Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,113 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: 1,683 out of 3113
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3113
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3113
3113 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Expert in a Dying Field
    The group’s third album, Expert in Dying Field, is an exhilarating power-pop tour de force, replete with bristling guitar riffs and bright, infectious harmonies. It’s also a devastating exploration of anxiety, insecurity, and regret—a reflection of how, in life, there can be no true joy without sadness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Spirituals
    Her least celebratory album to date, Spirituals is nonetheless ornate and often frenetic, managing to give her pent-up anxiety a kind of release.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hideous Bastard
    “Run the Credits” rejects the notion that life fits into a neat, three-act narrative, and Hideous Bastard serves as a frank, compelling chapter in Sim’s.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    God Did
    God Did lacks an organized artistic vision, or at least a sense of purpose beyond engaging in purely attention-grabbing theatrics.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    DRILLMATIC Heart vs. Mind
    Unlike his arch rival, 50 Cent, the Game has always been an impressive rapper but a substandard songwriter. The trend continues on Drillmatic, with equally frictionless results.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Flood
    Flood sees Donnelly stretching into new sonic territory and refining the at times jagged indie rock of her promising debut. While there aren’t any songs here as immediate or infectious as “Tricks” or “Lunch,” or ones as lyrically potent as “Mosquito,” Donnelly’s growth as a musician reveals her to be more versatile than her past releases let on.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All of Us Flames
    While All of Us Flames peaks in energy early with the tremendous “Forever in Sunset,” one of Furman’s most climactic rock songs since 2018’s “Driving Down to L.A.,” the impact of the album’s latter half comes from its focus on autobiographical minutiae.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    PRE PLEASURE
    Jacklin spends most of Pre Pleasure offering captivatingly penetrating personal commentary, whether backed by distorted guitars or mere whispers of arrangements.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Freakout/Release
    The band’s tendencies to go through tonal permutations throughout the not-unaptly titled Freakout/Release often feels more disjointed than it does dynamic. Ultimately, neither their desire to create irresistible dance numbers nor their expressions of disenchantment are ever allowed to fully take shape.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Traumazine
    Megan displays more vulnerability on “Anxiety” than she ever has before, letting the person behind the swagger show. ... Megan’s attempts at pop and R&B crossover are less successful. Traumazine’s production, full of cavernous piano chords and punchy 808s, finds a sweet spot that’s mainstream enough to appeal to a wide audience while still threatening to blow out your woofers.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 2
    Outside of a few standouts—like “Obsessed,” where breakout dancehall sensation Shenseea’s deft wordplay and bouncy timbre strike a nice contrast with Charlie Puth’s gravely tenor—there’s zero discernable identity to the album on a track-by-track basis.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Last Slimeto
    Rather than follow a traceable narrative or thematic through line, the album merely conjures a series of—albeit passionately relayed—images of love, lust, and violence. Fortunately, these snapshots cohere just enough, driven by unceasing and often exhilarating geysers of emotion.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Reset
    Reset revels in the whimsical sounds of ‘50s and ‘60s pop and rock but lacks the memorable songwriting that made much of the best music from that era so indelible.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Renaissance
    Due in part to its tonal variety and expert sequencing, Renaissance never feels monotonous, despite its near-relentless forward motion.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hold On Baby
    An album that might have had greater impact if it didn’t feel so literally and figuratively pre-programmed.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Entering Heaven Alive
    It’s at this blurry intersection of inscrutability and openness, of pure persona and slavish authenticity, that White has often done his best work. Much of Entering Heaven Alive exists too far to one side of that spectrum.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    World Wide Pop
    Ultimately, World Wide Pop succumbs to sameiness, with several songs in a row set to a similarly frantic tempo and overly compressed, treble-heavy sound mix. Rather than allowing individual sounds to stand out, the chaotic placement of samples makes them all run together.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Other Side of Make-Believe
    A half-baked pastiche of previous releases. Even the album’s highlights can’t compete with the best cuts on later albums like 2014’s El Pintor. In an attempt to move forward, the band has simply disassembled and repackaged the stylistic traits that made them special in the first place.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hellfire
    Hellfire is designed to be heard as an album, rather than chopped into playlists—but it’s 180 degrees away from the dourness of the usual prog-adjacent music. The album rewards digging beneath its surface and influences, as it engages with rock’s history while simultaneously taking it in imaginative new directions.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Un Verano Sin Ti
    Un Verano Sin Ti is more often than not fueled by the artist’s silky, pleading singing than his kinetic rapping. And rather than play culture vulture and disingenuously embody an ascendant style, Bunny doubles down on his heritage and cultural identity.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's Almost Dry
    The intricately constructed It’s Almost Dry is still part of a now decades-long roll-out attesting to his bravado—and we’re not complaining.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Home, Before and After
    While some of its sonic experiments aren’t entirely successful, Home, Before and After is spiked with humor and pathos, and Spektor holds the two in balance as skillfully as she ever has.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Closure/Continuation
    Its weaker moments suggest a group that’s struggling to find something new to say, both thematically and musically. But when the band stretches out and explores their full dynamic range, capturing the dystopian overtones wafting through Wilson’s lyrics, they’re still capable of reaching cathartic heights.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sometimes, Forever
    Though Sometimes, Forever is more sonically diverse and lyrically cohesive than Soccer Mommy’s previous albums, its lyrical themes and melodies aren’t nearly as indelible.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ugly Season
    The album serves as a beautiful dissection of dance as action and concept. Beyond that, it’s the most experimental Perfume Genius effort to date, and a bold addition to an already impeccable discography.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Farm to Table
    In casting off the lo-fi chaos of Live Forever and, thankfully, most of its flirtations with hip-hop, Bartees strikes a somewhat anonymous note with this album’s well-executed but rather straightforward rock, replete with several showy guitar solos.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    EYEYE
    The lack of momentum caused by the absence of a consistent beat serves, almost paradoxically, to envelop us in Eyeye’s often mesmerizing cinematic textures. ... But while most of Eyeye’s trappings as a chronicle of a breakup are successful, sometimes Li’s writing can too blatantly underline her concepts.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Some Nights I Dream of Doors
    In much the same way that he juxtaposes Afropop and R&B, Obongjayar alternates between modes of vulnerability and swagger throughout Some Nights I Dream of Doors.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
    Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers can be emotionally ugly and unpleasant, but it never feels less than completely authentic to Lamar’s personal journey. It’s thankfully levied with glimpses of joy and melodic hooks.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Harry's House
    The album both sees Styles cementing his status as music’s premier sensitive, shy guy and growing comfortable enough within the pop idiom that he inhabits to push against it—but only ever so slightly. Styles may be a fashion trendsetter, but with Harry’s House, he continues trying on different styles in an effort to discover his own.
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