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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    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Brave And The Bold
    The Brave And The Bold is one odd duck of an album, with two unsympathetic musical personalities paying tribute to 10 other unsympathetic musical personalities by making a record that doesn't sound at all... expected.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Standing In The Way Of Control
    Ditto can wail like a gospel singer with bugs under her skin, or quietly sing with an almost palpable vulnerability, and her range suits The Gossip's jagged, bluesy post-punk well.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sing-Sing And I
    And even though Sing-Sing's elements of homage lead to some songs more underdeveloped than charmingly minimal, the duo never sounds less than bright and engaged.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Donuts
    Where Champion Sound built and expanded on Dilla's signature champion sound, Donuts blasts off into the sonic stratosphere, straying far from his trademark neck-snapping drums, dirty keyboards, and backward melodies in favor of stream-of-consciousness weirdness and free-associative sonic experimentation.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Last Romance
    Arab Strap's dark, funny, miserable, and--gasp--catchy The Last Romance sounds like the album Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton wouldn't let themselves make in the past, but finally relented to.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Believer
    Given time, though, The Believer blooms.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Inside In Inside Out
    For now, at least, these kids are all right, and bubbling with ideas.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fab Four Suture
    Stereolab is arguably better now than it's ever been.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Morph The Cat
    There's something weirdly compelling about hearing Fagen settle into this particular rut, especially on a set of songs about growing old in an age of terror.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Drum's Not Dead
    Drips with a sense of myth and mystery.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Born Again In The USA
    It sounds like three talented guys having fun making music, unworried about burrowing too deep or pleasing anyone but themselves.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bring It Back
    The songs skirt the edge of cute, but Gardner and Hammel's forthrightness and skillful arrangement keep them from becoming too sugary.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Murray's Revenge
    On Revenge, Murs and 9th Wonder wisely stick to the winning formula that paid such rich creative dividends on 3:16--strong song concepts, minimal guest appearances, a brisk running time, dope beats, and lyrics both smart and smartass.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Show Your Bones
    As before, the band's willingness to ground itself in human emotion sets it apart.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bitter Honey
    A set of acoustic songs that don't sound markedly different from his work with Clem Snide, except that they seem to be missing something.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ringleader Of The Tormentors
    Track for track, Ringleader is unquestionably Morrissey's best in ages.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Garden Ruin
    "Cruel" sounds like a mini-symphony, as do the fragile, faintly psychedelic "Panic Open String" and the post-Beatles singer-songwriter ballad "Lucky Dime."
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Return To The Sea
    A tighter, more controlled version of The Unicorns' wackiness.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
    While this record remains absolutely likeable, it still sounds too much like the soundtrack for a concert that hasn't happened yet.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes
    The 35 stellar instrumental tracks on Vol. 1-2: Movie Scenes make a convincing argument that in the future Madlib--a one-man band in both the literal and figurative sense--might be better off eschewing rappers and singers as collaborators altogether.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Love And Other Planets
    Adem's devotion to Radiohead leads to some unnecessary noise-making, but also to some highly necessary exploration of disjointed song structures.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    St. Elsewhere
    St. Elsewhere deftly balances solid songcraft with free-floating weirdness for a project that's suavely international but unmistakably American.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pearl Jam
    The band gladly sacrifices fluidity for drama, and even catchy Pearl Jam tracks like "World Wide Suicide" (with its winding hook and acid lyrics) and "Parachutes" (with its charmingly odd acoustic bounce) periodically wander into the murk.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ships
    It isn't fair to Smith to imply that Ships is Danielson's play for a Stevens-level breakout, but the record is definitely an assured, ambitious follow-up to 2004's ramshackle Brother Is To Son.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Surprise
    Surprise's pervasive feeling of woe and caution makes it Simon's first album since Graceland where the sound isn't just a gimmick.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Eyes Open
    Eyes Open dives headfirst into mainstream waters, hoping the strength of its intentions will be visible through the glossy bombast. It is, but it takes some surface-scratching to reach it.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A City By The Light Divided
    Lush-yet-powerful songs that neither abandon the band's roots nor wallow in them.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Scale
    Some of his recent work has prioritized conceptual aims at the expense of his formidable musical talent, but Scale strikes a balance with songs as melodic and inviting as any he's ever composed.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Let's Get Out Of This Country
    And the award for most-improved artist of 2006 goes to… Camera Obscura.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras From The Illinois Album
    The Avalanche's best songs would've been Illinois standouts as well.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Eraser
    A claustrophobic sequel to Thief.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Feedback
    J5's strangely subdued Feedback is the rare rap album that might be too short for its own good.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Highway Companion
    It's an extended salute to killing time, telling stories, swapping jokes, and singing along to the radio. An album title has rarely been more apt.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    White Bread Black Beer
    Rarely have Pro Tools and a melancholy disposition fallen into such capable hands.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Happy Hollow
    Like its predecessor, Happy Hollow is a moody album with an inherent instability.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Damaged
    Like the 2002 album Is A Woman, Damaged scales back for an opaque set of heartbroken songs inspired by, in Wagner's words, "deeply personal experience."
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tower Of Love
    The record feels small but impeccably crafted, like a toy soldier.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Shining
    The Shining's biggest flaw is that it feels awfully slight, thanks to a run time of less than 37 minutes.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Crazy Itch Radio
    Where past albums like Rooty and especially 2003's Kish Kash seemed intent on eating listeners' brains by way of shuddering rhythms and hyper-dense pastiche, Crazy Itch Radio seems content to just lick those brains and let them get off on the restraint.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Trying To Never Catch Up
    This is an auspicious first effort, bringing some order to Austin's musical chaos.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit
    The deep-voiced young troubadour has constructed some songs worthy of his blue moods and obsession with the old-timey.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Normal Happiness
    Normal Happens is a collection of short, breezy power-pop songs with a lo-fi edge. It's easy to listen to, easy to like.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Public Warning
    Even if Sov doesn't cross over the way she or Def Jam might want her to, she still sounds like an original--even for people who know half the songs already.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Black Swan
    Though it's thinned with age, Jansch's voice has a warm, wizened tone that suits The Black Swan's introspective, emotionally naked material.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Once Again
    While Once Again occasionally slips from understated to sleepy, there isn't a bum track on the album.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Saturday Night Wrist
    The album is mostly a heady, atmospheric, willfully too-difficult-for-radio wash of sound that, save for a handful of tracks, stretches out and explores Deftones' creative limits more than ever before.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Yours To Keep
    The album contains a lot of strong material, made even better by Hammond's tendency to add a little extra guitar filigree every few minutes, just to make the songs even grander and more generous.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Jarvis
    The main difference between Jarvis and Pulp's final album, We Love Life, is that the new record feels far less portentous, and more brightly poppy.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kingdom Come
    Kingdom Come follows the same sturdy formula as The Black Album, Reasonable Doubt, and The Blueprint, with a minimum of guests, a reasonable running time, and trendy beats from top producers. But the urgency just isn't there.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hell Hath No Fury
    Fury is as lean and mean sonically as it is lyrically.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Tha Blue Carpet Treatment
    With his lush Blue Carpet Treatment, Snoop Dogg finally seems intent on building and expanding his musical legacy, rather than merely coasting on it.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Sweet Escape
    It's the kind of album that drifts through '80s poolside jams and breathy trunk-bump bangers in all the best ways.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    More Fish
    More Fish suffers during Ghostface's absences.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wincing The Night Away
    Mainly, the new disc is just more tentative than Chutes Too Narrow, with a lot of songs—like the first single, "Phantom Limb"—sounding like foggier, heavier versions of what The Shins have done before.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Friend And Foe
    Now that Menomena's technique feels less jarring and daring, though, the group has done a decent job of pouring its euphoric weirdness into bruised, beautiful songcraft.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Woke Myself Up
    Doiron's modus operandi is inward-looking and shy, whether she's whispering or, umm, singing quietly. It's a gamble in a look-at-me music world... Those with a taste for the unadorned, pretty, and emotionally striking, though, couldn't do much better.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    New Magnetic Wonder
    Even at its clunkiest, the album sparks.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Myth Takes
    The major stumbling blocks of !!!'s shtick still pertain.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Back Numbers
    Throughout Back Numbers, Wareham and Phillips push small emotions over big.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    I Can't Go On, I'll Go On
    The Broken West sounds like old-style AM pop with muscle and guts.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Autumn Defense
    While The Autumn Defense lacks the deeper sense of purpose of a neo-soft-rock band like Midlake, the insinuating "This Will Fall Away" and the pristine "Simple Explanation" run deeper than homage.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Infinity On High
    FOB could've cut an album's worth of club hits and still found an audience. Its refusal to do so shows it still knows the difference between selling records and making fans.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Cost
    The Frames' latest album, The Cost, contains only a handful of tracks like "Sad Songs," where the guitar springs along and the tempo stays steady... More typical is the title track, a noir-ish doom ballad in the Richard Thompson vein, designed to leave listeners stunned and morose.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sound Of Silver
    Sure, lots of other people have done this lately, but few do it with Murphy's flair.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Glitter In The Gutter
    By and large, the songs on Glitter In The Gutter are confident and well-crafted, in the street-poet tradition of Tom Waits and Willie Nile.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Foley Room
    Foley Room might be his darkest work yet.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Strangelet
    The focus remains squarely on Phillips' voice and yearning songs, and that's a good place for it to be.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Or Give Me Death
    Terry's miniaturist inclinations don't always mesh with Aqueduct's increased technical polish.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Woke On A Whaleheart
    While Callahan's Woke On A Whaleheart shares Smog's rumbly tone and rootsy foundations, it is a bit of a departure.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Undisputed Truth
    Ali's unselfconscious candor engenders an intimacy between artist and fan that makes each new album feel like a letter from an old friend.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Our Earthly Pleasures
    On the whole, Our Earthly Pleasures is a sprightly, winsome record, even if, in second-album terms, it's more Pretenders II than The Bends.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Volta
    Volta is a weird mess of an album, but it's also Björk's most approachable and immediate since Homogenic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    God Save The Clientele
    This is a pretty modest band, albeit one whose supple melodicism is abetted by layers of detail, and whose songs tend to stick around just long enough to make their mark before gracefully bowing out.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    No Shouts, No Calls
    The British quartet is primitive, almost amateurish in its approach—the vocals waver in and out of key, the drumming can generously be described as "plodding," and the songs are kiddie-band simple. But what simplicity, what plodding, what wavering!
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Everybody
    The product of a band that clearly loves its formula enough to tease it a little, Everybody is another fetching expression of The Sea And Cake's never-changing moods.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Memory Almost Full
    Memory Almost Full is actually worth hearing after you pay for your tall café au lait.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Era Vulgaris
    Era sounds like an effort to pull away from commercial radio and actually cultivate a smaller, indie-er fan base.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Version
    Most of the time... Ronson's big-band arrangements play like smart glosses on the albums he made with Winehouse and Allen, with waggish horn lines and supple guitar-bass-drums interplay throughout.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Fragile Army
    Such hugeness can be either exhilarating or tiresome, depending on the listener's capacity for joyful crescendos and enthusiastic shouting. But the album's most intriguing moments come when the church-choir antics are scaled back in favor of some introspection.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Can't Wait Another Day
    As pop craftsmen, the members of The Ladybug Transistor remain pretty peerless.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Libertad
    Velvet Revolver still mines sleaze-rock formula on songs like "She Builds Quick Machines," the band has also expanded its sound considerably, taking turns at rambling country and gauzy psychedelic pop before returning to the boozy classic rock.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    An End Has A Start
    With albums as strong as <i>An End Has A Start</i>, Editors may get the last laugh.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is more scattershot, as though Daniel weren't sure whether he wanted to make his big pop push, keep pursuing rhythmic deconstruction to its logical end, or just give up entirely and make "A Series Of Sneaks" again.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Time On Earth
    Thoughtful, warm, and endlessly hummable even in its moodiest moments, Time On Earth is a sweet epitaph.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    War Stories
    Some songs are intensely gripping, like the instrumental rave-up "Chemistry," which drives along like Mogwai never happened. Others are plain weird.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Three Easy Pieces
    Three Easy Pieces, the first album by a reunited Buffalo Tom, is arguably the band's second-best record.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Finding Forever
    It's tight, cohesive, devoid of filler, refreshingly brisk (at 50 minutes long), and sonically and lyrically focused.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    New Wave
    New Wave's triumph is its ability to rise above Butch Vig's airtight alt-rock production with gruffly sung, hook-heavy songs that show a dark maturity (such as the impressionist, dreamlike "The Ocean") while perpetuating AM's shout-along populism.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Underclass Hero
    The band's smartest and most mature-sounding album yet.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Broken String
    It really is great, striding confidently from one high point to the next, with expansive yet homemade-sounding folk-rock songs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fur & Gold
    Closing with a bonus cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" ends things on an uninspired, Tori Amos-like note, but by then, most will be too far under Khan's spell to notice.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Stage Names
    The Stage Names is a relatively straightforward roots-rock record, rounded out by clever, pop-culture-obsessed songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Liars
    For Liars, forgoing heady concepts and willful obtuseness--embracing rock music instead of deconstructing it--may actually be the boldest move yet.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Hair, The TV, The Baby & The Band
    Even when Imperial Teen reduces its sound to almost nothing, as on the hauntingly spare 'What You Do,' every instrument and voice rings out, appealingly unsullied.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Made of Bricks
    Nash isn't quite the pottymouth that some of those titles might suggest, and she does a good job of keeping her tales about going for the wrong guy (among other problems faced by a 20-year-old woman) relatively universal, even as she's singing about trainers, tarts, and discos.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Can I Keep This Pen?
    The group's defiantly loose new disc once again kicks it independent-style, with a sparkling new set that augments signature old-school flows and girlish good humor with electro and new-wave flourishes.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Strawberry Jam
    Animal Collective's abstract and catchy sides are each constantly aware of what the other is doing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Graduation
    Fascinatingly flawed, Graduation finds an imperfect man seeking, and occasionally finding, perfection in his music.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rise Above
    Dirty Projectors leader Dave Longstreth clearly had more than a remake on his mind--a mind whose wandering ways will be worth following for years to come.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
    The Historical Conquests is at its best when Ritter's off-the-cuff approach intersects with a winning pop melody, as on 'Right Moves' and 'Empty Hearts,' where the neatly arranged horns, fiddles, and piano play against Ritter's tumbling lyrics.
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