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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    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beautifulgarbage
    Garbage is savvier than most in cobbling together the sounds of its influences.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Delirium Cordia
    Aside from [a] 20-minute stretch, though, Delìrium Còrdia holds up just fine as a suitably unwieldy, adventurous, patched-together series of instrumental bridges with no chorus to reach.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Exciter
    Bell's subtle, inventive knob-twiddling pairs perfectly with Martin Gore's new batch of somber, subdued songs.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Scarlet's Walk
    Amid all the elegantly sweeping, minor-key arrangements are the usual aggravating moments.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take Them On, On Your Own
    More varied and satisfying than its predecessor.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sleeping With Ghosts
    Placebo may never reach an American audience past its established fans, but those fans ought to gravitate to Sleeping With Ghosts' uncluttered, moody niche.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Private Press
    At first, The Private Press plays like a bland kiss-off to followers expecting a big-time event record. But once its blood has time to flow, the album swells from a strained capillary to a coursing vein.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ultravisitor
    His most overtly musical album since 1998's jazz-fusion exercise Music Is Rotted One Note, Ultravisitor serves as the best-yet summation of his various dangling threads: manic beat mashes, electric fusion strolls, impudent pile-ups of electronic collage and prog-rock reach. [17 Mar 2004]
    • The A.V. Club
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    About A Boy [Soundtrack]
    If About A Boy doesn't quite have the anything-can-happen vibe of Bewilderbeast, it still reveals a remarkably gifted artist.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Have You Fed the Fish?
    At its worst (on the title track, for example), Have You Fed The Fish? sounds uncomfortably bloated; the superfluous instruments and noises obscure the inherent lightness of Gough's cabaret-influenced songwriting.... But even the worst of Have You Fed The Fish? isn't all that bad.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Hour of Bewilderbeast
    At about an hour, Bewilderbeast is uneven, but at its best it exudes a sense of mystery, ingenuity, and wonder that portends even better material to come.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Waiting For The Moon
    It's a beautiful, brooding expanse, but a well-traveled one.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mink Car
    It's all funny, but also wise in a way.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Skyscraper National Park
    Hayden draws from the traditions of eccentric folk-rock, but his ragged, harrowing concoction of acoustic gentility and electric anarchy stands as a genre all its own.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Aaltopiiri
    The disc resonates as much as a relaxant as it does as an agitator, and pleasant subliminal melodies and patterns eventually emerge from the static, skips, and not-so-random noise.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wiretap Scars
    Sparta has made a smartly produced, superficially exciting record full of deafening electric hum, full-throated shouts, and quiet, intricately picked guitar breaks.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Educated Guess
    The album benefits from DiFranco's emphasis on spare shimmer, though it also perpetuates her recent tendency to let her songs languidly drift along, for better and for worse.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Logic Will Break Your Heart
    Logic Will Break Your Heart serves up likable songs in the mode of mid-'80s Britpop, alongside atmospheric ballads in the mode of just about every post-Coldplay European rock band.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Tour de France Soundtracks
    There's more to Tour De France Soundtracks than a simple remake of the past.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Veni Vidi Vicious
    The Hives' brand of neo-garage leans heavy on punk and lacks nuance, but the unification of speed, volume, and shake generates a scalding steam.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Quiet Is The New Loud
    Quiet Is The New Loud captures coffee-shop folk without its twee indulgences.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Alone With Everybody
    There's a lot to like about Alone With Everybody, and a lot to take in. Most of these busily layered tracks exceed five minutes, and most outstay their welcome.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Faded Seaside Glamour
    It stands out from the pack thanks to lead vocalist Greg Gilbert.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Amnesiac
    Like Kid A, Amnesiac will be dismissed by some as an inconsequential indulgence, a mere sequel, or even a collection of lesser, leftover material. But the truth is, the band shows no intention of turning back. Nothing beats a good surprise, and Radiohead is full of them.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
    Anyone expecting a breakout album by a group poised to break out might be left wanting. But as a lateral move to post-punk's crinkly margins, They Were Wrong is an ante-upping exercise, as entrancing as it is bracing.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Renegades
    By definition, it's not essential: Many of the originals (Minor Threat's "In My Eyes," MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," and so on) were for all intents and purposes perfect, making Rage-style covers seem like little more than curiosities. It's at its best during its more radical reworkings, from hip-hop songs (Eric B & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend," Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill A Man") to an uncharacteristically soft-spoken Devo cover ("Beautiful World").
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Skull Ring
    While the results aren't classic, they're at least presented in a classic style.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Trust
    Trust is surprisingly uneven, but for Low, a modest step backward is still a step worth hearing and savoring.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Creature Comforts
    Parts of the album seem arbitrarily sparse or less than sure of their ultimate direction, but Creature Comforts congeals into a whole that finds its mind below the surface.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Us
    It's not unusual for wry pop mavens like MacIntyre to marry happy music to bitter words, but Mull Historical Society shows increasing skill and confidence on Us.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fever To Tell
    While not quite the epochal showing demanded by its creation, the album holds out an impressive range with a few different directions to follow.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Glass Floor
    Von Bohlen's thin vocals and a generally mushy sound keeps Glass Floor from catching hold at first, but Maritime's gently buzzing guitars give the songs a backbone that helps them stand up to multiple exposures.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Remote Part
    Merely good-but-not-great.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Elephunk
    Elephunk may not blow up, but it does go pop with enough style and verve to make its lack of substance irrelevant.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Virginia Creeper
    Phillips' emotions sound somewhat confused, but his ear for pleasing arrangements remains sharp, and the album's best moments have a way of sneaking up from the background.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Electric Sweat
    Though the group doesn't find the level of personal expression that's converted The White Stripes into a star cult act, it's at the head of the class of minor-league neo-garage bands, on a par with Cincinnati's The Greenhornes or Nashville's The Obscure.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Earthquake Glue
    Guided By Voices albums have become predictable, a shocking end for a group defined by its surprise delights.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    SelmaSongs: Music from the Motion Picture Dancer in the Dark
    The most notable feature of Selmasongs is how much it sounds like her most recent musical adventures, regardless of the album's intended cinematiccontext.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Age Of The Sun
    Resembles Doss' prior work, except that many of the deliberately obscure sonic filters have been removed.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See
    This is a slower, mellower side of the singer-songwriter, and it suits his moody ruminations.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Radical Connector
    A warmer, more leisurely update of 2001's Idiology, Radical Connector foregrounds vocals to more inviting, song-minded ends.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Kiss Of Death
    Kiss Of Death is uneven: Like Kiss Tha Game Goodbye, it suffers from an apparent desire to satisfy every demographic at once.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dying In Stereo
    Dying In Stereo holds out a lot of promise without falling prey to the solemnity that haunts so much underground hip-hop.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Now Here Is Nowhere
    It's sometimes hard to separate intentional mood-setting atmosphere from indistinct songwriting, but the album establishes enough momentum that the general cacophony becomes as epic as it's meant to be.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Power In Numbers
    The group's old-school ethos begins to feel like formula on Power In Numbers, though that formula can still yield remarkable results.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Split The Difference
    Split The Difference isn't as strong as In Our Gun, but it does show Gomez continuing to explore relaxed, earthy songwriting, with fruitful results.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    You Can Feel Me
    Like his cultural contemporary Andrew W.K., Har Mar Superstar can't help but inspire the question, "Is this guy for real?" There's a simple answer: Yes and no.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    When I Was Cruel
    Too often, Costello strains to squeeze more musical and lyrical notions into his simple pop songs than they can hold, leaving listeners with a scattershot collection instead of a fleshed-out statement, and a merely good album instead of a great one.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Dear Catastrophe Waitress
    The album produces more pleasant moments than memorable ones.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Warning
    Green Day has never made a record so slick and musically mature.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fall Back Open
    Some of the soundscapes on Fall Back Open sound featureless and flat, but most are amazingly accomplished given Now It's Overhead's youth and modest means. [17 Mar 2004]
    • The A.V. Club
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    God Hates Us All
    Slayer doesn't add any window dressing to its bile-filled Satanic metal. Instead, it just relies on its three core ingredients (speed, power, and precision), and as a result, its music is not only blisteringly potent, but also sort of fun.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    So Much Staying Alive & Lovelessness
    The result is a grand step back into listenability.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    blink-182
    The disc does meander in spots, and its most achingly sincere love songs become cloying, but it's easy to both enjoy and appreciate Blink-182's effort and evolution, especially when hooky pleasures continue to function as its primary stock in trade.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In The Zone
    Especially without the aid of visuals, Spears remains a chilly nonentity who gets upstaged by her surroundings, but there are worse things for her to be than window dressing for some of the most state-of-the-art beats money can buy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Phantom Planet
    Whether Phantom Planet will be the second coming of Cheap Trick remains to be seen, but for now, it neatly fills the void for trashy, catchy power pop left by Urge Overkill's premature burnout.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse
    Overreaching but surprisingly solid.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Weezer [2001]
    Feels a bit repetitive and perfunctory the first time through, but it's resolutely unpretentious and airtight throughout, without a wasted moment or false move.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Soul Sessions
    Sessions establishes Stone as a formidable interpreter.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Deftones
    The record as a whole is less rewarding than its predecessor, though its peaks rival any in the genre.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Detroit Deli: A Taste of Detroit
    A surprisingly solid disc characterized by the top-notch production that has always been the group's saving grace.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    God Says No
    Another appealing throwback to the best in '70s hard rock.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Streetcore
    In a way, the tinny sound and half-finished feel makes it seem more touching and direct than the final result might otherwise have been.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Fly Or Die
    Fly Or Die has its rough patches, but the liberating, anything-goes looseness that inevitably results in stretches of self-indulgence is precisely what makes the album, like its predecessor, so messy, vital, and fun. [31 Mar 2004]
    • The A.V. Club
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Come With Us
    Taken whole, Come With Us shows The Chemical Brothers refreshingly unburdened by the self-conscious climate of the dance world, reasserting its brilliance in the most fleeting and inconsequential ways.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lovers
    Lovers makes for an enjoyable, if exhausting, listen; at times, it sounds more like a sampler from a promising label than the work of one band.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Achilles Heel
    Achilles Heel may not cohere as well as its predecessors, but its best moments still chill the blood in wise and winning ways.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    By The Way
    By The Way inevitably suffers for its familiarity: Had it followed 1995's so-so One Hot Minute instead of Californication, it would qualify as a revelation instead of a worthy retread.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nellyville
    Good-natured and breezy enough to make the hostility directed Nelly's way seem churlish.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Illumination
    The soft touch sometimes leaves no mark, but when Weller dominates the mix with his acoustic picking and rich, raspy voice on "Bag Man" and the spiritually searching title track, the results are simply glowing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Art Official Intelligence (Mosaic Thump)
    But while packed with great songs--"The Art Of Getting Jumped" and "All Good?" also stand out--AOI is inconsistent, undermined by battle raps that feel limp and overly familiar coming from artists of De La Soul's stature. It doesn't help that the production tends to be weak and colorless, particularly when compared to the Technicolor vividness once provided by longtime collaborator Prince Paul.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Mississauga Goddam
    With Gibbs' nasal, cabaret-ready vocals drifting unobtrusively through the warm instrumental soup, most listeners could hum along happily without realizing that they're enjoying a song that celebrates soiled underwear.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Redemption's Son
    Not every track represents a powerful stride in the right direction, but more than enough do for Son to make good on Arthur's past promise.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar
    A Mark... dramatically improves on its predecessors, thanks to a much broader array of subject matter and a newfound emphasis on full-band arrangements that strip away--or at least drown out--his penchant for whiny navel-gazing.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Brother Is To Son
    The group's preaching drifts into cacophony at times, but the handcrafted feel and casual melodicism mostly make Brother Is To Son sound crumpled, heartfelt, and true.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    3D
    But in spite of a slim body of songs and an occasionally half-finished feel, the group stakes a solid claim to the riches of future-soul with 3D, leaving a distinct stamp on even its weakest material with gorgeous singing built around the understated grace of '60s girl groups.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Audioslave
    A curious idea from its inception, pairing Soundgarden's singer with Rage's musicians promises a unique alchemy it can't entirely deliver, obscuring the latter's politics and distinct sound.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Geogaddi
    The results can be overwhelmingly moving, but also overbearing after 66 minutes of breathless wonder.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Slow Motion Daydream
    Slow Motion Daydream isn't the knockout return to form it might have been, but it's significantly better than might be expected from the first impression its miserable single creates.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Burn Piano Island, Burn
    The album's clever turns don't take away from The Blood Brothers as a ravaging hardcore band; instead, they enlist chops in service of a manic vision all the more insinuating for its brutality.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Greendale
    Songcraft occasionally gets sacrificed for the sake of narrative, and some tracks are easier to admire than enjoy, but by and large, Greendale still works as a Neil Young record.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Travistan
    Travistan is odd but oddly listenable, with a bright mood sparked by Morrison's spirit of discovery.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Real New Fall L.P. (Formerly Country On The Click)
    As with just about every Fall release ever, the compressed sound and abandonment of melody makes it hard to distinguish one song from the next. As a result, the tauter material is the best.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nocturama
    Mostly in the quieter mode of his past few efforts, Nocturama presents songs of faith and devotion in the face of doubt, again demonstrating his newfound gift for understatement and the smoky croon.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spooked
    Welch and Rawlings' contributions are subtle but vital, making Spooked sound richer than last year's disappointing Luxor.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strangers
    There's little rhyme or reason to it, and the whole doesn't equal the sum of its parts. But many of the parts are worth noting.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Decoration Day
    Not since Bruce Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town has a group of rock 'n' roll musicians been so in tune with the trappings and traps of small-town life.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gorillaz
    Gorillaz is every bit as hit-or-miss as expected, but to its credit, the hits on its self-titled debut sound more impressive and infectious than the misses sound like indulgent flops.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let It Be... Naked
    Let It Be includes some of The Beatles' best songs, but in any form, it will never sound like the band's best album.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Aw C'Mon
    A cohesive collection of brisk, poppy songs in the accessible mode of the band's 2000 breakthrough Nixon.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Permission To Land
    It's that subtle streak of accomplished mischief that separates The Darkness from the multitude of marginal bar bands that still play this stuff for real.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    She Loves You
    For better and worse, Dulli molds these bizarrely disparate song choices into shapes that suit his style, overpowering them on occasion, but only so as not to come across as slavishly deferential or dull.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Moon & Antarctica
    A sort of concept album about cold and distant places--creepy sound effects and odd nods to science and space abound--these 15 songs rarely settle into one place for long, opening with the characteristically potent "3rd Planet" before veering off into weird cacophony, jarring interludes, mellow meanderings, and general tunelessness.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everyone Is Here
    Everyone Is Here bounces from one impeccably tuneful pop song to another.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Key
    Key drifts into blandness over the course of its leisurely 55 minutes, but the record holds together by sketching America's heartland as a place where the outlaw edge of culture winds up after it's chased out of the city.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Echoes
    The Rapture's much-anticipated Echoes doesn't represent a significant landmark along the way, but its pastiche-like approach to early-'80s Anglophilia is promising.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rancid [2000]
    A refreshing eardrum-blaster...
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Album Of The Year
    Album Of The Year isn't as compact or viscerally exciting as the EP that preceded it, mainly because it's not as loud.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    So Jealous
    The brittle harmonies make So Jealous a little tough to warm up to, but combined with the thick-handled melodies and punchy arrangements, Tegan And Sara's look-at-us swagger generates drama.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Real Gone
    Real Gone is haunted-house music that invites listeners in for some shared uneasiness, but never lets them settle for long.
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