Resident Advisor's Scores

  • Music
For 1,095 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Biokinetics [Reissue]
Lowest review score: 36 Déjà-Vu
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 1 out of 1095
1095 music reviews
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    While the record is a joyous, uplifting listen, there are not many surprises. After hearing Dijon in full effect on her previous LP, it left me with residual disappointment about the album's untapped potential. But there are still moments to be excited about on the album's B-side.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gibson's earlier work mixed pop mastery with genuine feeling. Actual Life 3 is the Hollywood remake, with not-quite-convincing lookalikes and a script laden with clichés.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    She's a musician adept at using her voice as an instrument, and with it she can convey appealing, addicting hooks. And these strengths are complemented by her crew of reliable producers. ... Even with a roster of collaborators like this, the record occasionally hits a bump when the ambitious, sometimes challenging production doesn't fit her idiosyncratic flow, like on the Sega Bodega-produced "Little Bit." But on the best moments, her vocals mesh seamlessly with off-kilter backing tracks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's like listening to the sea, before the strings slip in and out of tune like crashing waves. The beauty that emerges throughout the record requires patience to be appreciated in full and—to Frahm's credit—when it arrives, it's worth the wait.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's the most relaxed, comfortable album he's ever made, and it's a delight to drift along with him.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This foray beyond the confines of UK rap doesn't leave the album feeling muddled or stylistically confused—her out-there synth rap sound remains consistent throughout, for a polished, elegant debut album that stands tall inside (and outside) the UK's rap scene.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    On Natural Brown Prom Queen, she proves she belongs to no mood, genre or period of time. Over a placeless mix of sounds and endlessly dynamic beats she comes of age, shaping Black histories into exciting futures, all while making it clear that her idea of home is wherever she decides it is at any given moment.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The strength of In These Times is in its considered arrangements. The melodies take center stage rather than solely the kinetic rhythmic attack McCraven can unleash whenever he pleases. And when he pleases, his percussion charts can hit with a ferocity that shudders like drum licks plucked from a lengthy Fela-meets James-Brown after-hours live session.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The final result is up there, but as it jumps frantically from idea to idea, it dulls the impact of its best ideas in favour of others that might have been best left in a folder along with hundreds of other loops on his laptop.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Like any such grand project, it's daring and indulgent, occasionally weighed down by its own pretence, and the result is several songs on the album that seem to unspool in no direction in particular. But that unwinding is usually gripping, and like the other two albums Björk's recent renaissance—Utopia and Vulnicura—Fossora stuns more often than it doesn't.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As a whole, the album succeeds at doing something tricky: pandering to fans of theory, minimalism and ambient music all in equal measure.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There's a weightiness to Polar's songwriting that both complements and contrasts the crystalline production touches.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    With slightly more judicious editing, Let's Turn It Into Sound could have been a grand crossover statement, combining admittedly trendy synth experiments with freak-folk charisma. But that's not what Smith is going for here. Instead, the LP feels like listening to someone try out a new talent, learning as they go along, substituting practiced polish with a hunger for new ideas and self-expression.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Where her past work could sound like it was written for a grandiose 18th-century opera house, Living Torch is closer to the long-lost sonic component of a modern art installation, endless in its possibilities and imagination.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's both humble and ambitious, wonderfully arranged in some places and slightly clumsy in others (the Popol Vuh-isms of "Start A New Life" kill the album's momentum just three tracks in, and I've yet to be convinced by Weber's humdrum vocals). But for an artist who has always been earnest and upfront about big melodies, Garden Gaia feels like the logical next step, freeing him from his techno past.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What I Breathe feels like both a jumping-off point for dance music newbies and a feast of great ideas for those who have been around the block a few times. It's all held together by great pacing, frankly amazing production and a lack of cynicism that feels refreshing, open-hearted to the very last moment.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Although Spirit Exit, both more expansive and more restrained, doesn't oscillate as wildly as her previous expeditions, the heart strings remain plucked in gorgeous loops and motifs that spiral out into infinity.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The result is some of the most intimate and grandiose music he's ever produced.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beyoncé is clearly itching to experiment with her sound. This latest album may not be her most cohesive release, but it does come with a handful of well-executed surprises. ... The album falls flat when it tries too hard to immerse itself in a culture that does not belong to Beyoncé.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sharp and fiery, Isoviha lacks any restraint, capturing the paradoxical multiplicity and singularity that makes all of Ripatti’s output so memorable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sometimes it feels like one of the best records I've heard in recent memory, other times I wish it would just get to the point faster. But I think that's by design. ... To appreciate Escapology is to look at it as one piece in the puzzle, not an album so much as it is a single cog in Goodman's latest piece. It asks more questions than it answers, but poses them like few other artists could.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The spirit of the concept is dazzlingly portrayed at times, but the LP also conveys the emptiness of these things, the true idea of a "new pleasure"—everything we want, though not always enough of what we need. But it's great while it lasts.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    From start to finish, Nothing To Declare poses scintillating questions that have no answers, leaving genre tropes smoking on the electric chair. DJ Haram proves the perfect dance partner for Moor Mother.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's her most capital-A ambient album, without the sometimes harsh interference of her favored found sounds and field recordings. Yet at the same time, it's so quiet that it slips into the edges of comprehension just when you've determined you're going to get to the bottom of it. All the better to listen to it again to see what you missed—and then again, and again and again.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's a much less linear journey than we would expect from Owens, but it's also a welcome shift, an intriguing pivot from the very human themes of Inner Song. This time around, she invites the listener to wade through the fascinating depths of her imagination. It's hard not to close your eyes and surrender to the figure-eight flow.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If Outrun was a fast-paced drive that made the city look like an endless stream of light-trails, Reborn is a beautiful retro pastiche that intentionally slows down to let you take in just how far you've come.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In the unhurried calm of Whatever The Weather, it's easy to envision the slow-moving shifts of the season. ... However one chooses to sit with the sounds in the album, personally, as an American, Celsius has never sounded so dreamy.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Though not without its charms, the floundering moments of Crash suggests that Charli XCX may be most comfortable making subversive music.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With ideas that Froese wisely and generously left behind in this earthly realm, Froese has given us another Tangerine Dream near-masterpiece, created by the loyal pupils who grew up in his significant shadow.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is actually one of his more readily enjoyable albums, even if it's a little less adventurous most of the records from his long-running Pan•American project.