Slant Magazine's Scores

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For 3,122 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: 1,692 out of 3122
  2. Mixed: 1,319 out of 3122
  3. Negative: 111 out of 3122
3122 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Shine
    Unfortunately, these effervescent uptempo tracks give way to same-y filler including 'Back In Love' and 'In the Rain,' but songs like 'Pretty Please (Love Me)' are sure to appeal to fans of retro-revisionists Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and even Gnarls Barkley.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Third
    There's enough on Third (spaghetti-western guitars, organs, barking effects) to sate those who pine for the late '90s, but gone is the turntable scratching, ostensibly deemed too much of a relic from that decade; in its place are more electronic flourishes, like the cyclic synth-bass loop that softens the second half of "The Rip," a song which is proof positive that Goldfrapp would never exist without Portishead.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Midnight Organ Fight
    Hutchison and his bandmates reward patience as well as repeated listens, and they deserve credit for unearthing a unique chunk of the Scottish heart, raised on equal parts American punk and traditional folk and bleeding beautifully.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jim
    This is saying something, because every single song on Jim will battle for space in the part of your brain that gets hooked.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Robyn
    Robyn is definitely a slow-burner (unusual for a dance record, which typically provides a more immediate, transient gratification), but it's also everything pop music should be: provocative, poignant, inventive, and fun.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Hard Candy
    The entire album is a self-declaration of Madonna's stamina, but it also reflects a woman who clearly feels like she's in a furious battle against time. Her legacy is already assured, so scoring another U.S. hit is just icing on the cake but she acts like she doesn't know it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rising Down
    Playing against typecast, Rising Down is not an appropriate soundtrack for your next fraternity party or bong load. It's more of a call to arms. Radio Raheem might well be proud.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Evangelist
    The album impresses as much for its craft as for the way it allows Forster to honor McLennan's passing even as it advances his own work.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Seldom Seen Kid
    Though the album's most overt trait is tenderness, the hetero-waltz 'The Fix' (featuring Richard Hawley on vocals) and the Zeppelin-esque 'Grounds for Divorce' provide a certain masculine muscle, making Kid feel like a male sibling of the Cardigans' equally exquisite 'Long Gone Before Daylight.'
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Elephant Shell
    Tokyo Police Club's reliance on sounds and forms, namely the borderline hackneyed tropes of the 21st century's neat-freak take on post-punk, that can all be found elsewhere. Bands rarely combine ingredients this stale into something this fresh.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bittersweet World
    Bittersweet World is another step in the right direction for Simpson; now if only she'd learn that real rule breakers don't write songs about it.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturdays=Youth
    And though analog synthesizer remains definitional of the M83's sound, they open the arrangements to include more naturalistic instrumentation as well. The approach allows this band named for a galaxy to seem more grounded, and yet more universal, than ever before.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lady Antebellum
    There's nothing revolutionary here, just a solid set of songs performed with definite skill and enthusiasm.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spirit
    Though the 21-year-old's faithful, capable rendition of 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' proves that the timelessness of the song should remain unquestioned, the album's adult-skewed material sounds even more jarring next to two fresh new tracks, the bouncy and youthful 'Forgive Me' and urban club jam 'Misses Glass,' added for American consumption.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
    Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is ultimately a rock record more than it is an ideas record, but on both counts the Seeds bring it like a band half their age.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mountain Battles
    Mountain Battles is a wonderful, trippy record that's full of invention and Deal sister sass.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Walk It Off
    An uneven album that just barely avoids the sophomore slump.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Do It!
    After five albums in just eight years, you could accuse Clinic of being one-note, but in an indie world besotted with cheap revivalism, at least you can't call them a gimmick.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Jim Noir
    Jim Noir works brilliantly on an escapist level, even though it rewards more active listening.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    In Ghost Colours
    Cut Copy have made a record with an overabundance of ideas and energy and not enough focus.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    X
    One of the most contemporary (and least pleasant) aspects of X is its scattershot production, which gives it the focus-grouped attention deficit disorder more typical of a Gwen Stefani record than one of Minogue's laser-honed disco-princess home runs.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Night
    These songs aren't as transcendent as a Chemical Brothers comedown, but they'll suffice until the Chems reunite with Beth Orton.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Attack & Release
    The bottom line is that most of the songs here do fit well within the framework of their blues-rock aesthetic, and that's what makes Attack work as a Black Keys album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Accelerate
    If it isn't able to recapture the post-punk energy of "Reckoning," the political fury of "Life's Rich Pageant," or the epic scope of "Automatic for the People," the album, at the very least, finds the band playing to its strengths rather than attempting to explore an increasingly thin artistic mythology. That alone justifies Accelerate's positive buzz, even if the album doesn't quite support the magnitude of it.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    April
    The effect of all this quietness and patient exploration of song structure can be transcendent or it can be incredibly boring, and for both better and worse, April is more of the same.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Funplex
    Funplex neither redefines nor sullies the band's sterling legacy, which is probably close to a best case scenario.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pretty.Odd.
    Every song on Pretty. Odd. is played and sung with the exuberant delivery of Rent on Broadway. But when the hooks are this good, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
    The electric guitar interludes sound obligatory, particularly when paired with lyrics that don't approach immediate or visceral
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Consolers Of The Lonely
    Consolers of the Lonely, despite its surprise entrance, is predictably pleasing, a fine collection of shit-kicking rock n' roll just varied and experimental enough to sound original and unbored.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Good Life
    What elevates Good Life over, to pick the obvious parallels, Hank Williams III's Risin' Outlow and Shooter Jennings's Put the 'O' Back in Country is that Earle's debut isn't limited to simple retro-minded mimicry.
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