For 2,093 reviews, this publication has graded:
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66% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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31% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.6 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 72
Highest review score: | City of Refuge | |
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Lowest review score: | Lulu |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1,670 out of 2093
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Mixed: 412 out of 2093
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Negative: 11 out of 2093
2093
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
It probably wasn't her intention, but Washburn ended up making a modern classic, a folk album for people who claim they don't like a such thing.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 1, 2011
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- Critic Score
It’s a jittering, coruscating sucker punch of an album--and St. Vincent’s first bona fide masterpiece.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 13, 2017
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- Critic Score
Time might have pushed along, but it was obvious how much Ocean’s rich, detailed, and urgent storytelling had been missed once it was here again.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 22, 2016
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- Critic Score
The highs wouldn’t feel so high without the lows here, which is a regular trope of the genre; but as with all tropes, execution trumps invention, and the Hotelier executes exceptionally.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 16, 2014
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- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 16, 2015
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- Critic Score
Steve Earle's stellar new album, produced by T Bone Burnett, takes its name from the final Hank Williams single (as does the multitalented Earle's debut novel, out next month).- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 26, 2011
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The result is Vile's best record to date, an idiosyncratic amalgam of intimate performance and communal expression - and one that continues to reveal new layers upon repeated listens.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 8, 2011
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If there's a lesson to be learned from The Way Out, it's that we need little more than the sounds of each other's voices to find comfort--or in the Books' case, to crank out yet another masterwork.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 21, 2010
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It’s an ideal album for this decisively odd moment, its homemade feel (much of it was recorded in her house, with percussion partially supplied by objects around her home) and sense of awe giving it a defiant energy. ... A thrill ride.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 16, 2020
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The band’s masterwork to date, IV delivers a listening experience as thrill-packed and invigorating as the loftiest comparisons you can throw at it.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 31, 2016
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- Critic Score
Northern Aggression rocks as ferociously as anything Wynn has ever done.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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- Critic Score
Everything in Between is a triumphant leap forward from an already solid foundation, and one that cements the duo as one of this era's incontestably exceptional indie-rock acts.- Boston Globe
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Halcyon Digest is as comforting in its familiar feel as it is startling for its sonic variety.- Boston Globe
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The 1975’s frequently dazzling exploration of life in the iOS era, frontman Matty Healy turns the mic over to--who else?--Siri. Narrating a strangely touching fable about a man in love with the Internet, the bot contributes one of a great many moments on the album.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 28, 2018
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"Emma" was gorgeous in its austerity, but its follow-up is staggering for its vision. Bon Iver's self-titled sophomore release will go down as one of this year's most arresting albums, drunk on its own impressionistic charms and oblivious to anyone's expectations but Vernon's.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 21, 2011
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- Boston Globe
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The result is a record that alternates between fuzzy and crisp; those who like to get lost in their headphones should approve.- Boston Globe
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His latest is the closest he has come to making a masterpiece in a very long time.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 3, 2012
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For all of the gussy rhythms--which can stop just this side of overly cute--and legit power, there’s real subtlety at work, too, and in unlikely spots.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 20, 2015
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- Critic Score
The album feels stunningly fresh and cutting edge; expect to see it on some Top Ten lists later this year.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 18, 2016
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Backed by his new band the Vanguard, to whom the album is jointly credited, his sprawling funk grooves and pointed (if characteristically indecipherable) lyrics are still strikingly timely.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 22, 2014
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White does pretty much everything except what fans have learned to expect from him. It’s an ambitious, dizzying, and sometimes challenging listen, but overall makes for one of the most maniacally creative albums of the year.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 21, 2018
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With eight songs that unfurl to 40 minutes, it’s impeccably crafted and plays off a mercurial tension between Callahan’s voice--a parched yet resonant baritone--and the lush arrangements that envelop it.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 17, 2013
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- Boston Globe
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On one of this year's smoothest and best discs, Hunter makes The Hard Way go down so easy.- Boston Globe
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Inevitably, there’s some repetition--no fewer than 12 different attempts at “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” for example. What’s exhilarating is the chance to eavesdrop on the evolution of the songs as Dylan grasps, bit by bit, for the emotional center of each one.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 2, 2018
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- Boston Globe
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It is an exceedingly agreeable collection of ultra-catchy garage-pop complete with slash-and-burn guitars, wheedling psychedelic organs, gauzy ballads, dollops of Motown stomp, and loads of love laments both despairing and fidgety.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 8, 2011
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Less glitchy and bass-led than FlyLo’s previous work, it enters him in the canon of mystics and psychedelic journeyers who’ve sought to crack the doors of perception.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 6, 2014
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- Critic Score
While drummer Mikkey Dee shines on an unexpected cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” That efficient if unspectacular borrowing aside, this potent record ranks among the year’s best.- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 27, 2015
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A taut display of his dry wit and ability to wring beauty out of even the most harrowing human ideals.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 20, 2016
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Maybe it's not surprising that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is so seamlessly his personal best.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 7, 2010
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It’s a tour de force. The work’s relentless, odd-accented, propulsive rhythms are a perfect fit for this band.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 1, 2014
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- Critic Score
It's untamed, topsy-turvy, elliptical - and one of the most exciting albums I've heard all year.- Boston Globe
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Heard in its complete, unruly, sometimes crazed glory, Miles at the Fillmore shows just how furious the evolutionary pace of his music was at this point.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 28, 2014
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Not quite of this world and not quite over the edge, these earthy, epic songs aren't meant to save us, only to supply some monumental crescendos and a wide-screen view on the way down.- Boston Globe
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The Hope Six Demolition Project might derive its title from a Housing and Urban Development program designed to “transform public housing,” but the bleak picture Harvey portrays on this stunning album gives that title a second, and more ominous, meaning.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 14, 2016
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Add in a clutch of terrific songs that perfectly balance leader Grohl's gift for pairing earworm melodies with both chunky power-pop guitars and thrashy screamers and you've got the most vital, stem-to-stern enjoyable Foo Fighters album in quite some time.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 11, 2011
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The album that resulted is Simon’s richest, most instantly appealing collection since “Graceland.”- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 2, 2016
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- Critic Score
While outstanding songs ("The Catastrophe") stand on their own, this is a song cycle that demands to be absorbed whole.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 16, 2013
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What results is an album to live with, and to live inside: engrossing and necessary.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 21, 2016
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It’s among her finest work in a 35-year career, assured and at ease, and one of 2014’s first great albums.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jan 14, 2014
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- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 16, 2015
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Trouble Will Find Me is the Brooklyn, N.Y., indie-rock band’s sixth and most deft album yet, a haunted and lugubrious meditation on loss and despair.- Boston Globe
- Posted May 21, 2013
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- Boston Globe
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Tomorrow’s Harvest is as strong a return to form as it is stunning an update, with the Scottish duo refining their blend of nostalgic sonics and futuristic sheen.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 11, 2013
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The Guitar Song comes grouped in two parts, a "Black Album" and a "White Album," structured, according to Johnson, as a progressive movement from a dark and sordid beginning to a reassuring and redemptive end. That structure isn't always discernable in listening. What is immediately evident, though, is that this is a phenomenal collection of country music.- Boston Globe
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- Boston Globe
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Slavishly downbeat, it burrows even deeper into Del Rey’s torchy sensibility and rarely breaks its spell.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 17, 2014
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- Boston Globe
- Posted May 24, 2012
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This is industrial-strength Beach House with its hallmarks intact, just bigger and better. With co-producer Chris Coady, Legrand and Scally lift some of the haze that has often enveloped their music...now the band has given us this year’s first classic album.- Boston Globe
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Where In Rainbows was mellow but brisk - an album that felt on its way somewhere - these songs are eerie and insidious, creeping like shadows - and, often because of the haunting voice of Thom Yorke, the occasional chill.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 22, 2011
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It is no mere rehash. If anything, the sequel is more intense than the original.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 4, 2013
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Haunting, jarring, and oddly beautiful, Soused defies the idea of “easy listening,” but its singular vision and harnessing of the avant-garde makes it one of the year’s most compelling artistic statements.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 20, 2014
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“Western Stars” finds Springsteen in character study mode with finely detailed storytelling about broken (sometimes literally) men on a quest to find meaning, renewal, or maybe just a bit of love. At their core and stripped of their orchestral flourishes and diverse musical dynamic, most of the songs here would not be out of place on his dark, acoustic efforts, “Nebraska,” “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” or “Devils and Dust.”- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 12, 2019
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Suffice to say that if you have enjoyed Griffin's repertoire of considered and emotionally precise songs -- as fans from the Dixie Chicks to Solomon Burke to Jessica Simpson have -- you will find your life enriched by "Children Running Through."- Boston Globe
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This album is not just a revival, but a complete rejuvenation for John Fogerty. It's easily his best solo record, and what makes it so special is that he embraces his swamp-rocking Creedence Clearwater Revival days.- Boston Globe
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The album bubbles over with insidious grooves, inventive samples, and lissome rhyming about things frivolous and fraught.- Boston Globe
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Ten exuberant, tender, casually elegant tracks later you realize - much to your surprise, if you're like me--that the pairing of the grizzled country star and the suave jazz master is an unmitigated, ear-tickling success.- Boston Globe
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Decisively unmodern yet not quite retro, The Queen Is Dead sounds every bit as ineffably marvelous now as it must have in 1986, and this reissue is as good an excuse as any to let it charm us all over again.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 19, 2017
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The Compton MC's long-awaited major label debut is a breakthrough, as he both resurrects and reinvents West Coast hip-hop.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 22, 2012
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Apple has been here before, but it makes her new album no less arresting.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 19, 2012
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This sensual song suite about the ephemeral nature of love and what it takes to sustain happiness should end up among this year’s finest efforts.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 26, 2013
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The album is a 55-minute blitz of thumping beats and head-spinning rhymes that blur by you before you have a chance to process them.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 17, 2017
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Where “good kid” was a perceptive look at Lamar’s adolescence in a small part of Los Angeles, Butterfly is a weary assessment of his adulthood, and a world that’s bigger, more complex, and more flawed that he knew. If the albums share anything, it’s that they’re both cinematic. But the movie Lamar is shooting now puts the current era into a more fitting frame.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 26, 2015
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Not content to merely shake up the music industry by releasing Consolers with only one week's advance notice, the Raconteurs have also had the nerve to drop a near-classic album.- Boston Globe
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If there are no uptempo blazers on the order of "Rolling in the Deep" or "Rumor Has It," the album doesn’t suffer in quality for the lack.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 19, 2015
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[It] seems like the album the 66-year-old singer was born to make- Boston Globe
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On Divers, her breathtaking follow-up to 2010’s “Have One on Me,” the singer, songwriter, and harpist affirms her stature as a visionary. It’s the most streamlined of her four albums.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 22, 2015
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- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 28, 2016
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It is a stunning achievement in contemporary pop. Yet, unlike so much of contemporary pop, it's timeless.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 21, 2012
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If there are no obvious radio-ready hits on par with “Adorn,” his massive hit from 2012’s “Kaleidoscope Dream,” there is something more potent in their place: a stone-cold classic not tethered to time, genre, or expectations.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 30, 2015
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It’s a brave account of how you can fall out of love just as easily as you fell in. Like the first blush of a new romance, it is intoxicating.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 18, 2013
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- Boston Globe
- Posted Aug 14, 2012
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Her latest album marks yet another sea change, a clanging, clamoring work of art that's as disturbing as it is moving. Let England Shake is staggering, from its seasick melodies to its visceral imagery of soldiers falling like "lumps of meat."- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 25, 2011
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You barely detect it at first, but something miraculous happens on Arcade Fire's revelatory third album. The songs breathe--occasionally in long exhales, sometimes in staccato gasps.- Boston Globe
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Much like a riveting movie keeps you in your seat, you’ll want to pay close attention to Joanna Newsom’s astonishing new album for fear of missing too much of the plot.- Boston Globe
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The Dusk in Us is, then, a 44-minute master class in wielding extreme art toward human ends, using hardcore’s berating heft as a foundation for dirging experimentalism.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 3, 2017
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- Boston Globe
- Posted May 9, 2012
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An “anything goes” approach to recording, which included opening up to let his bandmates collaborate on the songwriting, pays off in this captivating collection.- Boston Globe
- Posted Feb 12, 2013
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Thrilling and joyous, fierce and focused, the women sound like they’re having the time of their lives sinking their teeth back into the music together.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jan 20, 2015
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Even now, more than four decades after being recorded, it still catches your ear as one of the most wholly original sounds in pop music.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 2, 2017
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Utopia is both resolutely avant-garde and absolutely beautiful, a combination those who associate experimental music with dissonance and ugliness will find utterly paradoxical.- Boston Globe
- Posted Nov 22, 2017
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Anyone who doubted that Green is one of today's most commanding vocalists simply needs to hear how he negotiates moods here and turns phrases with subtlety, wit, and style. Killer stuff.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 8, 2010
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Pusha T is at the top of his game with sharply defined autobiographical tales and defiant, self-aware verses. He often dazzles with his smooth, cold-blooded flow and connects on virtually every song.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 8, 2013
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Ripe with propulsive tempos, drum machines, and electronic embellishments, the album sounds like nothing else she's ever done.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 4, 2012
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Backspacer, the band’s ninth studio album [is] one of its most cohesive and satisfying in terms of brevity, crisp production, and a sharp focus.- Boston Globe
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His deeply felt meditations on matters of the heart and the soul are matched by the meticulously detailed, gorgeously rendered music that surrounds them.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jul 1, 2016
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The set list for most of these shows was identical, so you get as many as 20 versions of certain songs. For all that, listening through the whole of this box set is an exhilarating experience.- Boston Globe
- Posted Dec 14, 2016
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The great, and only, disappointment with Rome is that once you've heard the album, you'll want to watch the movie it accompanies. Except there is no movie.- Boston Globe
- Posted May 17, 2011
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Few bands are clever enough to make you feel giddy singing a song called “Keep Your Children in a Coma.” Gonson, as usual, is a refreshingly natural singer, bringing heart and soul to songs that would seem to be bereft of such qualities.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 4, 2013
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Younge rarely puts a note wrong in his arrangements; his stripped-down approach echoes the Delfonics’ influence on artists like RZA and El Michels Affair without sounding derivative.- Boston Globe
- Posted Mar 14, 2013
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The time away has done the California-spawned group good, as the conversation is familiar--intricate instrumental phrasing, pristine harmonies--but also full of fresh energy that lends everything from the buoyant gospel bluegrass of “21st of May” to the joyously bleary “Rest of My Life” an air of excitement.- Boston Globe
- Posted Apr 1, 2014
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Instead of trying to divine the line between earnest and ironic, Weezer fans should just sit back and enjoy what works here. And like every Weezer record, plenty does.- Boston Globe
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Fueled by exploration and musical experimentation, Carlton’s reinvention finds her a long way from “A Thousand Miles”--and in a better place, artistically.- Boston Globe
- Posted Oct 26, 2015
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the bigger question with any record regardless of genre should always be is it good? And The Incredible Machine is very good indeed.- Boston Globe
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With help from producers Dave Stewart of Eurythmics - who co-wrote seven songs as well - and Glen Ballard, Nicks sings of big loves and losses and sprinkles them with her enchanted glitter of optimism, melancholy, ecstasy, and regret.- Boston Globe
- Posted May 9, 2011
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This week the Canadian sorta-supergroup releases Together, its fifth album, and provided you're not the kind of fan who requires your heroes to evolve, the disc is delectable.- Boston Globe
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He delivers deceptively subtle music that retains all of the singer's seductive charms and inimitable style.- Boston Globe
- Posted Jun 26, 2012
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The hooks are restrained, yet Mellencamp never loses sight of melodies and his fine song sense. Unsettled and disconsolate, these songs fittingly reflect their time.- Boston Globe
- Posted Sep 29, 2014
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