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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    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    There’s so much pep and vinegar surging through Mosquito’s veins, such a comedown is not entirely unwelcome, and it contributes to the snarled, loopy texture that makes the album easy to get caught up in.
    • 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.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings
    Nearly everything here feels unfinished, and, for those seeking undiscovered gems from one of the greats, that might be a deal-breaker. The Home Recordings is not an easy listen. To appreciate The Home Recordings is to give yourself over to Cobain’s process, because it’s his freewheeling desire for discovery that propels these tracks.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pulse of the Early Brain: Switched On, Vol. 5
    Most of the material on this fifth volume of Switched On studiously avoids the trappings of pop music, so hearing this Emperor Tomato Ketchup single as a coda underscores how Stereolab’s music is the product of careful choices and planned adventure, a combination that often produces compelling results as Pulse Of The Early Brain makes plain.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Good Time [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    It’s a masterful job of homage, and—as with Thief and Drive before it--all those pulsating synths and cavernous low tones give the film much of its swagger, and they promise to intensify your own, far less exciting commute as well.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Relatives in Descent
    It’s devastating music uniquely attuned to our current cultural moment, stridently political but less interested in dictating the problems or their solutions than in mapping the emotional topography of being alive and terrified in 2017.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Giving
    Giving aggressively stakes out its territory, never wasting a moment--or a percolating bubble of sound--as it barrels thrillingly forward.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    More Life [Mixtape]
    More Life is light, often weightless. Despite its playlist tag, it is unmistakably a Drake album--it even has a Blueprint highball closer like each of its predecessors--and as an album, it is probably Drake’s worst. But as a collection of totally atomized songs and ideas, it’s up there with anything he’s released.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Somersault
    Far and away Beach Fossils’ finest record yet.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ghost on Ghost
    Most of Ghost On Ghost treads territory similar to Kiss Each Other Clean, just with a bit more loose-limbed joy replacing that album’s austere moments.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pageant Material
    Some tracks, like “Fine” and “Somebody To Love,” drag a bit, bringing the already slightly slow record down a notch. Still, tracks like the aforementioned “Biscuits” and weed-infused opener “High Time” more than make up the difference, making Pageant Material a must listen for anyone who’s a little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll, and just a little bit crazy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Inside Llewyn Davis [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Film soundtracks can seldom be appreciated as standalone works, but the music from Inside Llewyn Davis is a notable, and welcome exception to the rule. As evident in both their film and musical work, the Coen brothers are getting good at creating exceptions.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beware
    The new Bonnie Billy record, Beware, is fuller in every sense of the word, from the choir of background singers answering Oldham on the opening track ('Beware Your Only Friend') to the way Oldham stops that song cold for a muted interlude.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Goblin
    Brash and unwieldy as it seems on the surface, Goblin is a deliberately crafted work of art, one of the densest and most provocative statements that independent rap has produced in years.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Eyelid Movies
    Eyelid Movies ultimately has more atmosphere than songs, but for a band goin’ down the road to see Beth Gibbons, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rize of the Fenix
    No joke: Rize Of The Fenix is one of the year's most enjoyable hard-rock records.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pilot Talk II
    The rare misstep "Silence," full of murky warbling, highlights the delicate balance between chill and boring. Still, when it works, it works.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Stuck On Nothing
    Even on tracks that, on the surface, might seem a bit hokey, Free Energy succeeds with loose enthusiasm and unbridled confidence.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Heartless
    Heartless proves, Pallbearer is more than capable of making those old moves feel fresh.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ruminant Band
    Stripped of reference points, The Ruminant Band is an uncomplicated, easygoing success that suggests Johnson shouldn't get too busy to give Fruit Bats due attention.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Grace/Wastelands
    Listeners who aren’t already in sync with Doherty’s wastrel reportage likely won’t be swayed by Grace/Wastelands, but the album generates an atmosphere of fragile, easily disturbed calm bound to captivate those who still find him one of the most compelling figures in modern rock.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cost of Living
    Her message is crystal clear, as is the rest of Cost Of Living. Downtown Boys is determined to be the kind of band we need right now, delivering the kind of punk that that aims to change the world.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Who Told You To Think?
    Milo’s still firmly making experimental hip-hop, bridging various through-lines of mind-expanding boom-bap, but he’s also etching his way toward the center, his art getting clearer with each step.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Allez! Allez!
    Allez Allez finds Reis continuing to play with expectations, but succeeding with the results, as usual.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hopelessness
    Compared with the morose, string-laden music Anohni is known for, this is an Ariana Grande album, but it remains experimental and emotional enough to feel natural. Anohni is broadening her audience--not courting a broad audience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Watch Me Fall
    Watch Me Fall includes some of his best sing-along jams yet.
    • 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.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
    Good Kid is an exercise in tasteful restraint, with Lamar employing his boundless budget in creative ways.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    House With No Home
    It leaves a lot implied, but slowly clears the way for a chilling catharsis.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Luciferian Towers
    The band still builds giant sonic structures with guitars, drums, and violins, stretching out into song suites that can last for 15 minutes or more.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Feed The Animals
    Gillis' sense of sonic proportion gives the whole mix a curvaceousness that make even the most unnatural tandems seem perfectly logical.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Paradise
    What sets Paradise apart, though, is an even finer polish than its predecessor Deep Fantasy, the first album to benefit from a Domino-bequeathed luster. So much of that subtle maturation is due to William’s expansive and inventive playing.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Shade Of Poison Trees
    He's abandoned the approach [strummy sing-alongs] long enough to realize its every nuance, and such prowess turns a plaintive ballad like 'The Widow's Peak' into something more timeless than a mere emo lament.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Women As Lovers
    Rather than using art as a cloak, Stewart constructs an exoskeleton out of precious wordplay and florid arrangements--armor that makes him as clumsy as it does strong.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Weirdo Shrine
    The real highlight of Weirdo Shrine comes from Cleveland’s guitar playing. Nearly every song on the record features either a solo or a break for the singer to take over and shine with her instrument.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    New Magnetic Wonder
    Even at its clunkiest, the album sparks.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Serpents Unleashed
    With Serpents Unleashed, the scratchy, scrappy Skeletonwitch of old is gone. Beneath that shed skin lurks something far vaster and scarier--but no less sinisterly inviting.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Glowing Man
    Gira feeds on the drawn-out, high-tension passages of accelerating cymbal crashes and swelling guitar dissonance, many of which exist on the 25-minute “Cloud Of Unknowing.” But while the axis on which that track rotates features deconstructed, incohesive drum rolls and a kind of radiant summoning from Gira--one that bleeds and pools into negative space you didn’t know existed--the plodding, sinister rhythm that precedes it proves more hypnotic.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    All We Love We Leave Behind
    While All We Love lacks cohesion in spots, it solidifies Converge's position as one of hardcore's most progressive yet soulful stalwarts.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Telekinesis!
    His debut, produced by fellow Seattleite Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie, projects an offhanded air, yet each song is precisely put together, and the whole thing speeds by in just over half an hour.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    NY's Finest
    The chill-out-room throwback sound is back, and Rock confidently handles hook, verse, and beat duty with lyrical assists from the likes of Redman, Little Brother, Styles P, Raekwon, Masta Killa, and Papoose.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cause I Sez So
    ’Cause I Sez So isn’t on the same plane as the Dolls’ early work--referenced directly by a curious, slowed-down reggae lope through their self-titled debut’s 'Trash'--but it’s no embarrassment, either.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    City Of Quartz
    In capturing both Diamonds’ lingering malaise and a regained sense of carefree abandon, the album melds the sophisticated melancholy compositions of his recent career with whimsical experimentation.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Throw It to the Universe
    Throw It To The Universe's seven-track swan song isn't exactly the band going out on top, but shows it leaving the game admirably, crafting the same catchy, thoughtful songs it's always made.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Positive Songs for Negative People
    Playing live together save vocals and minor overdubs. The result pushes Turner and his band back into more energetic territory after the careful, pristine sound of his previous effort.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    In Prism
    Sporting geometrically interlocked riffs and solos that feel simultaneously epic and oblique, the disc harnesses post-punk cool as well as classic-rock heroism.
    • 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.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    If I Had A Hi-Fi
    It's the best sort of covers album, reverent to the source material but not beholden to it.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Velocifero
    Ladytron's strength is its sure grasp of Pet Shop Boys-style pop songcraft, which weaves memorable melodies into songs about anxiety-ridden love affairs and the ennui of a Sunday afternoon in a world where God is dead.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Screen Violence
    It may not be their best, but it’s their best right now—and it crackles with the energy of a group that’s figured out how to block out the noise and deliver superbly crafted pop music, the kind some idealistic kids would’ve wanted to hear in a Scottish basement over a decade ago.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Bandwagonesque
    For fans of the original, Gibbard’s Bandwagonesque should be a nice, unsurprising treat; for fans of Gibbard’s who may not be familiar with the original’s charms, hopefully it’ll be a way in.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    No Shape
    It has moments of populist ambition (the soaring chorus of the lead single, “Slip Away,” for example) and self-consciously arty experimentation (“Choir”), and it’s a credit to Hadreas and producer Blake Mills that its 13 tracks sound as seamless and cohesive as they do.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Blue
    The Scandinavian city is so much more than doom and gloom. Communions remind us that there’s more, and of the optimistic quality of a great pop song. After all, they made an entire album of the stuff.
    • 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.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Transgender Dysphoria Blues
    Although wrapped in a vague, overarching storyline about a transgender prostitute, Transgender Dysphoria Blues is the strong, strident sound of a heart-on-sleeve artist owning her newfound epiphany.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A Wasteland Companion
    It's the album's smaller pleasures-like the watercolor blossoms of strings and synths on "Wild Goose"-that define what A Wasteland Companion is.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hug of Thunder
    Hug is also a welcome retreat to those earlier records in terms of production, forsaking the leaner sound of 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record for the shaggy excesses of both You Forgot It and Broken Social Scene.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hallelujah Anyhow
    Unsurprisingly, the stellar Hallelujah Anyhow often feels like a restless fever dream.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Run Fast
    Despite Hanna’s avowed penchant for creative forward momentum, Run Fast’s ruminations on the past are most touching.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    OFF!
    Off! makes up for its self-serving petulance with sharp songwriting and pure, crusty potency.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    LIFE ON EARTH
    Overall, Life On Earth has plenty of strong music that shows how much Segarra’s artistry has evolved.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Rest
    The influence of Gainsbourg’s famous musical parents, both Serge and mother Jane Birkin, has been a constant in her music, but on Rest, she seems less daunted by her lineage, and she begins to bend it to her own ambitions.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dark Was The Night
    This being a compilation, not everyone brings their A game—contributions from The Arcade Fire, Spoon, Iron And Wine, and Cat Power come off as disappointingly perfunctory and hastily sketched--but as a yearbook photo of the class of 2009, it should age remarkably well.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Blaqkout
    The lyrics aren’t going to win awards for thematic originality, and there’s an especially egregious spoken-word bit poorly justifying the excessive use of the word “bitch,” but most of the time, Quik and Kurupt sound invigorated by each other.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Random Access Memories
    The album is nonetheless an entrancing and endlessly entertaining musical experience, a fun collection that can soundtrack a great party from start to finish, but also rewards the focused listener with a collage of fascinating quirks.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Star Wars
    Star Wars is absolutely that journey to challenging parts unknown, and, thankfully, it’s a trip worth taking.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Pure Heroine
    Pure Heroine makes the strongest possible statement that she belongs.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Echo Party
    Of course, it would be nice if Edan’s first album in four years actually featured him rapping, but until he picks up the microphone again, Echo Party serves as a more-than-acceptable substitute for a proper Edan solo album.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ego Trippin'
    Ego isn't exactly tight, but Snoop's silky sonic seduction proves awfully irresistible.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Light Chasers
    Minowa, who also produced, dives in with typical gusto, building the album into a sprawling, intricately interconnected 56-minute concept that often soars into emotionally operatic, cathartic heights.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Fall
    The Fall at first listen seems more interesting as a concept than as music. Still, there are plenty of rough-cut pop gems.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    God Is Partying
    With God Is Partying, W.K. isn’t closing the chapter on the persona that attracted so many fans in the first place. He’s merely showing that there’s a different side to the poster child for partying—and it’s not always going to be uplifting.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Dr. Dee
    Only with the exquisite, hazily-focused Dr Dee, Albarn has succeeded in alchemically--if not perfectly--transforming cotton and foil into silver and gold.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Funplex
    That material is sometimes far too automatic for its own good--see 'Deviant Ingredient,' which is as trite as its title portends. But on 'Eyes Wide Open' and the lustrous 'Juliet Of The Spirits,' a Pierson/Wilson song as strong as any they've done in mystic mode, the songs are up to the legend, and should sound as good at the B-52s' joyous shows.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Paper Trail
    A welcome return to form after the underwhelming, muddled concept album "T.I. Vs. T.I.P.," Trail is an uneven but oft-invigorating combination of velvet and grit, angst and celebration.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    WWII
    This sugary trio supposedly formed over pizza and pop a few years back, and while that almost sounds too good to be true, it's also fitting; WWII's songs are just begging to be the soundtrack to an evening of food and fun.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    Whokill's sonic imagination outlasts the novelty of Tune-Yards' debut, and even better, a lyrical persona as playfully warped as the rhythms punching away behind it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    With Love And Squalor
    Even though With Love And Squalor quickly ingratiates itself, some of its best parts reveal themselves over time.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Imps of Perversion
    Imps Of Perversion is a singularly mutilated and lecherous mess that functions as a compelling monument to the band’s incestuous relationship with its influences.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Devotion
    There's a youthful, warm energy emanating from Ware's vocals that enervates Devotion, making it more than a mere exercise in restrained, sophisticated sexiness.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cut the World [Live]
    The 12 tracks place Antony in an exposed and elegant state: away from the studio, under the lights of a concert hall, and engulfed in harmonies. On that stage, he soars.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Wild Hunt
    Matsson's sophomore outing as The Tallest Man On Earth ups the visceral appeal of the already surprisingly accessible songwriter, with heightened production lending satisfying crispness to the guitar picking and Matsson's twisty-turny delivery.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Drum's Not Dead
    Drips with a sense of myth and mystery.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Cyrk
    Cyrk is a bright, airy affair.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    All-Amerikkkan Bada$$
    He’s still reaching to the golden age for inspiration, but updating it so thoroughly that we’re reminded why we considered it golden in the first place.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Come Around Sundown
    Kings Of Leon's fifth album, Come Around Sundown, is just as much of a crowd-pleaser as Only By The Night, but the four Followills bring back more of the chasing-a-whim personality of their earlier albums.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    græ
    The intensity and diversity of Part 1 hinted at even more bombastic and unexpected songs to come on Part 2, which instead mostly continues the sound he already mastered on Aromanticism. It’s not that Part 2’s songs aren’t gorgeous and poignant; it’s just that, given Sumney’s unwavering focus on shattering longtime boundaries, Part 2’s songs occupy shockingly familiar musical territory.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Divers
    The sheer array of sounds on this record is amazing--not just in the variety of instruments employed, but also in the ways they are utilized.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Black And White Album
    The Black And White Album continues its predecessors' winning trend.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Devotion
    Devotion's half-submerged, half-weightless ambience feels like a shaky yet sure transition into something even more abstract and fragile.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Robyn
    The overall mood is light even when the lyrics get pointed--which is plenty of the time.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Why There Are Mountains
    He’s certainly not the first kid to see the death of innocence in a “maelstrom of mail-order Marlboro memorabilia,” but he might be the first to sing about it--here’s hoping that future Cymbals Eat Guitars songs wrap such observations in similarly singular packaging.
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