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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    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Muchacho
    Muchacho is also Houck’s most accomplished release to date--his most heartrending and life-affirming, equal parts lost-love devastation and hip-swaying, horn-led exultation.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Terror
    The Terror is the sound of The Flaming Lips going from a group experience to an internal monologue, the perfect record for any fan who has ever felt like the band could use two “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”s for every “Race For The Prize.”
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Overgrown
    James Blake’s talent is in his ability to smoothly synthesize disparate influences; his willingness to grow and develop while doing so is fascinating and frequently rapturous.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Shaking the Habitual
    Shaking The Habitual has minor drawbacks—it wastes too much time on shambling instrumentals, and a wall-to-wall rager would have been great—but this brother-sister team is still heroically alienating and giddily perverse.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Twelve Reasons to Die
    In an era where it increasingly seems like rap albums are being rendered obsolete by mixtapes, this tightly focused, wildly entertaining collaboration between two master craftsmen is a testament to how powerful the form can still be.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    MCII
    When artists soften with time, their music often loses some of its appeal; rarely does a songwriter nail his voice as successfully as Cronin has here.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Trouble Will Find Me
    Like the rest of the National catalog, Trouble Will Find Me is subtly insinuating; at first it seems almost free of hooks, then six listens later it’s difficult to get it unstuck.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Once I Was an Eagle
    Eagle is a master class in creation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    ...Like Clockwork
    A record of decadent, perverse, feel-weird hits of the winter. Just in time for summer.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Acid Rap
    What he’s accomplished with Acid Rap is nothing short of remarkable: Just two years removed from high school, and with no label support, he’s crafted the most assured breakthrough Chicago rap release since The College Dropout.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Southeastern
    For the most part Southeastern is pretty serious business. Then again, so is life and the one that Isbell has lived thus far is certainly worth documenting, especially when the songs supporting it are this stunning.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Yeezus
    “Harder, better, faster, stronger”: It was years ago that West first took to that mantra, but it’s on the visceral, unrelenting Yeezus that he fully internalizes it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    One True Vine
    Not every song on One True Vine is quite as compelling [as Low cover "Holy Ghost"]--the Funkadelic cover "Can You Get To That" is a little uneven—but Staples sings with such grace and dignity that it remains a moving listen.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Major Arcana
    Major Arcana is a markedly assured debut, one that makes Speedy Ortiz an act to watch. Like its songs, the band’s detonation is inevitable.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Argument
    Considering the breadth and depth of his work with Hüsker Dü, Hart doesn’t need to secure his legacy; that’s already been done. But with The Argument, he’s substantially and staggeringly added to it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sleeper
    Refreshing earnestness has always been one of his strengths, and Sleeper, inspired by the death of his father, is an honest study on loneliness, heartbreaking without ever becoming maudlin.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I Hate Music
    There isn’t anything new on I Hate Music, but there’s no need for it.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Repave
    The album remains surprisingly cohesive, effectively splitting the difference between the fussed-over refinement of Bon Iver and the sometimes unfocused experimentation of Volcano Choir’s first album, 2009’s Unmap. It’s a balancing act that pays off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dream River
    Dream River doesn’t chew an inch of scenery; instead it dwells in knowing glances and haunted whispers.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    This Is...
    It’s a refreshingly fun album with no pretenses, just plenty of sing-along hooks and dancefloor jams.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Is Survived By
    Is Survived By is Touché Amoré feeling comfortable in its own skin, while remaining unafraid to shake off some of the dead flakes acquired over the years; and the group is all the better for it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Days Are Gone
    It could be an overstatement to say that if Days Are Gone is any indication of what’s to come for Haim, the band is set.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Virgins
    Although never quite retreating from Hecker’s signature techniques, Virgins still finds angular ways to stun.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Forever Becoming
    By stepping back and taking stock, Pelican has reconnected with what made it a pioneer in the first place: force, vision, and soul.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Beyoncé
    Without playing into cheap “tortured by fame” tropes, she’s made an emotional album that’s dense and substantial but never difficult or self-important.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    No Depression [Legacy Edition]
    No Depression: Legacy Edition chronicles this collision between restlessness and ambition, and portrays a band successfully wrangling both.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    St. Vincent
    All told, St. Vincent is a bold, ambitious, and perfectly overstuffed album.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Blank Project
    Neneh Cherry has been making music for 25 years now, but Blank Project proves that she’s absolutely free of any signs of creative stagnation.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lost In the Dream
    The War On Drugs aims for listeners’ feelings about them, and for our collective radio unconscious. On Lost In The Dream, they nail us good.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Teeth Dreams
    Finn has slowed what rolls off his tongue, just as The Hold Steady as a whole has at last jelled into a rock band--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing held back.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Salad Days
    Though DeMarco certainly hasn’t ditched his slacker aesthetic, Salad Days is nonetheless a strikingly mature achievement for the 23-year-old.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Shriek
    Departures rarely sound this confident--it helps that Shriek builds off of the major songwriting strides made by Civilian.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Nikki Nack
    Nikki Nack, Garbus’ third effort, is polished, meticulously produced, and very much a studio effort.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    To Be Kind
    Throughout To Be Kind, it seems as if Swans can barely contain Gira’s vision of what his music can surround, conquer, and absorb.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Unrepentant Geraldines
    Despite the serious subject matter, Unrepentant Geraldines has a lightness--and even creative joy--that makes it a thoroughly enjoyable listen.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Are We There
    Are We There offers an artist in full command of her voice and her instrument, a woman who knows exactly what she wants to offer listeners and who isn’t afraid to accompany the barest streaks of sunlight with thousands of clouds.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Glass Boys
    With Glass Boys the band takes another evolutionary leap without leaving anyone pining for the past.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lazaretto
    An album that’s otherwise so successful at distilling a singular vision into something both gut-punching and sonically intriguing.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Familiars
    With this rewarding album, The Antlers take the band’s wounds and find glimmers of redemption and hope.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    No Coast
    With No Coast Braid has changed, but it’s retained the identity it established all those years ago, making for a return that’s not only welcome, but one that’s wholly necessary.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lese Majesty
    A brontide is an explosive sound believed to come from earth tremors. Fittingly, Lese Majesty resounds just as seismic.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Never Hungover Again
    Never Hungover Again isn’t a complete overhaul of the band’s sound, but with all the gentle twists on those charms, it ends up serving as a re-introduction.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    LP1
    Few debuts possess such control and ambition all in one; LP1 is the rare album that manages to sound both lived in and completely futuristic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    El Pintor
    At a concise 10 tracks clocking in right at 40 minutes, there doesn’t seem to be much fat to trim on this record.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Too Bright
    What results is at times noisy, at times beautiful, and always captivating.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Syro
    Even if Syro isn’t a radical departure, it’s still a swaggering return, a reminder of just how many varieties of warped sound remain at James’ command--and just how few of his acolytes can touch that versatility.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Art Official Age
    A stellar album that functions more as an ellipsis than a period. This album is an indicator that Prince is still pulling levers and asking questions.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You're Dead!
    You’re Dead! is his most confidently structured work yet.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Tough Love
    The only significant misstep on Tough Love is the plodding “Kind Of... Somtimes... Maybe,” which is just as hesitant and wishy-washy as its title suggests. In other words, it’s unlike the rest of Tough Love, which is sure-footed, propulsive, and breathtakingly confident.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    RTJ2
    The sequel takes the simplistic thrills of the debut and expands the duo’s natural chemistry. With Killer Mike grounded at the album’s emotional core, El-P is free to indulge in his intrepid production tendencies.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    La Isla Bonita
    It’s a microcosm of this superb album, one that finds Deerhoof reaching a pinnacle on its most assured, compelling work to date.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Faith in Strangers
    It’s an exciting step forward for an artist who could easily have been content to hang back.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    No Cities to Love
    No Cities To Love is a bold and deeply revealing look at the band’s past nine years, both together and apart.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Uptown Special
    Without sacrificing authenticity, Ronson has created an accessible, pop-friendly, and undeniably sexy collection of funk and R&B.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I Love You, Honeybear
    With a welcoming tenor and a likeably schmaltzy delivery that finds him displaying loads of range and emotions, he’s able to give his subject matter the unforgiving and ultimately warm treatment it deserves.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    To Pimp A Butterfly
    On Lamar’s longer, denser, and even richer follow-up To Pimp A Butterfly, he stops holding the listener’s hand.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
    Sometimes extends the fantastic first impression of songs like “Avant Gardener” and “History Eraser” into a far more memorable and cohesive proper debut for Barnett.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Scene Between
    Despite his plunderphonic techniques, he’s a classic pop songwriter, and The Scene Between comes awfully close to being a classic pop album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
    Despite its brevity, Asunder has more meat on its bones. And though it calls back to many of the strengths of early GY!BE albums, it also highlights an evolution of intent.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Painted Shut
    Unfortunately for some, Painted Shut signals the end of Hop Along’s tenure as a little-known buzz band. For everyone else, it’s the sound of being welcomed to the party.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Universal Themes
    They’re occasionally manic and often rambling, but nevertheless they offer brutally honest and undeniably fascinating glimpses into his life and worldview.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Surf
    Surf is so vibrant, so alive with triumphant vibes and unadulterated joy, that it never leaves any room for cynicism.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Luminiferous
    This track [“The Lethal Chamber”], as well as Luminiferous as a whole, aggressively illustrates that High On Fire still deserves its place at the top of underground metal’s food chain.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Something More Than Free
    Isbell’s lyrics on Southeastern sharpened to a poignancy that he’d mostly hinted at before, and though Something More Than Free may not repeat Isbell’s album-of-the-year accolades, it continues the magic of that breakthrough LP.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Blade
    The majority of Monroe’s superb third album hunkers down with heartache and struggle.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bittersweet
    Throughout the album, Chambers displays a remarkable ability to weave sharp wit with lyrics that touch on loss and desperation.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Death Magic
    A monstrous album on which its electronic and industrial mystique has matured to represent an absorption of the band’s discography, injected with a serum of growth hormones.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Poison Season
    Poison Season is the sound of an artist in complete control of the strange chaos around him.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Depression Cherry
    The band’s understanding of their own head-in-the-clouds aesthetic and knowing where to sew in (or cut out) the stitches to keep their sound in a constant, albeit low-key, flux results in much more of a mesmerizing experience than would changing directions entirely.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    B'lieve I'm Goin' Down
    It hews much more closely to Isaac Brock’s hallucinatory scorched-earth apocalyptic premonitions on Modest Mouse’s finest moments, and musically, it’s the purest distillation of Vile’s idiosyncratic style to date.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Caracal
    With even more glossy production than Settle, Caracal is high-quality Top 40 material.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    1989
    What his version of 1989 does best is illustrate the strength of the source material. With the radio-ready gloss stripped away, these songs compare to the best moments in Swift’s back catalog.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    New Bermuda
    New Bermuda doesn’t break down the walls of metal, instead it expands its confines, allowing Deafheaven to include subgenres that rarely mix while injecting more outside references. Ultimately, New Bermuda proves just how progressive of a genre metal can be, purists be damned.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fading Frontier
    There’s a confidently dreamy quality running through most of the songs on Fading Frontier that gives off the impression of a group at peace with both itself and its place in the musical world.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    VEGA INTL. Night School
    A vibrant, glitchy, hook-laden celebration of nightlife.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us
    It’s across 10 immaculately tidy tracks, and if Snyder’s goal is to get the band’s points across and accomplish that feeling of catharsis all the same, then this record sure feels like a success.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Teens of Style
    Those familiar with Toledo’s back catalog will marvel at the reworking of their favorite tracks, while the uninitiated will likely discover a bright young talent and wonder how the hell they’ve been missing out.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Art Angels
    It’s slick and gritty, fun and funny, and horrifying and grotesque all at once. It will also make you shake your ass like nothing else.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    25
    Her music feels authentic because, as a listener, you believe that these songs about love, pain, fear, and loss come from somewhere real and personal. On 25, she once again has something to say, with a voice that demands to be heard.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Blackstar
    For all its jazz accents and solos, Blackstar ends up becoming a stage for the things that first made Bowie a pop star: his incessantly catchy melodies and elastic voice.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    King Push - Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude
    If Darkest Before Dawn really is a prelude to the record King Push to come, you have to wonder where Pusha T will choose to take his music next. Making it deeper, angrier, darker, and more foreboding doesn’t seem possible.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Emotional Mugger
    Segall has such control of the chaos on Emotional Mugger that once you’ve reached the halfway point you’ll realize that you were never doubting him--because as he’s developed as a songwriter, he’s grown more adventurous and even more dependable. The bigger the catalog, the better.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Psychedelic Swamp
    You can marvel at the strangely layered backdrops of these songs, get lost tracing the oddball sonic twists, and still come out with the chorus planted firmly in your head.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    More Rain
    The result is an album that rocks out a little more than its predecessors, while not giving up the factors that made Ward’s music so great to begin with.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    untitled unmastered.
    It may be a while before Lamar releases a project with such low stakes again, so take Untitled for the casual gift that it is: a bonus disc that improbably holds up as an essential album in its own right.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache
    While other groups that release so much material typically lapse into mediocrity at some point, both of these bands are seemingly inexhaustible wells of brilliance. One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache is a perfect example.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Human Performance
    Human Performance as a whole feels less rigid (and abrasive) and more personal in how it deals with restlessness and dread.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Junk
    It’s easily M83’s most challenging, best album to date.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    PersonA
    Skeptics who have already written the band off may dismiss the new methods as artificial, which isn’t that hard to do, given how much of the group’s history feels contrived. But, to an impartial ear, the record doesn’t sound like a collective of falsely enthusiastic neo-hippies; rather, it sounds like a collective of talented, unhampered musicians, and it deserves recognition as such.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Nocturnal Koreans
    Fifteen albums into its career, the band has never sounded more ready to rip up its playbook and forge ahead into new territory.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Ship
    The Ship is a thrilling album, emotionally draining in parts, but more than worth the struggle. Forty-one years after Another Green World, Eno is still foraging for new musical ground, and what he’s able to come up with is nothing short of miraculous.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You're Doomed. Be Nice.
    This is an album that wants to be heard. It’s also an album that wants to be listened to.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    All over Lemonade, Beyoncé is describing her own personal reality, on her terms and informed by her worldview. That the album simultaneously pushes mainstream music into smarter, deeper places is simply a reminder of why she remains pop’s queen.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Holy Ghost
    In addition to being a powerful examination of self-worth and how it tends to wither beneath the responsibilities of adulthood, the record is also a testament to the band’s growth musically and thematically.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    Coloring Book delivers one celebratory hymnal after another, emphasizing the natural high that comes with feeling loved and watched over.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Strange Little Birds
    20-plus years after forming, each band member is still fired up to mine new sounds and approaches for inspiration. That willingness to be uncomfortable and look beneath the surface makes Strange Little Birds a rousing success.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    You Will Never Be One of Us
    Nails constructs towers of noise tall enough to blot out the sun.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Magic
    The Magic, the band’s aptly named 13th album, is the loosest, most expansive Deerhoof LP in some years.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not
    The intimacy it reaches on Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not is as hard won as it’s ever been. The band approaches it from the obtuse angles only it can, arriving there because of its excessive volume, its unorthodox tempos, and its lyrical inscrutability, not in spite of it. To the uninitiated, it may seem formulaic, but it’s the self-imposed limitations that make Dinosaur Jr. so distinctive.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Boy King
    More so than ever on the new Boy King, Wild Beasts seem especially comfortable and confident with their wayward electro. Which only shows in the added coats of glitz.
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