Village Voice's Scores

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For 764 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 47% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 50% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 The Naked Truth
Lowest review score: 10 God Says No
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 517 out of 764
  2. Mixed: 199 out of 764
  3. Negative: 48 out of 764
764 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Asa Breed
    Throughout much of Asa Breed, Dear achieves a serendipitous balance between the uplifting and the eerie, the hummable and the hypnotic, the tuneful and the texturally adventurous.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Zeitgeist
    Thanks in part to the presence of Pantera producer Terry Date, this is the Pumpkins' hardest-rocking record ever.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
    Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the group's sixth album, boasts an instrument roll call that might look swollen - trumpet, Chamberlin, cello, koto, flamenco guitar - but Spoon wear it well.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Else
    The Else, is as tuneful and rockin' as all the rest.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Goodbye
    With Goodbye, he's finally got the levels just right. By moving even closer to the shoegazer sound, the result sounds less like pilfering and more like reinvention.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sirens of the Ditch
    The record smoothly lures and detours familiar, '70s-based rock-blues-country sounds and expectations while highlighting Isbell's character-actor flair.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Desire
    What Desire offers instead is at times cerebral and at times depraved, but invariably provocative.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Finding Forever
    With Forever, Common delivers the expected--political, lover-man, and battle rhymes told with wit and complexity over street-commercial beats--in spades.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fort Nightly
    Nearly embarrassing levels of enthusiasm, sincerity, and energy inform Fort Nightly, the band's surprisingly meaty debut.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Liars
    A masterpiece? No. Disturbingly solid noise? Sure.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ear Drum
    Ear Drum marks the self-proclaimed BK MC's third full-length feature, and astoundingly, it's a captivating, cocksure rejoinder to everyone who abandoned him.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hey Venus!
    There's a newfound depth of feeling in their eighth-album expertise that bitters the sweetness of Beach Boys tributes like 'Show Your Hand.'
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Made of Bricks
    Bricks is consequently more bracing and rewarding than most young-love-lost albums.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    30 Year Low
    They've said their piece and torn each other into pieces–we're left to rubberneck at the crack-up.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Attack Decay Sustain Release
    It's love song 'I Believe,' really sets the group apart from 2007's other big-beat revivalists, draping ex-Simian bandmate Simon Lord's FutureSex'd croon in Italo-disco shimmer. By keeping its heart, the result edges out Justice's more brutal † for most exciting, um, "blog house" debut of the year.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mantaray
    Mantaray, Siouxsie's blazing solo debut, earns accolades with no trace of fatigue, padding, or confusion, as on-it and of-the-moment as Justin Timberlake.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Chalk
    As usual, the excellent mix--opaque but sunlit--helps; as usual, we eagerly await her next album.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Death Is This Communion
    DITC will still melt your speakers. Jack Endino's clean yet full-tilt production fills out the sound, but it's drummer Des Kensel's ability to push forward and hold back--not simply pound monochromatically from start to finish--that truly creates the thriving, volatile atmosphere here.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Our Bedroom After The War
    Only a great fool would be satisfied with just a track or two.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Just Like You
    You can't deny the pleasure of finding a ride-or-die chick who's vulnerable, but can still kick your trifling ass.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chase This Light
    Thanks to singer Jim Adkins's bottomless well of high-flying choruses (not to mention the general shittiness of current affairs), the formula still delivers.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Make Sure They See My Face
    The greatest thrill, however, is that Kenna's square-peg edges still never quite line up with the mainstream hole.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chrome Dreams II
    Chrome Dreams II, on which various Neils commingle to an extent not heard on record since perhaps 1989's "Freedom," immediately comes off as the 61-year-old artist's freshest effort in years.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Scene Of The Crime
    LaVette sings Scene as if she's been backed into a corner and relishes the sensation.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Load Blown
    It's the kind of detailed withdrawal that makes for excellent headphone music.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Black And White Album
    It's nice to have a record with a plan.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Raising Sand
    Though Alison Krauss and Robert Plant make strange bedfellows indeed, the result is an engrossing, powerfully evocative collection.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As I Am
    As I Am--very much an album about the condition her condition is in, very much an album in the old-fashioned sense, a complete work: one you shouldn't subject to shuffle before you've given Keys's sequencing a chance to work its magic, its rising and falling arcs, its gut-punch-and-goose-bumps denouement.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    X
    It's not the production, as copiously sexy as it is, that makes this great: It's that Kylie has an ear for fantastic pop-rock tunes restyled for 2008, and she approaches them not as merely amusing sonic glitter, but as totally vital music.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Untrue
    While the percussion-free 'Endorphin' and 'Dog Shelter' paint haunting pictures of isolation and heartache, a warm and generous humanity runs just beneath the surface. It's this quality that lends the propulsive woodblock throb of the closing 'Raver' its muted euphoria.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Intoxication
    The slick Shaggy sex formula is intact, plus he steps off the well-worn with booming first single 'Church Heathen,' already scorching JA parties with its keen indictment of religious hypocrisy, and 'All About Love,' featuring his raw, ragged, utterly compelling singing voice. 'Body a Shake' comes harder than before.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carnival II: Memoirs Of An Immigrant
    Just when Carnival II begins to feel comfortable in hip hop, Paul Simon hops onto the mournful 'Fast Car' and a massive Bollywood ensemble powers the roiling 'Immigrant.' [Dec 2007, p.108]
    • Village Voice
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We All Belong
    They're totally authentic about being inauthentic. Like Guitar Bob, that makes them easy to love.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cool
    A neat trick folded into The Cool is that Lupe proves rap is still creative enough to indulge bugged-out ambitions, and he doesn't just brag about what a smart-ass he is.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Venus On Earth
    Venus on Earth, their third album, contains more English lyrics than their previous two efforts, but it also represents some of the band's most sentimental work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Golden Age
    Wisely, The Golden Age is less mediated, its variety achieved through smartly arranged curveballs like the Calexican waltz 'I Know That's Not Really You.'
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    For Emma, Forever Ago
    While none of Bon Iver's background notes scream "new"--dissolved love affair, check; band breaks up (Vernon's freak-jug outfit, DeYarmond Edison), check--the chilling, rusty grandeur of For Emma will stop you in your snow tracks, however little it snows around here.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Discipline
    Discipline is the most cohesive deep-groove album from La Jackson since "Control."
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Falling Off The Lavender Bridge
    Lightspeed Champion sounds like an ambitious fan, eager to stuff his entire record collection into his solo debut, but with the uncluttered grace of a patient melodist, albeit one who can't resist naming a song 'Let the Bitches Die.'
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Real Emotional Trash
    With Malkmus, a spade is never a spade, and his usual counterinclinations set Trash aquake with tension: pop that's coy but direct but rambling but surreal.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturnalia
    The result's a bit grungy, sure--but there's also an undercurrent of dark, sinister country and blues that suggests they're not just rehashing old times.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Quaristice
    Quaristice demands to be heard, but stubbornly refuses to be the soundtrack of your life. That's art, and perhaps it's only pegged as "difficult" because it won't sing along with you; neither will the Chrysler Building, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Alopecia
    It's his lyrics, brutally honest and often desperate, that elevate Alopecia from curiosity to conquest.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Get Awkward
    Thankfully, if anything differentiates the terrific Get Awkward from its hardly inauspicious predecessor, it's that this one may be even less complicated. Whereas the debut made room for actual relationships and a couple of headlong jams, this is a tighter, blunter assault, affording Pearl only just enough room to summarize B-movie plots or super-soak society.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
    Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! should prove an exhilarating listen for most fans of Cave's oeuvre. It has a lot of the rawness and jagged edges of a classic Bad Seeds album, hopped up with off-kilter beats and loads of loops contributed by violinist Warren Ellis.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transnormal Skiperoo
    Earthy rhythms provide both a welcome backbeat and a sense of history.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hercules And Love Affair
    The party holds strong into the second half, where the comedown always muddles the songwriting a little. Surprise: Antony's dramatic ululations return to rescue the trawling sonics.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Street Horrrsing
    Street Horrrsing is, to your dad's ears (unless your dad is Lou Reed), a whole lot of noise. But what virtuosic, complicated noise it is.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Seldom Seen Kid
    The singer's Mancunian bleariness is such that the bittersweet barfly sing-along 'Grounds for Divorce' rings effortlessly real, while the quasi-spiritual questing of 'Weather to Fly' gets reined in by the sobering image of "pounding the streets where my father's feet/Still ring from the walls."
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    In many ways, what follows is the perfect distillation of the Breeders' catalog (and Deal's attendant side project, the Amps).
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Love & Justice
    Overall, Mr. Love and Justice is classic Bragg: frequently fantastic folk-rock that keeps both the faith and your attention.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome To The Dollhouse
    These gals are older, more cohesive, and more enchanting than before, plus Maxim-approved.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Colin Meloy Sings Live!
    But in clearing away the ear-candy clutter that's increasingly come to define his band's records (for better or for worse), Meloy enables even observers less convinced than those caught on tape to admire the tidy architecture of his material.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Third
    The good news for people who love bad news is that Portishead have gotten better, too.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kensington Heights
    Kensington Heights, like its predecessor, isn't as fiery as the best moments on the band's inconsistent breakthrough, 2003's "Shine a Light," but the Constantines still deliver bedrock strength and eternal-flame passion.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Candy
    All in all, Hard Candy could be the greatest swan song to a pop career this side of Let It Be, if you wanna get all hyperbolic about it.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Santogold
    With her eponymous debut's deft mix of dap, punk, rock, pop, house, reggae, and hip-hop, she won't completely live down associations with the famous Sri Lankan (whom she also counts as a friend), but the result emerges as much more than a mere imitation.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    II Trill
    II Trill, is psychologically up-market, with genuinely well-appointed guest spots (that Webbie and Lupe Fiasco both sound comfortable on the same album speaks volumes) and hungry young producers offering their best tricks.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Crayons
    On Crayons, it’s like no time has passed at all, and of course it hasn't.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lay It Down
    Now 62, the mighty reverend may not be able to make you spontaneously combust like yesteryear, but damn if he can't still get you in the mood with his third batch of love songs for Blue Note.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Devil, You + Me
    Fortunately, The Devil, You + Me shows that the Notwist been keeping their ears to the street and their asses in the studio since releasing 2002's indie-synth breakthrough "Neon Golden."
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Swimming
    With catchy choruses (hear "Why, tell me why?/I don't know" once and it won't go away), assured self-production, and lyrics that lean on nobody's pen, it won't be long before people start comparing other bands to French Kicks, instead of the other way around.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Thousand Shark's Teeth
    [The album] exude grace and vocal excellence in the realm of Art Garfunkel or Kate Bush--a consequence of the earth-shattering stakes at hand. The rub is that Shark's Teeth is better than good.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Party Intellectuals
    No surprise, Ribot's versatility as a guitarist is the main draw here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Men With The Blues
    Sure, the novelty helps, and if it recurs too often, the glee of hearing Nelson and Marsalis mesh will diminish. But hearing once how they play with and against each other is a real treat.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Coral Sea
    Like all of her wordplay--as written, sometimes spontaneously spoken, and occasionally sung--it fits.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fate
    Highlights of Fate coming back 'round one last time give satisfying closure, but also tease what's coming when it's inevitably cued up again.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mar Dulce
    No doubt about it, from first note to last, Mar Dulce (loose translation: "the Sweet Sea") is a most tasty dive.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    Newman is a master of sardonic humor, be it subtle or slapstick. Harps and Angels is further proof.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Preteen Weaponry
    Weaponry is essential: a particularly overwhelming headphones album not unlike some of Boredoms' more hypnotic work.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Simply Grand
    Her voice is rich, finely textured, and more expressive now than when it hit r&b charts in the 1960s. But her recordings can sound monotonous. That's not true here.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Where You Go I Go Too
    While Where You Go may not be his masterpiece, as a distillation of the space-disco aesthetic, it's unparalleled.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
    Byrne's singing was never exactly the first thing you loved about him--he so often has the high-pitched blankness of a sustained yawn. But he sounds lovely here, age bringing a surer and rawer tone along with more confidence in his question mark.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Recession
    His first two albums were well-crafted, uncompromising in their focus, and exceptionally entertaining. The Recession makes it three.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Carried To Dust
    The group never abandoned its orquestra live, and that may be why this return to form sounds so welcoming.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Stand Ins
    The Stand-Ins, reportedly taped at the same time as "Stage Names," is an improvement, not least because Sheff punishes himself (rather humorously) for the sin of relying on tragic heroes at all.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Year Of The Gentleman
    Ne-Yo's fantastic third CD, The Year of the Gentleman, reconfigures "grown and sexy" by detailing relationships with an often uneasy mix of heartache, reflection, wit, lust, and resignation.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Hawk Is Howling
    It's a page out of Mogwai grandchildren Ratatat's playbook, and it shows these Scots doing something we haven't seen them do in a while: evolve.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    House With No Home
    Singer Justin Ringle often muffles his words or loses them altogether (as though a wool scarf were covering his mouth) as he trudges through cadences reminiscent of Ryan Adams or Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, delicately dotting his stanzas with multi-dimensional characters weathering the winters of their existence. Which is more enriching than it sounds.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Way I See It
    Even while Saadiq pays homage to soul's golden era, he brings his own flavor through his tell-tale tenor; still, if it ain't your cup of tea, just slip this in your parents' record collection and they won't notice a thing.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laulu Laakson Kukista
    It's chaotic, but extremely beautiful and endlessly fascinating.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murs For President
    So with Murs for President, he just did what he does, churning out another strong album of choppy retro samples that pretend chipmunk-soul and snap never existed.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic
    The clever (and accurate) branding that associated the warm, metallic grids of those thumb pianos (or likembes) with repetitive electronic music. On that front, 7th Moon doesn't disappoint a bit.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Secret Machines
    The Secret Machines takes the band back where they started, focusing on blistering psych-rock that's nonetheless accessible and doesn't sound like it's overcompensating for something, even if there's plenty to compensate for.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Ice
    Quality stuff. Sorta like 'Send for the Man,' but better.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Some Are Lakes
    Like her game soprano, which breaks apart with the same lucid strength it sometimes uses to soar with trepidation, Land of Talk's music unleashes its own aggressive logic.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saint Dymphna
    These tracks are meticulously constructed to engulf and consume, making layers out of the Casiocore and stone-drones that contemporaries like Black Dice and Growing use to build careers.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Funhouse
    Ms. Alecia Moore turns tragedy into a huge artistic coup once again on the only somewhat inaccurately named Funhouse.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Power Of Negative Thinking: B-Sides & Rarities
    These guys were rubbish as careerists, essentially banishing much of their stronger material to the depths. So think of The Power of Negative Thinking as the great unveiling.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Double Night Time
    His new Double Night Time is a relatively introspective affair. It's also more satisfying as headphone fodder, thanks largely to a phalanx of synthesizers (burbling arpeggios cushion most tracks) and vocals from Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Renaissance
    After myriad delays and label woes, it's clear the interminable wait for new material was worth it.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Play
    Its darkness relative to the other stuff here (blues shuffle, surf pastiche, Les Paul tribute, B.B. King duet) is startling, even if the tune turns out to be about his wife.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hurricane
    The cast includes Sly & Robbie, Brian Eno, Tricky, Wendy & Lisa, and aristocratic former lover Ivor Guest, who brings his experience as a soundtrack composer to an album rich with cinematic splendor.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Fearless
    Swift may not possess the vocal power to fully sell her more lyrically generic material (Underwood's great gift), but for the most part, this remarkably self-aware adolescent's words don't falter, masterfully avoiding the typical diarist's pitfalls of trite banality and pseudo-profound bullshit.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    (K)no(w)here
    The record moves with an ear toward its broader gains as one song diced into eight, another crafty epic that takes its theme from this year's headlines.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night
    Love Is All's boisterous clamor is the real draw here. The band skips over cerebral tricks and hep posturing, instead going straight for adrenalized kicks, and it's a rush that lasts long after the record ends.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    808s & Heartbreak
    808s & Heartbreak can be queasy and even morally indefensible sometimes. But that puerile sentiment also gives it its force.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Emeritus
    Scarface remains trapped in the four-cornered room of his mind, but he seems to have found a measure of peace in solitude, turning out quietly masterful albums like this one, and letting time turn him into a weathered monument.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Merriweather Post Pavilion
    MPP is filled with enough new achievements that it's a waste of space to lament the past. It's a rhythm record with an atmosphere.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    White Crosses
    White Crosses is all shiny and fresh and proudly expedient, without proving a thing except that Against Me! are fully capable of doing it again.
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