Consequence's Scores

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For 4,040 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 44% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 52% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Channel Orange
Lowest review score: 0 Revival
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,754 out of 4040
  2. Mixed: 1,215 out of 4040
  3. Negative: 71 out of 4040
4040 music reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Pillars of Ash
    Pillars of Ash rockets through 11 tracks without looking back, without room for breath. The songs tend to blend together in the spin cycle, one screamed vocal track melting its way into the next, one thundering drum fill inseparable from another.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Big Black Coat
    While it still falls short in holding attention from start to finish, Big Black Coat signals a welcome return. Junior Boys created their most uncomplicated album yet, which still holds their signature style, and with it comes a jagged body of music made soft to the touch thanks to Greenspan’s buttery vocals.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Islah
    It’s a showcase of versatility that plays to its creator’s strengths enough to feel like a definitive statement, no matter how many other projects he’s released before it.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Ghosts of Highway 20
    Though Williams is no stranger to an effective narrative, rarely have her stories captured such a concrete portrayal of human experience at its most unsure moment: the end.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Revenant [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Much of the soundtrack feels like papery skin drawn increasingly tight across sharp bones. There’s a tension lying under the surface of stretched notes, threatening constantly to break.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Perfect
    Fair has always had a tendency to get too cute in his lyrics, but there’s a contagious positivity to Perfect, even if it’s often oversimplistic.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Gumption
    At only eight songs, it’s a shame that Gumption seems to only truly find its footing as it draws to a close in its last couple of songs. That said, as a debut, it has a few moments of captivating beauty and shows plenty of promise for more.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Anti
    Anti takes risks and disregards convention in a way that only a true superstar like Rihanna could pull off.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Astonishing
    You might want to laugh at points, because a good deal of it is very silly, but somewhere within the second half, you’ll become just a little invested. By the grand finale, you might even feel inspired.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Hymns
    Even in Hymns’ clumsier moments, the band never try to be something they’re not.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Don't You
    This organic quality pops up every so often, as if to reinforce the human element of an album that relies so much on electronic flourishes to get its point across.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    This Is Acting
    While Sia’s lines wear a badge of effortlessness, her ripe voice lends gravitas to these “victim to victory” ballads (as the notoriously media-shy singer characterized them to the New York Times in a rare sit-down).
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Nevermen
    In large part, the songs on Nevermen come across exactly as that: songs, specifically made in a studio by a group of individually talented musicians.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Suicide Songs
    An ugliness fringes Lee’s delivery, and it’s what keeps Money’s music from dipping into the saccharine.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Dystopia
    It’s political without being overt, the production is strikingly heavy, and the good tracks outweigh the bad. At this point in his career, it’s as strong an album as anyone can expect from Mustaine and his revolving door of performers and should pull Megadeth out of has-been status.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Purple Reign [Mixtape]
    Purple Reign stands as a fine mixtape by itself--neither his best nor worst recent work, it nonetheless works perfectly as a preview of what’s to come.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Moth
    While not a minimalistic record by any stretch of the imagination, Moth greatly benefits from a toned-down approach that gets to the core of what makes each song work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Night Thoughts
    Night Thoughts is a fine entry in their already strong discography.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Jet Plane And Oxbow
    The album is at once a blithe daydream and a haunting nightmare.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Emotional Mugger
    Segall’s output over the last decade is proof that making music is truly its own reward for some artists, and over the course of 11 songs and 38 minutes, Mugger epitomizes that passion like no album of his before it.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Coliseum Complex Museum
    The Montreal outfit sounds like they’ve run out of ideas and are starting to repeat their already expansive catalogue.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The Catastrophist
    While this record won’t reel in many new listeners, it’s a worthy and worthwhile addition to the band’s discography, full of catchy grooves that continue to defy expectations.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Malibu
    For its lyrical and musical scope, Malibu brings to mind a number of excellent albums, ranging from Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions to, yes, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Adore Life
    Adore Life is many things, but the thing it feels most like is a celebration. On one level, it’s a celebration of the fact that guitar-driven rock music is probably here to stay. But it’s also a celebration of life at its strangest, messiest, and most vital.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    New View
    The album’s weaknesses aren’t unforgivable; they just too frequently sound limp and over-saturated in storied traditions. The verve and unpredictability that so frequently fueled her songs are lost and sorely missed.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Death of a Bachelor
    Death may be messy, but it’s not necessarily the end, just another explosive event.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Not to Disappear
    Not to Disappear builds on many of the same themes that dominated 2013’s If You Leave, but with an added layer of universality.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Ardipithecus
    So much of Ardipithecus is impenetrable, even distancing. The album is a headscratcher, one that shows plenty of promise but also a personality abstruse to the point of mystification.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Blackstar
    Blackstar is a battle cry against boredom, a wide-eyed drama set in a world just beyond our scopes. It doesn’t get more Bowie than that.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    The Hateful Eight [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
    Despite the time off, he brushes the dust off his chaps masterfully, making for a haunting score that hints creepily at the film’s violent depths.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Leave Me Alone
    Making an old model feel fresh is no easy task, but Hinds largely accomplish it, embracing the intriguing sloppiness of their predecessors while making steps on their own.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Tell Me I'm Pretty
    While Cage the Elephant deliver a well-rounded record, this one’s not enough to vault them multiple steps ahead.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Late Nights: The Album
    Jeremih’s vision is astounding, and the places in which he gets to indulge in adventurous risk-taking more than make up for the safe plays that surround them.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    King Push - Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude
    His development extends beyond just his writing. Pusha picks a wide-ranging group of thumping beats from noted rap greats like Kanye West, Q-Tip, Metro Boomin, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and most effectively, Timbaland.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    HITnRUN: Phase Two
    While Prince is raging against the dying of the light, there exists no graceful innovation on HITNRUN Phase Two. Instead, Prince presents only an aped version of his one-time vitality.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Purple
    Purple is a redemptive statement that’s indelibly human, going far beyond mere notes and music. It speaks to the deeper powers of creation: the artistic struggle to maintain, survive, and somehow have fun in the face of death, a fate Baroness defied and overcame.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Asperities
    Asperities conveys a similar sense of place [as previous albums] without ever explicitly detailing where it’s set or why, allowing the listener to envision their own wrinkles stretched over Kent’s richly drawn skeleton.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven
    As it stands, this album feels like a few good ideas mired in a mess of half-formed sketches, rough recordings, and simple cliches.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    A New Place 2 Drown
    This is music created under the role of the supportive brother, and for much of it, he’s too focused on his sibling’s creations to fully flesh out his own work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Skeletons
    Skeletons’ canned production is tolerable up to this point, with the riffs and drums serving as background noise to Danzig’s trademark voice, but it only dilutes a track like “N.I.B.”.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Return of the Tender Lover
    With a seemingly renewed energy, Babyface is back in business with two records in the last two years, and Return of the Tender Lover sets the table for an even bigger return to the public eye forthcoming.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Saint Cecilia EP
    Saint Cecilia feels like a new turn, or rather, a much-needed step back. It’s simple, back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll that reaches for the heart and not the last fan in the back of the crowd.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    But You Cain't Use My Phone [Mixtape]
    On But You Caint Use My Phone, Badu achieves an intimacy and warmth that makes you feel that it’s best to bare your emotions on your sleeve.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Right On!
    Lindberg’s range helps the record from feeling too stale. At times, she relies too much on repetition, causing some tracks to feel too familiar to stand out. But, when she shuffles the pieces of her puzzle, the songs are typically the stronger for it.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    The Ties That Bind: The River Collection [Box Set]
    The River Collection isn’t a glimpse of what could have been--it’s raw proof that The River sessions produced too many good songs for one album (even a double album) to contain.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Head Full of Dreams
    No matter how overblown or nonsensical Coldplay have progressively gotten since 2002’s watermark A Rush of Blood to the Head, as long as they deliver one gobsmacking single per album, they’re kings--and rightfully so. That’s how you build a career. A Head Full of Dreams follows suit with first single “Adventure of a Lifetime”.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Long Lost Suitcase
    Some of the songs’ differences are sanded down, all glossed together in ultra-professional production.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Kannon
    At a mere 35 minutes, Kannon is a fleeting journey. But in that allotted time, Sunn do what they do best, crafting an inescapable atmosphere of flowing drone metal, and as a whole, it’s arguably their best composition to date.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wake Up!
    The music never threatens to eclipse the message. If anything--and this might sound like a strange criticism of a Christian rock album--it’s too reverential.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fever 121614, Live in Japan
    Rather than reference the work they’ve made before, each project takes on a completely new form. Fever 121614 is no different, as Deerhoof harness their previous material, turn it on its anxious head, and perform it in a way that allows fresh life to creep in.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Monastic Living [EP]
    The end result plays like a record for the band much more so than the fans, who might be hard pressed to hang in there with it for repeated listens after the curiosity factor wears off.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Product
    Though Product is billed as a singles collection, its sequencing matters like an album; the track’s placement lets it bow under the weight of all the bizarre moments that precede it, leaving gashes too deep for it to be as treacly and plasticine as its title might suggest.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Junun
    Junun should be approached with a willingness to embrace new ideas. Greenwood is clearly the big audience draw here, but even fans of his solo compositions may feel a little lost. But, someone with an eager ear will find beauty in this blend of cultures and styles.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    25
    25 doesn’t necessarily meet the fire of its predecessor, but it meets its mark--a whole different undertaking when tasked from the top.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Suffice to say, this new album’s darker, tougher production fits him like a snug pair of fingerprint-concealing gloves.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Free TC
    For all of Free TC’s turn-up nut-grabbing, it’s the beating heart that ends up stealing the show.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Mutant
    Mutant unfurls like a singular body, and its nuanced empathy with the shame and horror and joy of corporeality makes it an enthralling piece to experience.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 33 Critic Score
    Purpose
    Skrillex and Diplo successfully serve up twitchy beats ready to incite anything with a pulse, but the sentiment at the album’s core leans toward insufferable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Riot Boi
    When given adequate space, Le1f once again succeeds just being the best and most honest version of himself.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sold Out
    It wasn’t too long ago that Paypal himself was working his happy hardcore fanaticism into the footwork bass lines. While those hardcore elements are non-existent on this effort, the whimsical spirit remains.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Slime Season 2 [Mixtape]
    If you want true avant-garde hip-hop, you’re better off looking elsewhere. If it’s a melodic, cohesively produced collection of rap songs you’re after, you could do a lot worse.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Aquaria
    While AQUARIA is uniquely Asher’s and probably unlike anything else you’ll hear this year--a mix of heavy, grinding industrial beats and quick, nimble lyrics that whiz by like the view of the landscape from a train window--the truth buried at the bottom of the bass drop is that Asher himself isn’t yet magnetic enough to make his own material shine.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    EVENIFUDONTBELIEVE
    The album is heavier in massive live moment potential than extended narrative.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Garden of Delete
    It’s OPN’s most emotional work to date and also his most ridiculous. Its tragedy is bound up with its humor; its sublimity comes from the places where it feels the most broken.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Slime Season [Mixtape]
    Slime Season finds Thugger mastering new conduits to express his idiosyncrasies in addition to spreading like marmalade over familiar territory.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Money Shot
    He’s legitimizing his side project. Puscifer’s 2011 album, Conditions of My Parole, moved away from the novelty of V is For Vagina, and Money Shot furthers that progression into more mature territories.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 25 Critic Score
    Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings
    Vinyl is not a good format for Montage of Heck, an album that requires a fair amount of skipping around just to qualify as tolerable. I’m using the word “album” loosely here, because this one fails as an album in almost every conceivable way, jettisoning any sense of unity or context in favor of positioning itself as an aural complement to Morgen’s documentary.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Alone in the Universe
    While some of it falls short of past greatness, the core of the album shows Lynne hasn’t lost his mad genius after more than a decade of silence.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Early Risers
    The best things Soldiers of Fortune have going for them are a palpable sense of energy and camaraderie. But after that ["Campus Swagger"], Early Risers gets a little too loose, a little too freewheeling to stay interesting as an LP.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 91 Critic Score
    Art Angels
    After Visions, the only thing Grimes could do was to grow as big as the landscape around her. Here’s her mountain.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Fake Yoga
    The result is a record caught between young adulthood and just plain adulthood, but you have to delve into the lyrics to discover that dichotomy. And, even then, the clues come from individual lines instead of a greater narrative.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Delirium
    Ultimately, chunks of Delirium cement Goulding’s place in our current pop soundscape. However, the album doesn’t fit together as well as, say, 1989 or E-MO-TION.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Elaenia
    Elaenia stands out as a remarkably assured debut album from an artist who took his time putting it together.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Bad Neighbor
    The record is a posse cut without pretense and the showpiece of a stylistic partnership that feels long overdue.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Many Moons
    In the end, Many Moons appears exactly as advertised: an album that showcases many different faces of the same essential thing. These songs won’t spark any revelations with their musings on time and the subconscious, but they might just transport you to a place that feels like a pleasant dream.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us
    Music saves the misfit kids, but not every pain can be walloped into submission. Beach Slang sound less interested in ripping that pain open and exposing its insides than they are in shouting over it, and The Things We Do can start to sound like an exercise in emotional extremes.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Teens of Style
    Teens of Style has plenty of both [mistakes and experimentation], but it’s somehow all the more charming for it. This is an album that will grow on you and frustrate you, probably within the span of the same day.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I Am a Problem: Mind in Pieces
    I Am a Problem isn’t the anomaly it might at first seem, but it is also its own beast. And a powerful, eccentric beast it is, snarling and stalking the shadows.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Now I'm Ready
    Now I’m Ready plays like a collection of tracks that didn’t quite make the cut on the season’s coolest synthpop albums, familiar despite its unfamiliarity, pleasant if not exciting.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pylon
    The finished product is still strong and consistent, to be sure, but with the lack of variety, Pylon is likely to be remembered as an album that just kept a constant rhythm for 56 minutes.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Divers
    The album winds up feeling like the first in Newsom’s catalog that won’t be considered a classic, but it’s proof that a sturdy, thought-provoking, and rewarding record doesn’t necessarily need to stand next to her past work to find its own greatness.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Pray for Rain
    While the driving forces behind Pray for Rain might not be ultra-fresh, Vesprille and Hindman do a more than passable job of wrapping them in a brand new package.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Deeper than Sky
    The band sounds like they’re having fun, and humor is such a scarcity in the super serious realm of modern metal. Deeper Than Sky is fun to listen to, like the carefree thrash of old.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    Return to the Moon
    It’s undoubtedly healthy for musicians to step outside of their main project to spread their wings and create something new. But in the end, the project reads as only a slight tweak on Berninger and Knopf’s established voices.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    American Tragic
    On American Tragic, Fortune rises up to squeeze every last drop of drama from her misery.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    II
    If II proves anything, it’s that Fuzz remains a force to be reckoned with. Segall and co. have only honed their chops in the years since their debut, and it’s almost terrifying to project what will come in the next stage of their evolution.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Thank Your Lucky Stars
    This album is not like anything they have ever done, and gives music fans reason to be thankful.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    All We Need
    Raury’s simple, yet passionate rap delivery doesn’t fare all that well when forced into shared space with established stars of the genre.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones
    Magnetic Bodies/Maps of Bones falls into the same category as Maritime’s 2004 debut, Glass Floor, and their last record, Human Hearts: It’s an LP of several great songs surrounded by several just okay ones.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler
    YACHT balances its snark with just enough warmth to keep its dystopian dreams engaging.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tape Loops
    When listened to as ambient noise, the album adds a layer of elegiac beauty to its surrounding environment, but when listened to intently, it presents a frustrating experiment, a Möbius strip of perpetual return.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    As If
    The middle section of the album is stellar, and for a few fleeting moments, it all seems to work. Unfortunately, the rest of As If is much less engaging.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    VEGA INTL. Night School
    Palomo has managed to group everything that catches his eye under one disco ball-laden roof, but Night School rarely feels overstuffed. It stays playful and casual, and its stakes often feel low as a result.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Documentary 2
    This album is grand. Though it clocks in at 73 minutes, it unfolds with few speed bumps.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Are You Alone?
    Are You Alone?, as its title suggests, is an incredibly personal experience, one that benefits from conversing with Welsh as much as he is with you.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Color Before the Sun
    While many of the songs on The Color Before the Sun do fall into a certain post-hardcore formula that’s used over and over again throughout the album, the journey presented therein makes the difference.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fading Frontier
    At nine songs and just over 36 minutes, Fading Frontier is a filler-free opus of experimental rock splendor that never lags and always intrigues.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Psychic Warfare
    Fans of Sult’s style and metallic blues riffs will find a few gems among these tracks, but this is merely par for a Clutch album.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 42 Critic Score
    Still Got That Hunger
    It’ll satisfy the crowdfunders who have already paid for it, and if it helps the band bring their classic albums to more live ears, then it has done its job. As a work on its own, though, the Zombies’ sixth studio album comes off more polite than hungry.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Hallucinogen [EP]
    Hallucinogen shows Kelela’s remarkable confidence and strength through a fragility and willingness to admit faults and weaknesses.
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