Austin Chronicle's Scores

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For 1,950 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Wincing The Night Away
Lowest review score: 20 Luminous
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,538 out of 1950
  2. Mixed: 380 out of 1950
  3. Negative: 32 out of 1950
1950 music reviews
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    • 87 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Dirty Computer
    Hints of Michael Jackson's melodic moonwalking lace in the type of hip-hop ennui that will appeal to fans of Solange's A Seat at the Table, plus a sexy swagger of feminist liberation that screams 2018.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Wide Awake!
    On Wide Awake!, Parquet Courts uses punk mood swings and Gang of Four-style vocal barking to camouflage some of the prettiest songwriting of their career.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Songs of Praise
    If the post-punk revival needs a poster child, Shame is a good choice.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Freedom
    Boldest album to date, Freedom highlights "Miki Dora" and "Skipping School" grapple with masculinity and its illusions. "Satudarah" offers stoned-eye hallucinogens.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    By the Way I Forgive You
    Empathetic and hopeful, By the Way rivals breakout The Story as Carlile's best.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    All Nerve
    While the title track's big-hearted buildup channels the crew's establishing alt-pop buoyancy, new ideas stagger the 11 tracks. Monolithic "MetaGoth" and smoky ballad "Walking With a Killer" work through internal frustrations, eloquently tracking out a new era for the Breeders.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    God's Favorite Customer
    While still supremely self-important, he probes his emotions like a narcissist at the mirror. The difficulty/trick comes in wondering whether Tillman goes out of his way to trip himself up.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    American Utopia
    While not expressly political, American Utopia can't help playing as a reaction piece.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Negro Swan
    Hynes creates a jazzy respite for the marginalized by brimming Negro Swan with horns, synth, and guitar even if only for an hour.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Iridescence
    Hooks sparse and structure loose, Iridescence redefines future pop.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Room 25
    At just 35 minutes, she's now produced one of the tightest and most complete albums of 2018, while advancing philosophical wax on contextual freedoms of her black body.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    First Flower
    The sun-kissed Laurel Canyon pop of "Dangerous Place" tackles the push and pull of creative collaboration, neatly summarizing Burch's modus operandi: wide-open sonic aesthetics with a pointed and poignant message behind it.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    The Crossing
    The Crossing proves another way forward for our one-man Johnny Thunders, Joey Ramone, and Neal Cassady.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Performance
    Even with all the jazz, jams, and wonky improvisations, the nine tracks of musicians' music remain fun, unpretentious.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Back Being Blue
    For all of her antipathy toward the current state of affairs, Willis' collection of original songs and covers feels effortlessly of the moment.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Lifted
    Lifted soundtracks the scaling of mountains, both geographic and internal.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Used Future
    Sixth album Used Future revs up behind "Deadly Nightshade," an ass-kicking rocker showcasing the local quartet at its bombastic best. Alas, the Sword doesn't stay in its wheelhouse. While "Book of Thoth" and "Twilight Sunrise" stick the same landing, the title track swims in the neo-classic rock waters in which the band has recently waded, now gone tepid.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Downey to Lubbock
    The Texas warbler meets the California ripper and results in a barnstorming burner.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Mien
    A perfect union, Mien proves the sum of its grimmest parts.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Argonauta
    Sprawling with gentle lamentations, ethereal timbres, and stringed instrumentation, both the song ["We Were Worn"] and sophomore album Argonauta expand upon her 2013 debut Life in the Midwater.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    In the Rainbow Rain
    Aside from the delightfully twee absurdity of that Eighties pop, the chorus of "Don't Move Back to L.A.," a Seventies folk-country plea to a lover not to abandon New York City (where Sheff now lives) for the temperate climate and friendlier rental market of Los Angeles, almost takes on an R&B tone in its earnestness. Sheff, however, still lends his compositions heft.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Cosmic Wink
    Nine tracks drip, bubble, and bristle in love, shaken up with an emotionally invasive immediacy.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Last Man Standing
    Willie Nelson, 85, keeps going from strength-to-strength, and Last Man Standing is the strongest yet.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    AmeriKKKant
    Throughout, stories curdle grim and scary, violence always hovering on the periphery.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Felt
    Fitting trajectory, Felt loosens up on the seriousness gripping Suuns' last three albums into kaleidoscopic microcosms of Krautrock pulses, guitar ambience, and post-punk eruptions.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Dedicated to Bobby Jameson
    It plays like frantically turning the FM dial in the car, the neon strangeness of L.A. looming ahead.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Temet
    Hailing from southern Algeria, this Tuareg desert blues troupe twists Tinariwen's template with their second full-length.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    A Day With The Homies [EP]
    Trill but fatalistic ("Part of the Math"), rock-tronic and soundscapish, Homies crams a mixtape on 12 inches of wax.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Freedom's Goblin
    Warbly vocalisms, impenetrably fuzz-encrusted guitar work, and boppin' elf grooves delightfully set the man apart from like-minded neo-hippies--alongside reverb avoidance and the occasional horns.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 89 Critic Score
    Golden Hour
    Throughout, the 29-year-old Lone Star ambassador tucks the hallmarks of her roots--winsome steel guitar, rambling banjo, acoustic guitar--into genre-hopping, the elements present and persistent enough to make the album, at its core, country. Purists will disagree, but if anyone insists on calling this Musgraves' crossover, they must admit this: Golden Hour is a crossover done right.
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