Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,121 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 35% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 62% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 7.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 65
Highest review score: 100 Who Kill
Lowest review score: 0 Fireflies
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,691 out of 3121
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3121
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3121
3121 music reviews
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    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vagabon
    Vagabon finds the singer retreating to the comfort of her computer’s Logic program to fashion a world almost entirely around her honeyed vocals. Although you won’t find many ‘90s-infused indie jams like “Minneapolis” or “The Embers” here, Tamko’s voice never sounds strained in ways it once did either.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Two Hands
    Ranging from guttural yowling to barely contained explosiveness, Lenker’s voice is the perfect vehicle for Big Thief’s dark, pretty songs about personal and political wreckage.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Closer to Grey
    Closer to Grey is another haunting synth-pop house of mirrors that transcends the nostalgia of the Chromatics’s prior work.
    • 96 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ghosteen
    Ellis and Cave create an ambient field where all of the ambiguities of grief and hope can exist at once.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ode To Joy
    Tthe album is a bit monochromatic, lacking the classic guitar heroism that has, in the past, allowed Wilco to buck the dad-rock label. Twelve years on from Sky Blue Sky, the band would benefit from opening up their sound again—and getting a little bit weird.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    All Mirrors
    All Mirrors is challenging and confrontational, and rewards close, present listening.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    DSVII
    DSVII is an undeniably florid soundscape of ‘80s pop culture touchstones. But hearing Gonzalez flesh these castoffs out into full songs through the lens of video game music feels like little more than an amusing experiment.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In the Morse Code of Brake Lights
    It doesn’t sound like one of Newman’s more intimate, acoustic-focused solo albums, exactly—too many orchestral flourishes, hyperactive keyboards, and Case showcases for that—but at least half of it feels more like A.C. Newman & Friends than any of the band’s previous efforts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fear Inoculum
    Sadly, there’s nothing on Fear Inoculum as immediately accessible or anthemic as past Tool glories like “Sober” or “The Pot,” but what is here will reward repeated spins, even if listeners initially find themselves waiting for those mammoth riffs to show up, a la “7empest,” or for Maynard to finally kick into high gear, as in the rousing refrain of “Descending.”
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Chastity Belt
    With production assistance from Jay Som, Chastity Belt presents a tangible thickening of the band’s sound, with the introduction of strings on “Effort,” “Rav-4,” and “Half-Hearted” and keyboards on “Split” adding texture to their characteristic fuzzed-out guitar arrangements. Each melody and every drum fill feels intentional, and the group’s shared vocals and light-as-air harmonies seem like a meaningful statement of where they are as a band—and as friends.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Charli
    The result is a collection of sad bops masquerading as bangers, just as perfect for the club as for a solo bedroom dance party. Like much of pop music, Charli’s lyrics favor broad strokes over more specific narratives, leaving her songs open to interpretation.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beneath the Eyrie
    Too often, Beneath the Eyrie sounds like other artists, which is especially disappointing for a group like the Pixies, who have always been more trendsetters than followers.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Competition
    The Competition uses the aesthetics of the ‘80s dance floor to try to understand the rising tide of global nationalism. That makes it an easy listen despite its divisive subject matter.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Highwomen
    The album’s opening track, “Highwomen,” is a powerful and succinct recalibration of Jimmy Webb’s “The Highwayman.” ... Other songs on The Highwomen give voice to women’s struggles in a more lighthearted manner, and with mixed results.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Norman Fucking Rockwell!
    Distilled to their barest elements, the songs on this album reveal themselves not to be hollow vessels for vapid self-absorption, but frank assessments of the psychic effects of a world spiraling into chaos. ... She’s made an album with the unfettered focus and scope worthy of her lofty repute.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Lover
    Some pop stars may be too big too fail. Swift’s songwriting suffers from occasional bromides, and Lover can feel both overthought and, at a lengthy 18 tracks, under-edited. But Swift’s well-earned reputation for over-sharing, reflective of the generation for which she’s become a spiritual envoy, coupled with her newfound egalitarianism makes her not just a compelling pop figure, but an essential one.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Anak Ko
    While it might lack a rave-up pop number like Everybody Works’s infectious “1 Billion Dogs,” Anak Ko offers plenty of reasons to follow Duterte down whatever road may lay ahead.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I, I
    The album seems to suggest that Bon Iver is transitioning from a band in the traditional sense of the word into a looser collective. Despite the album’s intense pessimism and anxiety, Bon Iver’s organization speaks to the power of forging a community to battle back against darkness.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Center Won't Hold
    The Center Won’t Hold clocks in at just over a 30 minutes and lacks a certain spark—a song with the barn-burning intensity of “Entertain” or the heartrending emotion of “One More Hour.” In many places, these songs feel derivative in a way that the band’s music never has before.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    How Do You Love?
    Throughout, these songs depict human connection in all its messy glory, making the case that the glory is worth the mess.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Thrashing thru the Passion
    Even if the band’s guitar work isn’t what it used to be, Finn’s storytelling prowess certainly is, and along with his usual barrage of smartest-guy-at-the-dive-bar one-liners, an appropriate shift in his perspective as a lyricist is evident.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Immunity
    Cottrill’s ability to work outside the mold of indie rock and close-to–the-bone commentary puts her in the same camp as contemporaries Mitski and Snail Mail, but there’s something about her aloofness and measured control that feels profoundly unique.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    First Taste
    The result is an album that finds Segall expanding his sound while holding onto the blissed-out maximalist streak that has defined his work to date.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Para Mi
    Though the better part of Para Mi was ostensibly written with romantic interests in mind, the songs, so anchored to fixed experiences, have come to represent universal lessons learned. They’re still rough around the edges—many lack dynamism, fading in and out of monochrome synth passages—but the impression that Cuco put all of himself into the music remains.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fever Dream
    The fireside warmth that made songs like “Dirty Paws” and “Human” feel so intimate has dissipated in favor of squeaky-clean production, leaving the album feeling generic and non-specific.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Order in Decline
    Clocking in at just over 35 minutes (not including two bonus acoustic tracks), Order in Decline mercifully sheds the filler that bogged down the band’s previous releases. Ten amped-up tracks provide just the right amount of time to savor but not tire of its focused intensity. ... The album’s pitch-perfect production and riotous bombast make for a hell of a fun ride.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    No. 6 Collaborations Project
    Too often here, Sheeran feels like a supporting player, especially when he strays from his wheelhouse. For instance, if the singer wants to lean into rapping more, he’s not likely to benefit from doing so on the same track as Chance. And when Sheeran trots out his bad-boy routine, his music feels ersatz. It’s playacting of the worst kind.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ANIMA
    Anima still achieves a sonic and thematic through line. The album’s juxtaposition of lyrical techno-dread with austere, ghostly electronic music is satisfyingly unsettling. The lyrics are evocative in their economy, and rather than feel like guide tracks, the arrangements feel more fully realized than on Yorke’s past albums.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Jinx
    Though their sonic palate is monochromatic, their music is both cogent and engrossing. Jinx feels like a hallucination that proves hard to shake.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    An Obelisk
    With so many flat, unoriginal riffs and unmemorable choruses, there’s just not enough meat here to reward that approach, and despite its unrelenting volume, An Obelisk just feels empty without the wide-ranging dynamics and ambitious arrangements that have, until now, defined Titus Andronicus’s music.
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