex is what lingers long after the novelty of a couple of Beach House samples wears off.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Harbors
    All Tiny Creatures will probably play second fiddle to Volcano Choir for the foreseeable future, but the group shows that Collections Of Colonies Of Bees has a deeper bench than anyone probably realized.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Canary
    Building from a base of loping country-rock, Southeast Engine frequently breaks into a full gallop, playing with wild abandon and outright joy even when singing songs about the Great Depression. The band gets a little too loose at times, resulting in songs that have a strong drive but never get anywhere.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dancer Equired
    While Dancer Equired boasts improved fidelity, Times New Viking makes sure not to shape up too much; the songs casually meander toward tunefulness, with wiry guitar riffs stumbling over fumbling drums and flat-footed boy-girl harmonies.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    Whokill's sonic imagination outlasts the novelty of Tune-Yards' debut, and even better, a lyrical persona as playfully warped as the rhythms punching away behind it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Black Sun
    In spite of its sprawling palette, Black Sun is tight and compact, an album rather than simply a showcase.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Secret Walls EP
    The vibes might be bad at times, but Secret Walls is definitely one good trip.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Celebration, Florida
    Celebration, Florida is the band's full-on Tom Waits apocalypse record, finding signs of our imminent destruction in-what else?-our most banal diversions.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Goblin
    Brash and unwieldy as it seems on the surface, Goblin is a deliberately crafted work of art, one of the densest and most provocative statements that independent rap has produced in years.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pala
    Pala feels like a great shindig-starter, complete with wiggly, disco basslines and subtext-free lyrics like "All I want is to feel true love."
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Circuital
    My Morning Jacket's new album, Circuital, does dial back the weirdness of 2008's Evil Urges.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cosmic Ocean Ship
    Todd's new album, Cosmic Ocean Ship, is full of songs that contrast the chilliness of urban settings with the call of the exotic, and come down strongly in favor of the latter.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Heavy Rocks
    Boris has evolved a lot over the past decade, and the album is far less raw and furious than its 2002 namesake.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hell: The Sequel EP
    This is a labor of love Eminem clearly made for himself and an old friend who unleashed his inner beast. As he does on seemingly every album, Eminem makes noise here about retiring; for the first time in forever, that actually seems like a bad idea.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Errant Charm
    The result is the band's balmiest, most relaxed outing to date, with enough down-tempo hooks to score a whole summer's worth of beach trips and barbecues.
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