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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    • 80 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Out in the Storm
    Each Waxahatchee album has felt like a big step forward, and Out In The Storm feels like the biggest one yet.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Boxer
    To those with time for only a passing glance, it could conceivably come across as dull, but a close look at monumental songs like "Start A War" and the scathingly sad, funny "Slow Show" will reveal bleak, black diamonds—precious, glimmering, and lasting.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Silent Hour/Golden Mile [EP]
    Rossen proves he can stand on his own.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?
    The Vaccines do a good job of turning up the drama during their more restrained moments, resulting in a rare species: the well-rounded pop-jugular album.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Poison Season
    Poison Season is the sound of an artist in complete control of the strange chaos around him.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Life Pursuit
    The band sounds reinvigorated even when returning to well-trodden turf, and even livelier when moving away from it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Of The Cathmawr Yards
    The Horse’s Ha’s debut album, Of The Cathmawr Yards, blends Elkington and Bean’s voices and sensibilities together seamlessly on a set of songs that relies heavily on intricate acoustic guitar plucking, dreamy violin, and a gently melancholy air.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Loud Planes Fly Low
    Making the record was reportedly grueling, but the resultant emotions are the realest felt since the duo's exuberant 2003 debut, Rosebuds Make Out. "Swooning" and "romantic" might be odd adjectives to use at this juncture, but they still apply in full force.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Dear Science,
    On Dear Science, TVOTR finds a more traditional consistency, transmuting that dirty experimentalism into a lush cleanliness that eases--rather than hurls--its songs into the art-making ether.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Sling
    Cottrill delivers her most innately beautiful and well-orchestrated album yet.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Confess
    It's a strong follow-up to Forget and a seasonal album that will last long after the summer ends.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Cry Cry Cry
    Cry Cry Cry is Wolf Parade’s most vibrant, energetic record to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    On the Water
    The record is sweetly evocative, swathed in meditative rhythms and lighthearted melodies.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran
    The arrangements are warm and understated while the performances fill the room, making Living For A Song a steady grower that sneaks up behind listeners and pickpockets their hearts.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heart Ache/Dethroned
    Murky and abrasive, the new material comes on like a punk version of Jesu; stripped of most electronics and dynamics, it's a Broadrick riff-fest, jagged around the edges and nearly dehumanized.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Too Bright
    What results is at times noisy, at times beautiful, and always captivating.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future
    Vocalist Inara George and programmer Greg Kurstin have an affinity for all things pretty and vaguely retro, as her exceedingly pleasant vocals and his lush production attest. It's a formula, yes, but one that works over and over.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Raw Power [Reissue]
    So many Stooges live sets and outtakes are already available that the bonuses risk redundancy (and there's an even longer "Deluxe Edition" available via mail-order), but Raw Power itself remains a landmark.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pleasure
    Pleasure isn’t all novelty. It’s a demanding record expressing demanding emotions.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    A Mad & Faithful Telling
    Urata's slurred warble leaps into soaring vibrato, and the group's eerie throb of violin, accordion, and sousaphone has never felt so cinematic.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Indigo
    Emotionally rich and full of depth, Indigo is easily Wild Nothing’s best album to date.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Together
    The core remains the same, however. The band writes big, catchy pop songs-and the occasional heartbreaking ballad-and delivers them with flash, filigree, and a healthy sense of pop history.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Heaven
    After 10 years and seven albums, Heaven finds The Walkmen in a better place.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Father, Son, Holy Ghost
    The pair has picked up a supporting cast and loads of confidence for Girls' second album, Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Big To-Do
    While the portions are smaller on The Big To-Do, they’re just as satisfying.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu
    All Days Are Nights is both a housecleaning and a soulful wallow. Wainwright's voice rises from the despair with breathtaking beauty, in a friendly rivalry with his rippling piano.
    • 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.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    POST-
    While that sounds incredibly daunting--and like a really tiring listen--the album’s most impressive trait is that it makes all that vital work feel joyous and communal.
    • 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.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Jamie Lidell
    It doesn’t feel as radically fresh and inventive as his earlier work, but the tradeoff is the high level of craft and confidence that Lidell brings to the proceedings.
    • 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.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Aesthethica
    Stacked against its predecessor, Aesthethica feels less like metal-black, post-, or otherwise--and more like Liturgy. And in this case, that's a great thing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    We Don't Even Live Here
    We Don't Even Live Here is a solid, confident step forward for the Minneapolis rapper, taking his confrontational punk-rap style and injecting it with a dark, danceable energy that sacrifices none of his signature hardcore edge.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Volume One
    The overall effect is an endearing, successful addition to Ward's never-ending quest to assimilate every single populist song form of the 20th century.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Andorra
    In its journey from form to formlessness, the record feels like Caribou reaching back toward a primordial pool of sound.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Soft Sounds From Another Planet
    While everything on Japanese Breakfast’s proper sophomore effort isn’t entirely fresh, and its structure is somewhat loose, there’s a confidence and crispness to Soft Sounds that shows just how fully realized Zauner’s formerly homemade experiments have become.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Okovi
    Zola’s latest, Okovi, is more homecoming than course correction.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Love Remains
    Love Remains is an immersive experience that transcends its chilliness (and speaker-crackling sonic limitations) through pure emotio.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Stone Rollin'
    The end result is a warm, sometimes reckless, but always deeply moving and wildly creative effort that is absolutely dizzying in the best, most indelible sense.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Suburbs
    Butler and company imbue The Suburbs with such a strong sense of place and mood that it builds in impact throughout.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Drums And Guns
    What seemed like a radical departure two years ago now sounds like a waystation on the journey to this more disjointed, more fragmented, more demanding, and ultimately more rewarding work.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Resurgam
    Resurgam is brimming with glacial, lucent, keys-driven beauty.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Knot
    Wye Oak isn’t breaking any new ground in the exciting field of drone-exploration, but the band’s tone is striking--like a tuning fork with the blues.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Art Brut vs. Satan
    While it’s misleading to call an album “mature” when it plunders rock history for riffs and features an ode to comic books, Argos has done some growing up.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Contra
    The 10 songs here don't collectively match the near-perfection displayed on the band's debut, but Contra is varied and vivacious enough to make each spin as revelatory as the first time you realized what the band was getting away with and how well it pulled off the feat.
    • 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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Magnificent City
    It's the product of two remarkable artists working in perfect unison, powered by an effortless chemistry that recalls similarly blessed collaborations between Madlib and MF Doom, or MF Doom and Danger Mouse.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Long Live the King [EP]
    Any of these songs could've fit on The King Is Dead; instead, they've come together to form another excellent record.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    In The Future
    Loud-quiet-loud has never been so dizzying.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Years Of Refusal
    Not since 1992’s "Your Arsenal" has he combined barbed wit and fast-moving, backward-glancing guitar rock so piercingly.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Hungry Saw
    Tindersticks remains a champion at feel-bad soul strings, but those who've found the group's previous work oppressive might want to try again: Staples' vocals haven't changed, but with the music as pared-down as one of their impressionistic soundtracks, it's a new sound.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Aisles [EP]
    These don’t feel like your average indie-goes-’80s covers; they’re a reminder that even when Olsen’s having fun, she can turn something simple into a gut-punch, consuming your thoughts and evoking reflection of the emotional connection tied to her words.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
    Today's politically charged songwriters can drop coy manifestos and clever metaphors all they want--Silver Mt Zion's 13 Blues actually flushes out the psychic, karmic residue of a suicidal civilization just to stomp around in all that apocalyptic plasma.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Bon Iver
    But for all its introspection, Bon Iver feels a lot more open than Vernon's previous work, the sound of a lonely guy taking his first steps into a larger world.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Mature Themes
    With such impressive versatility and broad musical perspective, Mature Themes is Pink's best album to date, and sets an invigorating, expansive tone for his work to come.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Idols Of Exile
    There are 12 distinct songs on Idols Of Exile, united by Collett's light touch and sense of snap.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Alright, Still
    A great summer record it remains, even in the dead of winter.
    • 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.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ceremonials
    Ceremonials is Welch barreling off a cliff on wings made of dear-diary sentiment, art-school theatrics, and pure-cut sincerity, and somehow, against all odds, she manages to soar.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Embryonic
    Embryonic presents a band discovering that the far edge of an idea is often more compelling than its core.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ruff Draft [Reissue]
    One of hip-hop's few essential EPs.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive
    Earle has always forged armor out of his scars, and by that token, I'll Never Get Out is impregnable, yet achingly vulnerable.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Arrow
    Arrow is the Bastards' best album to date.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Boy Who Knew Too Much
    Mika has slapped together a pop-music patchwork capable of appealing to anyone who’s ever liked a song on the radio.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Invariable Heartache
    Invariable Heartache sounds like an artifact itself: one of those periodic dispatches from the past that reminds us how the also-rans of the music industry are often better and weirder than we remember.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Skeleton
    The stuff indie-rock fantasies are built on, with a gripping, theatrical sound that's like a hybrid of early Built To Spill and pre-Soft Bulletin Flaming Lips, adorned with pieces of the old Neil Young albums that inspired those bands in the first place.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Fine Print (A Collection Of Oddities And Rarities 2003-2008)
    The Fine Print runs just under an hour and is drawn from the outtakes of four different albums, yet it’s as cohesive and entertaining an album as Drive-By Truckers have ever released.
    • 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.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Con
    Lyrical wallowing is almost a required element for this genre, and ultimately even The Con's failings work in its favor, providing a macro version of what the best Tegan And Sara songs do, by stumbling along recklessly, then falling together.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    By the Way I Forgive You
    As the title implies, Brandi Carlile’s sixth studio album is about deriving strength from forgiveness and gratitude. But the lovely, languid folk songs on By The Way, I Forgive You also offer nuanced looks at life’s everyday complications.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Glass Boys
    With Glass Boys the band takes another evolutionary leap without leaving anyone pining for the past.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Ys
    For those willing to let go a little and drift, Ys can be an amazing journey, especially when Parks' strings and Newsom's harp lock into a seductive dance, or when her voice catches one of the fleeting snatches of melody and rides it until it escapes.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Pocket Symphony
    What's most impressive is how guileless Dunckel and Godin make it sound. They're aiming for a kind of naïve beauty, and they hit it consistently here.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Fort Nightly
    Rarely has the Inferno sounded this inviting.
    • 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
    St. Vincent
    All told, St. Vincent is a bold, ambitious, and perfectly overstuffed album.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    PAINLESS
    Yanya’s voice, both grounded and airy, slides across PAINLESS’ 12 expertly crafted and unusually somber love songs.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Rather Ripped
    Rather Ripped is unmistakably a Sonic Youth album, right down to the snatches of amp-on-fire distortion, the tuneless speak-singing of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon, and an emphasis on guitar texture that includes amplifying each strummed string. But the conventional rock-song structures of "Incinerate," while not unheard of for Sonic Youth, here feel unexpectedly and warmly classicist.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    No Better Than This
    The direct, spare No Better Than This-Mellencamp even eschews stereo-has a timeless sound and songs that do right by their classic blues, rock, and country inspirations.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Body Talk, Pt. 2
    Robyn bounds back onto the dance floor on Pt. 2 with seven breathless, synth-driven gems.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Little Honey
    Williams spent much of this decade proving she can branch out, but here she's staged something even more impressive: a pleasing homecoming.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Vapours
    Each maintains a newfound cool, which must be the result of Islands’ principal dudes realizing that they could live without one another, but that they’re far deadlier songwriters together.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    America
    America ultimately embraces splendor and nobility, even as it acknowledges personal and social anxiety.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Caracal
    With even more glossy production than Settle, Caracal is high-quality Top 40 material.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Plumb
    Like its predecessors, Plumb is polite and smart, arranging its unceasing collection of hooks like books on a shelf.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Gorilla Manor
    Except for an impressive reinvention of Talking Heads' "Warning Sign," the rest of Gorilla Manor takes it a bit easier, but these boys never ramble without reason. Even slower bucolic numbers like "Who Knows Who Cares" demonstrate Local Natives' knack for crafting emotive moments that never feel bathetic, as well as technically proficient pop that, in spite of initial impressions, never seems studied.
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