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
    • 100 Critic Score
    Kish Kash
    An album that sets the bar for density and imagination almost unreasonably high.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Enter The Vaselines
    The original sound of "The Way" has been greatly cleaned up here, and a few songs’ endings have been elongated slightly.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Impossible Kid
    Whereas Rock’s last solo album, Skelethon, showcases his unparalleled knack for abstract imagery and reflection, The Impossible Kid combines hallucinatory wordplay with disarmingly forthright autobiography--a combination that enhances the impact of each mode.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Tomorrow's Harvest
    Tomorrow’s Harvest is easily the Scottish duo’s most ghostly, bleak effort to date.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Strange Mercy
    While strings and horns occasionally creep in, Strange Mercy consistently makes do with little more than a conventional rock-band setup. All the better to display the record's rougher edges and willingness to let its mistakes show.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Winter Wheat
    These are hopeful, triumphant themes, but what Samson captures so well is the melancholy lurking beneath progress, the sense that we’re in the midst of perpetual loss. This makes for a provoking listen, but also a heavy one.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Montero
    Everything’s he’s done has led to this engaging debut record, a work that allows his inner self to shine.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    One Beat
    For several albums now, Sleater-Kinney has shown eagerness to experiment, and it seems to be pounding at a wall, getting ever closer to the recording that will break it down. One Beat isn't quite it, but it makes a glorious noise in the process.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Harrow and the Harvest
    Relaxed and steady-a little too much.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    async
    Async gives the sensation of being inside an art installation, where everything you’re supposed to be thinking is spelled out for you on little white gallery cards. Async works far better when Sakamoto lets the music mirror that existential ambiguity.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    High Violet
    With High Violet, The National has graduated from being a critic's band. Now it belongs to everyone.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This Right Here Is Buck 65
    Deft at pulling both heartstrings and party tricks, Buck 65 has peers as an emotive rapper, but he's alone in giving hip-hop such a personal, puzzling spin.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bloom
    Appropriately, Bloom’s beauty and gifts reveal themselves gradually over time.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Clearing the Path to Ascend
    All dreams must end--but by extension, so must all nightmares. On Clearing The Path To Ascend, Yob has beautifully, brutally conjured a bit of both.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    evermore
    evermore is even better than folklore, thanks to greater sonic cohesion (Antonoff only has one production credit, on the superlative “Gold Rush,” leaving the bulk of the music produced or co-produced by Aaron Dessner) and stronger songwriting.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    R.A.P. Music
    [R.A.P. Music] feels like the culmination of his unusual career.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pageant
    No amount of perma-teenage angst can dim PWR BTTM’s light, and by owning the hard work it takes to love yourself and others, particularly as a queer person, they celebrate the beauty and value of our lives.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mirror Reaper
    Attention spans will certainly be tested, but surrender to the despair and Bell Witch’s slow-motion eulogy--delivered through a lonely ring of guitar, gently crashing cymbals, and stray funeral-home organ--hits like a blast beat to the heart.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Before Today
    Rosenberg has spent time in a real studio with a real band, and while the resulting album, Before Today, is still lo-fi and crackpot, it’s remarkable how good Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti can sound with just a little cleanup.
    • 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.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Ugly Organ
    A potent piece of rock art.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Kaputt
    Kaputt rolls luxuriously in its own plush soft-rock grandeur, powerfully alluring and deeply sad at the same time.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Yonder Is The Clock
    These are all-American songs of devastation and alienation; they’re also loads of fun and damn hilarious much of the time.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Geogaddi
    The results can be overwhelmingly moving, but also overbearing after 66 minutes of breathless wonder.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beautiful Thugger Girls
    Few artists manage to balance wide-eyed eroticism with genuine warmth, and fewer manage the feat while packing multiple albums’ worth of hooks into each song. For Thug, it’s just his default mode.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pasar de las Luces
    There’s nothing amateurish about their album, which is as thoughtful in its track order as it is in its composition.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Little Oblivions
    With Little Oblivions, the singer-songwriter has made her most cohesive record yet. The resuscitation of a heavier sound works in Baker’s favor, while she still adds hints of the fragile gentleness that has captivated fans since her Sprained Ankle days.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    And Nothing Hurt
    Nothing Hurt is the band distilled into its most affecting essence.
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