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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    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Slaughterhouse
    Slaughterhouse won't go down as Segall's best record, but it's nearly as much fun to play as it sounds like it was to make.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Let It Beard
    Let It Beard's 26 songs shoot a bleary-eyed glance at GBV's past with snatches of four-track caterwauling, even as they hurtle into previously unexplored territory like "Chevy Marigold," with its soulful backing vocals.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    More Fish
    More Fish suffers during Ghostface's absences.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Swear I'm Good at This
    In just under a half hour, the band displays a musical confidence rare for a joyfully ragged garage-pop debut.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Science Fiction
    Brand New has put in the work, making a record that erases any doubts about whether the final product would live up to eight years of mystery and hype. And it’s effectively erased its past by making good on every far-flung expectation placed upon it.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    POP ETC
    The album's a bold move for a band that had just gotten the ball rolling, and it should only boost its momentum.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Gauntlet Hair
    It's a mess of over-processed noise that sounds like one really long song. Incidentally, that's also what makes it such a layered, interesting listen.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Changephobia
    While Half-Light feels more apt to be listened to under twinkling stars, Changephobia is a fitting record for sunny summer days, leaning into a stripped-down sound that combines pop with jazz.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    City Music
    There’s a lot of musical shape-shifting on City Music, but the varied approach helps capture the gritty, up-and-down nature of a place that never sleeps.
    • 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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Under the Pale Moon
    Miles offers some reasons to persevere--if only to enjoy the comfort of clever, heartfelt pop music.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    A Productive Cough
    The songs find charm in their universality, energy, and wit.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
    Musically, Lemons is lusher and more ruminative than the harder-hitting Imagine, with producer Ant calling on Atmosphere's live backing band--plus guests, including Tom Waits (beatboxing!) and TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe--to flesh out the sound, enhancing his already-organic approach.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Isolation
    As she breaks down the triumphs and heartbreaks of real life, she deftly invokes her every musical whim--from 1970s soul to hip-hop beats that wouldn’t be out of place on a ’90s dance floor--to stunning effect.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Black Dirt Sessions
    Most of the music on Deer Tick's third album, The Black Dirt Sessions, was recorded back in 2008, during the sessions for the rollicking Born On Flag Day, but it'd be a mistake to think of these songs as leftovers.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    I Will Be
    I Will Be always sounds erratically adolescent in the best possible sense.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Garden
    The orchestral arrangements provide fertile soil to highlight her strengths as a songwriter, allowing her bright, elegant melodies to bloom even wider than before.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Astro Coast
    To some extent, Astro Coast comes off like a muscular, radio-ready version of music that would've been found on a limited-edition 45 back in the mid-'90s. But the way Surfer Blood balances escapism and grit is a neat trick, and one that never really loses its sense of wonder.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Innocence Reaches
    It’s when the consistency falters (as with the record’s end, when the unfocused “Trashed Exes” and “Chap Pilot” close out the album) that Barnes seems to be losing balance. Still, the highs are dizzying.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Inside In Inside Out
    For now, at least, these kids are all right, and bubbling with ideas.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Floating Features
    La Luz’s sound is a lot like a mai tai: Both sweet and strong, it goes down easy before knocking you flat.
    • 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
    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Barfly
    There are moments of eroded aimlessness to Barfly, but they're few and far between. What's left is a fierce, simmering, ghost-steeped album that finally gives form to one of rock's great unresolved mysteries.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    All Nerve
    On the whole, All Nerve is a strong, clear-eyed return for Dayton, Ohio’s ’90s alt-rock icons.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light
    Light is two harsh, ugly sounds that sound harsh and ugly together, but the hint of a pop sensibility throbs underneath: a heartbeat faintly audible over the screams of hell.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Let's Go Eat the Factory
    Factory finds the band falling into old, glorious habits.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    God's Favorite Customer
    There’s little to adorn most of these songs—lyrically economical, sonically without much pageantry--but the intimacy and honesty results in some of Tillman’s most stunning songwriting.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Whisper House
    Sounding like a hybrid of epic, Frames-like angst-rock and unabashedly earnest musical theater, Whisper House is simultaneously more satisfyingly rich in sound than Sheik’s early work and more off-puttingly story-driven.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    I'm Going Away
    I’m Going Away won’t surprise anyone familiar with the Friedbergers’ predilection for chopped-up blues riffs, martial rhythms, bebop breaks, three-or-four-word choruses, and impenetrably insular folklore. But now neophytes have an easier way in to one of modern rock’s most adventurous acts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The London Sessions
    On the one hand, there are no screaming yahoos baying requests; on the other, there's none of the give-and-take energy so crucial to live performance. So why bother? Mostly, it's the little things.
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