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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    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Ghosteen
    He sounds simultaneously alone at the edge of the world and surrounded by benevolent spirits, a fittingly biblical cloud of witnesses who haven’t seen the power of God so much as they’ve moved through the fallout of their own atomic blasts; theirs is a communion of radiation. So it’s a bit of a surprise that Ghosteen is also Cave’s most accessible album since The Boatman’s Call.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    All Mirrors
    The music is gorgeous but feels labored over, like pottery lacquered with one too many layers of shellac. Hopefully Olsen will also still release her stripped-back take on All Mirrors, as it’s the dressing—not the songs themselves—that stumbles.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Birth of Violence
    With melodies that are stretched thin and simplistic lyrics that feel even more so next to the sophisticated arrangements, Birth Of Violence’s dark beauty is like standing outside watching the stars in winter: stark, beautiful, and a little numbing.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Norman Fucking Rockwell!
    As a mood piece, Norman Fucking Rockwell does an admirable job preserving Del Rey’s mystique while moving her sound forward.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Twelve Nudes
    The record is as raw as a scraped knee and more furious than a woman scorned, a brick through the window of our reactionary era that draws inspiration from the equally pissed-off first wave of punk rock.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Lover
    As always, Lover is an album Swift made for her fans. But it also feels like a record she made for herself, unburdened by external expectations and her own past.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Thrashing thru the Passion
    It’s a productive scaling-down—the sound of a great rock band getting back to work. The Hold Steady achieves its classic-punk alchemy by balancing the powerful rock ’n’ roll mythmaking of guitarist Tad Kubler’s riffs with the conversational myth-puncturing of Finn’s lyrics, and that balance threatens to topple over if the songs venture into more grandiose or self-referential territory.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Center Won't Hold
    This may also be Sleater-Kinney’s lustiest album yet. Several of the album’s 11 songs are peppered with breathy sighs and ecstatic yelps, and it’s almost as if Brownstein is staring you directly in the eyes as she sings, “Let me defang you and defile you on the floor,” in “Bad Dance.” But this, too, has its political aspect. ... A stunning finale is another Sleater-Kinney specialty, and The Center Won’t Hold delivers with the devastating, disarming “Broken.”
    • 71 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Big Day
    The Big Day is a rare bouquet on full display; a stunningly realized array of color, sound, and sensation that swallows the room. Any structure at risk of pop cliché finds new life through Chance, whose mastery of composition creates spins on existing musical archetypes like new synaptic grooves being carved out for the very first time.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bandana
    The first record was a grower, gradually establishing itself as one of the great producer-emcee efforts of the young millennium, but Bandana seems designed to dazzle, to assert a joint legacy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Western Stars
    It’s a delight to hear the man summon the musical spirits of his past, but it’s all a bit overly tasteful and mannered to have the force as his usual work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Flamagra
    The net effect is a host of sounds and voices being drawn to Flamagra, much as a Quincy Jones opus involved dozens of contributors, some famous, others known only by professional reputation. If it all sounds vaporous at times, or even predictable to listeners long familiar with Flying Lotus’ sound, then at least it represents his growth into a full-fledged record producer, someone capable of straight-up great songwriting as well as engagingly electronic funk.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    California Son
    Without the baggage of his political views--which is where the letter grade on this review comes from--California Son would be a worthy addition to a mostly stellar catalog, offering insight into a great singer and lyricist’s taste and breathing new life into mostly forgotten songs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    The National’s never been afraid to dial things down, but it’s rarely sounded as vulnerable as it does here--song after song, Dessner’s vibrant, moody arrangements serve to reflect Berninger’s precarious balance of hope and frustration.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    Father Of The Bride isn’t the shocking rebirth that might have been expected, given all of the information that trickled out about it over the past six years. Instead, it’s just far enough from expectations to surprise, but close enough to remain true. It’s a little messy and a little weird (and, again, a little long), but exactly the right record for Vampire Weekend right now.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Cuz I Love You
    Perhaps the most striking thing about Cuz I Love You is its vulnerability.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Titanic Rising
    Rado’s opulent production gives the experience of listening to Titanic Rising—particularly on headphones—the feeling of being enveloped in sound, insulated from the outside world like an astronaut looking down at the earth through layers of atmosphere. The lyrics on Titanic Rising certainly contribute to the album’s daydream quality.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    My Finest Work Yet
    he 10 tracks that make up My Finest Work Yet feel even more present, more in the moment, while never sacrificing any musicianship. Paul Butler’s production makes a gorgeous chorus out of the potential cacophony of a roomful of instruments and voices. The arrangements are as precise as ever, the track order gradually revealing a narrative that includes wrongdoings, incitement, and action.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Weezer [Black Album]
    The cynical read of this would be that Cuomo is both hugely calculating and deeply inept at performing those calculations, but the experiments and strange asides on The Black Album don’t come across as trend-chasing so much as genuinely eclectic. ... Maybe it’s more important that Weezer’s idiosyncrasies feel honest again.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    thank u, next
    A leap forward in the way it reshapes her R&B-inflected pop into something sleeker and more adventurous. ... Thank U, Next skillfully toys with the tension between universal sentiments and deeply personal confessions.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Assume Form
    Assume Form casts Blake’s prior albums in a new light, as does the once-secretive young maestro’s new openness about his life and his struggles. What sounded like someone trying to dive down into the inkiest depths of his soul turns out to have been someone trying to swim up out of them.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Remind Me Tomorrow
    Its 10 songs are much more focused on how their protagonists are dealing right now, in the present, with triumphs, traumas, and new beginnings. This approach leads to rich songs with lyrics probing the liminal space where resolution isn’t clear—but emotional reactions crackle on the surface like tingling electricity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?
    Thoughtful, strange, spiritual, immersive, rewarding upon repeated and thoughtful engagement.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mandy [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    It marks a turning point in his musical style, an embrace of the lush and layered as well as the heavy and metallic. Realizing that, and thinking about what could have come next, makes his death all the more tragic.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Some Rap Songs
    Well, it can be [dour]. But it’s also ecstatic. Make no mistake: This is an album by one of the best rappers alive, elbowing slant rhymes and assonance into his disses (“Please do abort, I could feel when you’re forcin’ it / Still in a bore riddim”) and exhaling those singularly oblong sentences of his (“Galaxy’s the distance between us by Christmas,” he describes one foundering relationship).
    • 64 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    E=MC2
    It's skillful and winsome enough that the other hits it spins off will stay pleasant, if not revelatory.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Black Velvet
    Even as Black Velvet occasionally fails to gel as a cohesive album--it is, after all, essentially a B-sides collection--it succeeds as a tribute to an authentic talent.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Suspiria [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Its ballet scenes are climactic, cathartic centerpieces, dramatically illustrating the power of sound to move, to manipulate, to conjure. Yorke’s score is a shrine to that dark power.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Darkness Rains
    Musically, the group’s sound is looser and more ferocious than some of its contemporaries, embracing atonal saxophone à la X-Ray Spex and swaggering scuzz-rock riffs along with the psychedelic guitar, sinister organ, and heavy, pounding drums you’d expect from a garage-rock revival band.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Tha Carter V
    Like any fifth installment in a series, you’re going to need to care about those early entries to care about this one, and, at 90 minutes, it’s way more than anyone needs. But the highlights are so many--Mannie Fresh reunion “Start This Shit Off Right,” gonzo Kendrick collab “Mona Lisa,” the mixtape-style freakout of “Let It Fly,” heartbreaking coda “Let It All Work Out”--that you sort of give him a pass on the duds.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Electric Messiah
    The band’s eighth studio album towers alongside its best work, offering both peerless, full-speed-ahead blitzkriegs (like the title track, dedicated to late Motörhead frontman Lemmy, a kindred spirit in grizzled delivery and powerhouse shredding) and slower, heavier epics like the 10-plus-minute “Sanctioned Annihilation.”
    • 79 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Wanderer
    There’s nothing inherently wrong about Wanderer being mannered--but, unfortunately, the album’s subtlety is also often its undoing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Lamb
    In many ways, The Lamb is a step forward for West, but here’s hoping its cleaned-up approach doesn’t end up reining her in too much.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    AAARTH
    Aaarth is the band’s most off-kilter collection of anthems yet, working in tribal drumming, stuttering and overlapping vocal tracks, and some of the Middle Eastern influences Led Zeppelin famously tried on for size when feeling adventurous. Admirable though the experimentation can be, The Joy Formidable still hits its sweetest spot aiming for the nosebleeds.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Iridescence
    The group’s music is all over the place, often gloriously so. The temptation has always been to pick out best tracks from these records, and Iridescence has some clear standouts.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dancing Queen
    Dancing Queen pulls off a perfect balance of frothy effervescence and resonant emotional depth.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    MITH
    The musical spaciness only enhances his already-considerable dignity and the gravitas of his songwriting, making Mith a powerful, prophetic collection.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Art of Doubt
    While album standout “Risk” delivers a slick and insistent groove with lyrics about trying to cut through layers of emotional distance--too many tracks find themselves lacking the enticing hooks that fuel so much of Metric’s appeal.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cry Pretty
    Here the bluesy “Drinking Alone” transports you to a smoky bar where two lonely strangers find each other above their beer bottles, while “The Bullet” is a strong and surprising anti-gun-violence message from a country star. But it’s Underwood’s considerable resilience that shines through here.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Piano & A Microphone 1983
    Piano & A Microphone 1983 verges on postmortem voyeurism, but it’s also a unique insight into the way a notoriously private artist’s creative impulses fired.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Chris
    Chris more than anything revels in fluid identities--whether gender, personality, mood, or otherwise--and the way they free people from expectations and limits. By extension, this frees up Christine And The Queens from musical conventions, and propels the group to the precipice of greatness.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Room 25
    From beginning to end, Room 25 is a testimony to the power of telling your story and the hope that can be found in doing so without apology. Like hearing the chorus of an old spiritual or having a long conversation with a close friend, each song is intimate in a restorative way. An unquestionable balm for uncertain times like these, this album announces Noname’s lyrical coming-of-age.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Moon 2
    Moon 2 plays more like a collection of standout tracks than the kind of album that needs to be taken in from beginning to end, but it’s effective all the same. Nearly every song could be slotted into a playlist at a club without screwing up the flow, and that’s an achievement in itself.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    True Meanings
    Forty-plus years into his career, the Modfather has once again ripped up his own playbook--and released a singular album.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Double Negative
    The result is fearless and impressive, but often lacking in the kind of inviting musicality that encourages repeat listening. It’s a headphones record that holds its audience at a distance: admirably fascinating, but rarely addictive.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Render Another Ugly Method
    All told, Render Another Ugly Method is a transitory step for Mothers, one that’s equally messy and compelling, showing that Leschper’s voice as a songwriter and singer remains her own, no matter how many effects she puts on top of it.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    And Nothing Hurt
    Nothing Hurt is the band distilled into its most affecting essence.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Solo Piano III
    While those showier pieces grab attention on first listen, the more meditative ones slowly sink their hooks in, too.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    In the Blue Light
    It would be easy to get bogged down in treating Blue Light as a compare/contrast exercise, but what’s most impressive about is the way that it sounds more or less of a piece as its own record.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    New Hymn to Freedom
    New Hymn To Freedom, the English trio’s second album, is a remarkably lucid 45 minutes of spontaneous composition, a civilization of sound and emotion conjured from nothing more than the in-the-moment interplay between keyboardist Luke Abbott, saxophonist Jack Wylie, and drummer Lawrence Pike.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Egypt Station
    This is very much a Paul McCartney solo album: the uneven product of compulsive songwriting that includes several delightful songs, several terrible ones, and a lot in between. It wouldn’t be fair to say he sounds out of ideas, because this formula describes a whole lot of his non-Beatles albums going back decades.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fixed Ideals
    The only downside is a sense of fussiness that suffuses some of the more heavily produced tracks, a slightly stultifying vibe that saps a bit of urgency and vitality from the songs, making them feel too precious, as though the music was hermetically sealed to prevent anything too loose or raw from breaking free. Still, it’s another set of engaging and mostly excellent songs from one of the U.K.’s most compelling rock trios, and well worth the time.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Magus
    It’s frontman Bryan Funck’s bilious self-reflection that rescues Magus from its occasionally oppressive, repetitive crunch—even if his own introspection, delivered in a swamp-thing rasp, is a little harder to decipher than Cobain’s ever was.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Indigo
    Emotionally rich and full of depth, Indigo is easily Wild Nothing’s best album to date.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bloom
    Appropriately, Bloom’s beauty and gifts reveal themselves gradually over time.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Big Red Machine
    With much to toy with, Vernon and Dessner create an unhurried warmth that makes a song like “Forest Green” so moving and gives Big Red Machine the feeling of a soft rainbow light cast from a crystal in the sun.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Hunter
    More than just grafting on its politics and themes of liberation, Hunter embodies them by capturing a freer, more complex--and queerer--view of its creator. Anna Calvi is on the loose.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Negro Swan
    He’s given us not just a great album, but a piece of himself that stands as a whole truth that need not be escaped, but rather, treasured.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    KIN [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    With its songs that loom like smoldering towers and enveloping hazes of electronic programming, KIN, the band’s score for Jonathan and Josh Baker’s apocalyptic pursuit film of the same name, splits the difference between the average late-period Mogwai record and its previous film work, and when it dodges the temptation toward the histrionic.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Go to School
    It’s the kind of complicated release that rewards repeated listens, as the story of a disaffected chimp translates into songs about the loneliness and longing for acceptance that linger even as high school fades away.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dance on the Blacktop
    While much of the album intermixes the gritty and the gorgeous with all the economy of an Anton Corbijn photo, there are moments of open-hearted purity, too. But unlike just about every other band on earth, NOTHING is at its best when it closes itself off and spins into oblivion.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Marauder
    Like a wild party, the album gets looser and less coherent as it goes along. Still, fans should be pleased to hear that Marauder shifts the group’s focus while still remaining recognizably Interpol.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Sweetener
    Confident and empowered, Sweetener illustrates once again that Grande is an unparalleled pop chameleon.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Queen
    It’s a lot of fun, but not quite the instant classic for which Minaj seems to have been aiming.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tangerine Reef
    The record captures all the noodling self-indulgence that makes the psych-poppers such a maddeningly inconsistent live act. But Tangerine Reef is an incomplete object in this form: It’s accompaniment, not feature presentation, the drowsy soundtrack to the iridescent undersea visuals of Australian filmmakers Coral Morphologic.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Smote Reverser
    Smote Reverser, the group’s 21st album, picks up the proggy, kraut-flavored vibes of 2017’s Orc and pushes even further into the cosmos. ... The longer Oh Sees go, the more wicked they get.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Thank You for Today
    “Summer Years” is the band’s earnest indie-rock sound distilled to its purest essence, and “When We Drive” is an elegiac look at long-term relationships through the metaphor of a road trip--but there’s no “Doors Unlocked And Open” or “Ghosts Of Beverly Drive” to shake things up. It’s another solid Death Cab For Cutie album, but it lacks vitality.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Be the Cowboy
    Although Be The Cowboy sees Mitski fully transformed from her lo-fi beginnings in terms of production, her post-Pixies guitar-rock tendencies still come through strong, albeit now more lush and kaleidoscopic than buzzing and raucous.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shooter
    Sometimes, it’s a bit too much polish, though, as in the glossy, horns-drenched kickoff, “Bound Ta Git Down.” Things thankfully get a little rowdier in the anthemic “Do You Love Texas?” complete with slide guitar and a “hell yeah” chorus, and a song succinctly titled “D.R.U.N.K.”
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Future Me Hates Me
    It can tend toward the simplistic--the title track apes early Weezer, for example--but the middle of the album (particularly “Not Running”) shows that when the band embraces its more rambunctious and harder-edged sound, it captures something powerful.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Nearer My God
    It’s as impressive as it is expansive, a perfect showcase for modern emo’s elasticity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Stay Dangerous
    It pretty much all works, in the way that all of YG’s music works, anchored by superlative taste and a flow as versatile and reliable as T.I. in his prime.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Nature of Imitation
    For all its synthetic parts, Imitation is beautifully alive. It’s fussy and whimsical, with most tracks holding onto just a handful of elements as they transform their palettes and dynamics several times over.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Qualm
    Like all of Hauff’s work, Qualm offers a lot to chew on while also resisting overanalyzing. You let it lure and lash you, let it move you or just move on.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Basic Volume
    Basic Volume is noisy and abrasive, but it’s also frequently beautiful, and it speaks as loudly as it takes to be heard.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Swimming
    Miller sounds great when he’s whining, croaking, stretching syllables like warm mozzarella. Swimming’s spare, dreamy production allows him to do a lot of that.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Devouring Radiant Light
    The 46-minute Devouring Radiant Light lets the band breathe. It sounds like they needed it--the record’s longest songs are its best.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Joy
    It’s barely over 30 minutes long but brims with musical ideas, including several sets of interconnected songs that push Segall and Presley to their weirdest and most tuneless.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Hive Mind
    For all of Hive Mind’s merits, it still has a tendency to get lost in its own grooves and retread some of the same territory, particularly in its slower, more intimate cuts. But this is still a step forward for this young, talented crew, housing nothing but scintillating performances from Syd and, in the rare moments when the group cuts loose, some seriously intoxicating funk.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Across the Meridian
    It makes for a generally more approachable version of Pram’s eclectic electronic cabaret--one that would make a fine soundtrack to a fever-dream matinee of B-movie sci-fi and gumshoe thrillers. Although, that also means that, more so than Pram’s previous work, it often slips innocuously into the background.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Power
    Everywhere, analog instruments accelerate at such incredible speeds that their tones seem at once both fully physical and fully digital; they’re undeniably both of these things and yet it’s impossible to hear them as anything but a unified whole.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Lamp Lit Prose
    Dirty Projectors felt like an ending, but Lamp Lit Prose suggests several new beginnings and an army of collaborators looking to help Longstreth find inspiration and passion among the ashes
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
    Almost every song here seems to operate in a constant state of crescendo. But only the most stubborn traditionalist could deny how close Deafheaven often gets to the higher plane of its name.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Voids
    Any cohesive emotion is good news for Martyn, whose more recent albums, like 2014’s The Air Between Words, have been marked by typically tasteful production, but little else. Voids has that, but there’s also a welcome, brooding focus.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Byen
    Some of Byen’s best moments are when he lets some of that permanent midnight in on his aural sunshine, like the horror-film chorus that suddenly joins in on the clavinet-funk of “Gata,” or the baroque piano of ominous closer “Natta.”
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I'll Tell You What!
    I’ll Tell You What! reflects his confidence in making every sound count, but its outlook is melancholy.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Endless Scroll
    Debut album Endless Scroll is an enjoyable but occasionally generic combination of carnival-barker speak-sing and new-wave post-punk influences.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Scorpion
    It’s a drag, but a compulsively listenable one, with velvety production and Drake’s typically elegant taste in guest voices.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Pray for the Wicked
    The poignant album-ending ballad “Dying In LA” makes you wish there had been more tracks showcasing Urie’s pop-transcending emotive vocals.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Uniform Distortion
    It doesn’t offer any particularly novel insights into the crushing, nearly unavoidable hellscape of the digital age, but instead fights valiantly against its grasp with Godzilla-size hooks, solos both vicious and dreamy, and lush production that encourages turning on, tuning in, and dropping out.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    K.T.S.E.
    K.T.S.E. should’ve been a breakout moment for her, but it was rushed to release to hit West’s schedule, and as such feels undercooked and unfocused. Make no mistake: There’s great “polo Kanye” stuff here, from the make-up-and-make-out ride of “Gonna Love Me” to the fierce autobiography of “Rose In Harlem.” The atomic ballroom “WTP” feels beamed in from another dimension.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Now Now
    Overall, The Now Now would work better if it fully embraced its melancholy.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    High As Hope
    Musically, High As Hope isn’t too far off from the operatic orchestration of her earlier work, which is the most frustrating thing about it. It does give the music a little more space to breathe, however, and adds a percussive through-line of handclaps, foot stomps, and prominent double bass that builds on the melodramatic vibe fans love.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Redemption
    Throughout Jay fixates on a specific sort of paranoid despair, chasing bottles of Henny with painkillers. His favorite move is to not move at all, finding a good flow and digging into it, often delivering tiny clipped phrases like a boxer practicing his jab.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    No Sounds Are Out of Bounds
    Overall it’s a baggy mixed bag of dub grooves and warmed-over house beats, dominated by an exhausting tower of babbling dialogue samples that, like No Sounds itself, rarely have much to say.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Kazuashita
    Kazuashita is impeccably made, but it could stand a little more chaos.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Bad Witch
    The instrumentals, like all NIN, reward immersive listening, but fans may find themselves wishing for a little more to grab onto.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heaven & Earth
    Earth is loaded with mentally and emotionally draining songs. ... Heaven, [is] a set of smoother, more cosmic songs that showcase Washington’s ability to pen compositions of awe-inspiring majesty. Even more impressive is the way those two modes occasionally bleed into each other from across the album’s border.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Everything is Love
    Everything may lack the emotional depth of Beyoncé’s last two solo records, but it more than makes up for it in holy-shit-Beyoncé moments. ... Only Jay’s own work with Kanye (and Drake and Future’s collaborative 2015 takeover of rap radio) even approach what the Carters have done here, at least as far as fusing their disparate personae into an appealing whole.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Sleepless
    Some, like the preset pings and warbles in “MS19” and “Io,” will also test just how much kitsch you take in your kosmische. Still, there are frequent spacey pleasures to latch onto, and an evident, infectious joy in its creation.
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