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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    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Local Business
    [Local Business] is full of tracks that might seem less silly were they more hot-blooded and more akin to the raging storms kicked up on The Monitor and The Airing of Grievances.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Positive Force
    When Marion makes more creative use of his varied, globe-spanning influences, however, Positive Force is every bit as compelling as its predecessor.... [yet] far too many of the melodic hooks are merely adequate, and he doesn't pull any surprises.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    $oul $old $eparately
    Even with all of its guest spots and expensive-sounding beats, $oul $old $eparately is a frustratingly unambitious effort.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The River In Reverse
    The River In Reverse is a dark, passionate work that channels its rage toward redemptive joy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Leaders Of The Free World
    The album is a reverb-laced dirge, a slow-motion version of "you're prettier after three beers." Unfortunately, Elbow's lyrics--while plenty fatigued, especially coming from the disinterested vocal cords of lead singer Guy Garvey--are pretty sober.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Pageant Material
    Her music is as rooted in organic country and western traditions as ever, flush with cosmopolitan strings, instrumental banjo breaks, and generous portions of pedal steel, but the songwriting comes less organically, too often stretching itself thin over a genre that's historically benefited from a measure of simplicity.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Desire Lines
    By no means their best effort, Desire Lines is nevertheless a pleasurable listen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Nurture
    Nurture is at its best when it revels in Robinson’s dexterous instrumental tinkering. The album is occasionally too precious by half, as on the mawkish classical-guitar-based ballad “Blossom,” but bolstered by Robinson’s infectious sense of discovery and ear for experimentation, it boasts a prevailing spirit of optimism that’s hard to resist.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Hendra
    Hendra is such an impressively executed time capsule that it contains not only all of the pleasantries of the genre, but also its excessive earnestness.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Love With Oblivion
    Crystal Stilts differentiate themselves from the herd with scuzzy, garage-rock charm and dissonant cool.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Colour In Anything
    The Colour in Anything, as dazzling as it often is, finds Blake sidetracked by all the things he can do and doing them coldly, rather than focusing on the few things he should.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Different Ship
    With A Different Ship, Here We Go Magic has essentially removed the "psych" from psych-folk and replaced it with monotony.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Fine Print (A Collection Of Oddities And Rarities 2003-2008)
    Their ability to edit their material into thematically powerful statements is one of the band's strengths, which makes the scattershot, uneven approach of Fine Print all the more out-of-character.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revelation Road
    Ultimately, Revelation Road needed more of that passion and range.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Slip
    Individual songs on The Slip aren't particularly dynamic; the album has two levels: loud and soft.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Honeymoon
    It's a full hour of expressively expressive-less music--unmitigated solipsism as an aesthetic choice.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bloom
    An anthology of pretty but aimless ambient rock, and a starkly disappointing regression after the thoughtfulness of 2010's Teen Dream.
    • 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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sculptor
    Sculptor's Achilles' heel lies in its skeletal song structures, which feel too flimsy next to the enormity of the album's message of eschewing complacency.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    How Do You Do
    Hawthorne just doesn't have the vocal chops to pull off an otherwise solid album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Waterfall
    Their forays into synth-heavy late-'70s/early-'80s prog and arena rock are alternately inventive and bafflingly blockheaded.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    You & Me
    You & Me is a thoroughly Walkmen-esque album, however tautological it may be to say so.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Sea
    It's easy to be fatigued by this album. The moment the rhythm breaks, as with "Closer," it's a struggle to reengage with music that is so intensely personal, so overwhelmingly desolate and yet somehow unmemorable.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Inni [Live]
    Inni is beautiful and alluring, yes, but ultimately a recycled bit of nostalgia likely to please very few.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Silence Is Loud
    Silence Is Loud tells a fairly coherent story, of a person trying to salvage a relationship but weighing skepticism about how worthy it is of being saved. Archives, though, is ultimately unable to wring enough pathos from the narrative she presents. She’s a skilled designer of breathless jungle soundscapes, stocked with immersive details like aquatic synths, endless breakbeats, and jagged basslines, but she hasn’t fully mastered the autobiographical soul-pop mode.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
    I Know You're Married would be a solid effort, but based on her own output alone, it's a considerable disappointment.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Flesh Tone
    Her new album, Flesh Tone, sounds dated in the worst kind of way-that is, not enough to sound retro-cool, but enough to sound totally uncool
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    6 Feet Beneath the Moon
    6 Feet Beneath the Moon feels incomplete and rushed, with Marshall cramming as many of his ideas as he can into a single album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fantasies
    While it continues Metric's new-wave/loud-rock amalgam, the songs themselves fail to leave much of an impact.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ryan Adams
    He may have matured in the last 14 years, but there's no indication that's been good for his music, which on Ryan Adams feels lazier and more watered down than ever before.
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