Spin's Scores
- Music
For 4,253 reviews, this publication has graded:
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50% higher than the average critic
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3% same as the average critic
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47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.6 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: | To Pimp A Butterfly | |
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Lowest review score: | They Were Wrong, So We Drowned |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 3,051 out of 4253
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Mixed: 1,147 out of 4253
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Negative: 55 out of 4253
4253
music
reviews
- By Date
- By Critic Score
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- Critic Score
LP builds a steamrolling production and piston-like percussion out of broken electronics and heaps of scrap metal.- Spin
- Posted Sep 3, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Sep 3, 2015
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By the time you reach the where-is-that-nicked-from riff of “I’m Not Satisfied,” it’s clear this is Lydon’s most listenable record in 30 years, though Album was a lot more fun and “Shoom,” the catchiest thing here, ain’t “Rise.”- Spin
- Posted Sep 2, 2015
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- Critic Score
Beauty Behind the Madness is front-loaded with fresh directions for the Weeknd that achieve the impossible: make it sound like he’s actually enjoying himself.- Spin
- Posted Aug 28, 2015
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[The] sense of resignation threatens to render Noctunes a laborious listen, but moments of lightness give the record a little bit of balance.- Spin
- Posted Aug 27, 2015
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- Critic Score
Start Here does a great job of cataloging the highs and lows of early milestones: first kisses, first breakups, leaving home for the first time.- Spin
- Posted Aug 26, 2015
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Depression Cherry’s particular non-specifics feel as full of breath and life as anything they’ve ever done--an album-length sigh as eloquent as a manifesto.- Spin
- Posted Aug 25, 2015
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His new LP, Nephew in the Wild, is largely cut from the same cloth, a collection of (mostly) sad songs looking back, just from a perspective that’s a little older, wiser, and well-adjusted.- Spin
- Posted Aug 24, 2015
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One of the best albums from a restless artist who understands the ridiculousness of being a Restless Artist, but trusts that a consistent voice will make sense of his cross-genre meanderings.- Spin
- Posted Aug 24, 2015
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What remains Bruun’s strongest suit is the way she juxtaposes the extremity of her influences. She comes out of more subdued sections to use blast beats like scare tactics, drops in glacial vocal harmonies as soothing lullabies.- Spin
- Posted Aug 20, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Aug 20, 2015
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This is music for flash mobs, a valentine to crowdsourcing, and a public engagement proposal to the universe.- Spin
- Posted Aug 20, 2015
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On M3LL155X, she does seem to be growing stronger, testing the boundaries between light and unfathomable darkness, the breathtaking and the nauseating.- Spin
- Posted Aug 19, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Aug 18, 2015
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The component parts are limited and austere as always (though this time he’s added on a Roland bass synth to his instrumental palette), which makes it all the more impressive that he’s able to conjure such brilliance out of them.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2015
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Think Africa ’70 minus the choruses and sax solos. If that doesn’t sound heretical to you, the groove awaits.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2015
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Exhilarating and at times exhausting, the competing rhythms atop call-and-response choruses deliver a jittery math-rock fix cut with humanism, warning against fundamentalists of all stripes even as they embody the multicultural promise of their homeland.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2015
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From the rock of “Nganshé” to the roll of “Coco Blues,” two forward-looking cosmopolitans (plus friends) craft new directions in urban sound.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2015
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Pretty much every guitar band going is currently toiling in the same ’90s nostalgia mines that Kempner dives into here, but few are able to do so with both technical prowess and its emotive content intact.- Spin
- Posted Aug 14, 2015
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Compton doesn’t need to exist, but it does, and that it’s actually pretty good and fresh in a year brimming with vibrant, relevant young voices, says something.- Spin
- Posted Aug 11, 2015
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- Critic Score
Abyss weighs unnecessarily heavy at times--the obvious premise and barely-there smack drum of “Simple Death” doesn’t hold up against the other songs’ more nuanced examinations of the macabre subjects--but Wolfe makes a convincing case to follow her into the underworld.- Spin
- Posted Aug 5, 2015
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Another One is a collection of a few of DeMarco’s best songs to date, all in a day’s work for this normal guy who just so happens to get a little wild on stage.- Spin
- Posted Aug 3, 2015
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The Most Lamentable Tragedy can be a harrowing listen, but it’s also laced with jokes and music that’s fun and invigorating.- Spin
- Posted Jul 30, 2015
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- Critic Score
St. Catherine is just as pleasant than its predecessors, but, ironically, its dusted-off, straightened-out recording and more substantial lyrics point out the music as, well, a little less so.- Spin
- Posted Jul 24, 2015
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No one song sticks out so prominently this time around, but that’s just because Star Wars works so well as a cohesive whole.- Spin
- Posted Jul 23, 2015
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Dirty Sprite 2 is a tremendous compendium of everything you want from a Future album in 2015.- Spin
- Posted Jul 22, 2015
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A couple of wooly moments aside, Monroe’s third album, The Blade, continues a remarkable hot streak for writers Luke Laird, Jessi Alexander, Chris Stapleton, and Monroe herself.- Spin
- Posted Jul 20, 2015
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Its stakes are a little lower, and he’s no longer revealing grand truths about life, but documenting once-dire realities from a rosier lens is still a worthwhile undertaking.- Spin
- Posted Jul 17, 2015
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All of these lyrical open wounds could be hard to stomach if not for the salve that Emre Turkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy’s head-spinning instrumentals provide.- Spin
- Posted Jul 15, 2015
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The real magic of Currents, though, is in how Parker so effectively (and genuinely, for the most part) manipulates the listener’s emotions without necessarily revealing any himself.- Spin
- Posted Jul 13, 2015
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There’s no shortage of potential DJ weaponry on Homesick, but what makes the album truly impressive are the cuts where Matrixxman gets out of his presumed comfort zone and steps away from the club.- Spin
- Posted Jul 9, 2015
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- Critic Score
It’s tense throughout, but it’s also endearingly frisky, and the poppiest moments have a tendency of landing at just the right time to stave off any potential noise-rock monotony.- Spin
- Posted Jul 9, 2015
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No longer ghosts, with this strong, same-as-it-ever-was album, Veruca Salt are now full-on zombies, the riffing dead. They don’t wanna go.- Spin
- Posted Jul 9, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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Maybe not what they originally had in mind when they used to call it “Electronic body music,” but a stunning reinterpretation nonetheless.- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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This 53-year-old minor folk vet’s drawl doesn’t obscure his flow, making it all the easier to follow his tales in real-time, inhabiting a husband cleaning his deer rifle or the bent-backed Deaver who watched as “Uncle Sam took away the neighbors’ land.”- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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Why Make Sense? smooths out Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard’s longstanding, ever-evolving musical partnership and collective existential quandaries into an album as polished as Larry Levan’s disco ball, and their most cohesive as well.- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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Sauna opens with the hissing and crackling of a steam room, and things get Benji-er from there.- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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Central bulbs in the now-blinding chandelier of Philly indie-punk, Hop Along’s thrilling sophomore effort plays out like sonic arrhythmia.- Spin
- Posted Jul 8, 2015
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These tracks don’t bear the outward signs of mourning of Rashad’s release, but at their heart there’s a sort of solitude that only occasionally makes its way onto the dance floor.- Spin
- Posted Jul 6, 2015
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Though Django and Jimmie could have been a mere nostalgia trip, it’s more akin listening to your favorite uncles at family reunions, telling stories that they aren’t supposed to.- Spin
- Posted Jul 1, 2015
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Power in the Blood is the work of an elder working against genre, knowing history, and moving forward into aesthetically unknown territory. For a septuagenarian, the optimism of it is heartening.- Spin
- Posted Jul 1, 2015
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Elegant and nimble songs that are intricate in their beauty and restless in their heartbreak.- Spin
- Posted Jul 1, 2015
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Turn is a haunting, often painfully beautiful example of how songs that may seem dead and buried can sublimely rise from the grave.- Spin
- Posted Jul 1, 2015
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There are no musical clangers, and occasionally the guitar work is more ambitious than it needs to be. Bryan’s voice, when it is low and slow, is more exciting than his bro-holler, but both are pleasure for pleasure’s sake--and pleasure is enough reason to listen to this collection.- Spin
- Posted Jul 1, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Jun 30, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Jun 30, 2015
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It’s not quite as satisfying as Kaleidoscope Dream, but it expands that album’s palette, pushing Miguel into further depths without submerging him in the squalor.- Spin
- Posted Jun 30, 2015
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Lotus and his fellow former collaborator Kamasi Washington turn up again here to add to the downcast din, but their inclusion only highlights Bruner’s dispositional shift.- Spin
- Posted Jun 26, 2015
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Recruiting Cursive’s Tim Kasher (on a single that outs the founding fathers as slave rapists) and Laura Jane Grace for 14 good songs in 40 minutes, Oberst’s made his best album since 2008’s addictive Conor Oberst, and ended up with the white male rage of the year.- Spin
- Posted Jun 26, 2015
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What it does best is address the simple lament of not having anything to twist to in too long.- Spin
- Posted Jun 24, 2015
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It’s hard to imagine a better record to stone and dethrone the three reigning M’s of ’90s indie: Malkmus, Mascis, and Martsch.- Spin
- Posted Jun 23, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Jun 22, 2015
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Her confidently unsteady voice has a refreshing energy, serving as a cohesive, quivering throughline for her intentionally nomadic debut, The Fool.- Spin
- Posted Jun 19, 2015
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The 14-track effort staggers in its breadth, especially since the album never loses its central through line: his knack for spinning pretty, heavy, and pretty heavy tracks.- Spin
- Posted Jun 16, 2015
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Like all of High on Fire’s efforts, Luminiferous is an extravagance, no doubt, but it’s their most refined. And everyone can afford a few of those every now and again.- Spin
- Posted Jun 15, 2015
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Hval continues to cleverly connect, and explicitly comment on, matters of sex and politics on her third album.- Spin
- Posted Jun 10, 2015
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If you’re not feeling Surf right away, stick with it long enough and it just might bring you to its wavelength.- Spin
- Posted Jun 5, 2015
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Things appear quieter for Kozelek this year, and the magic of Universal Themes is in the telling.- Spin
- Posted Jun 5, 2015
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The results are brilliant, but the album too often focuses on the latter two-thirds of the album title at the expense of the first.- Spin
- Posted Jun 4, 2015
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Tucker and Tividad have discovered their indie-pop Neverland, and a fanciful, free-flowing sound to suit it.- Spin
- Posted Jun 3, 2015
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It is exceedingly rare to find a producer who does so much, with so little, that he distilled from, again, so much.- Spin
- Posted Jun 2, 2015
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Derulo’s latest, Everything Is 4, proves he’s a workhorse, with possibly even (gulp) a vision.- Spin
- Posted Jun 1, 2015
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Clearly, it’s also a druggy album, and the highs are high--noticeably on “L$D,” whose stunning production turns from submerged to soaring, the jiggy “Excuse Me,” and the sexy, aforementioned “Westside Highway,” which has A.L.L.A.’s only hummable hook. Despite those peaks, the overall tone is more despondent.- Spin
- Posted May 29, 2015
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While his latest album is obviously rooted in Nielson’s present, it still brims with the same introspective nostalgia that comes with dusting off those old memories, and old records.- Spin
- Posted May 27, 2015
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Peanut Butter is far more self-aware, and that leads to music with greater resonance and variety.- Spin
- Posted May 21, 2015
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It’s structurally confounding, simultaneously weirder and more welcoming than any of the other material she’s released to date.- Spin
- Posted May 20, 2015
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The Desired Effect is another gingerly step into the present, Flowers’ present. No one knows how he feels or what he says until you read between his lines.- Spin
- Posted May 19, 2015
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At almost 30 minutes exactly, PC Music Volume 1 quits while it’s ahead.- Spin
- Posted May 18, 2015
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It’s an incredible album strewn with highlights obvious and sneaky, the rare debut that holds up the weight of its backstory, with the added brassiness of assuring us that’s just him on the regular. Now we know.- Spin
- Posted May 18, 2015
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Kouyaté’s new Ba Power offers an even more streamlined and forceful take on West African tradition.- Spin
- Posted May 11, 2015
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It’s hard to remember he was once known primarily as a co-founder of chillwave once you’ve emerged dripping from the warm bath of What For?- Spin
- Posted May 7, 2015
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Laufer flushes out the dark corners of last year’s blushingly sexy No More EP with velvet-voiced rapper Jeremih, turning it into his most ambitious and cinematic album yet.- Spin
- Posted May 7, 2015
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When any of Hinterland‘s nine disco-punk tracks gets in the pocket, the bass, guitar, and drums could run out for a half-hour, remaining insistent in their funk without breaking stride or sagging in momentum.- Spin
- Posted May 7, 2015
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Pulling a Bon Iver-gone-to-Walden Pond move might be grossly overdone by now, but Lord Huron has skillfully overturned the tired mulch in favor of tuneful new growth.- Spin
- Posted May 7, 2015
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What elevates Ripe 4 Luv beyond four absolute bangers and four darn-good in-betweens is how it uncovers the creepiness of power pop relationship dynamics.- Spin
- Posted May 7, 2015
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Listening to Non-Believers is like clasping hands with an old friend: It’s warm, accessible, and sweetly familiar.- Spin
- Posted May 6, 2015
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The strong-heeled Jackie is far from conservative, and possibly more daring, with three of the year’s best songs at the very top, middle, and bottom.- Spin
- Posted May 6, 2015
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II, like the record that preceded it, is still a seasick and unyielding document of brutalist experimentation. But because the trio is willing to explore different avenues, there’s more corners to get lost in.- Spin
- Posted May 5, 2015
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With songs and production this pumped, they’ll continue to make waves far outside their beloved home state.- Spin
- Posted May 4, 2015
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Ultimately, the most appealing thing about American Wrestlers is its lack of obvious guile or pretension.- Spin
- Posted Apr 29, 2015
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Rae is an absorbing enough writer to keep F.I.L.A. afloat. He does a good job of sizing up an unquantifiable horror: being too embedded to relinquish one’s bloodletting past ways.- Spin
- Posted Apr 28, 2015
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Magic Whip finds enough majesty and intrigue in the band’s more meditative days to remain worthy company to any of the band’s classic LPs.- Spin
- Posted Apr 28, 2015
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It’s a cohesive meditation on the legacy of avant-garde greats like Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt and peers such as Tim Hecker--and, of course, an essential part of Stetson and Neufeld’s own impressive canons.- Spin
- Posted Apr 27, 2015
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Winging away from Major Arcana‘s dark, tense pockets--the jagged, crackling riffs and the jarring way Dupuis’ voice faltered at the end of her desperately insightful verses, as if she were about to fall off a cliff--stretches Speedy Ortiz thin at times on Foil Deer.- Spin
- Posted Apr 24, 2015
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- Spin
- Posted Apr 22, 2015
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The desire to show subtlety and restraint is quickly overtaken by their visceral need to go buck wild (“Gimme All Your Love” is the best example of that roller coaster). While that pacing becomes a crack in the album’s otherwise polished veneer, it can easily be overlooked once you’re sucked in by all of the sounds and colors.- Spin
- Posted Apr 22, 2015
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He’s both looking back and moving forward, attempting, successfully, to capture the nervous optimism of youth.- Spin
- Posted Apr 21, 2015
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Every note sounds instinctual, every moment fluid; this is what happens when good friends come together to watch the world burn.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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The album feels epic in scope, imbuing the banality of everyday life with stunning tension and emotional weight in a way few producers can hope to touch.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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Shorter track lengths and thoughtful sequencing help Body Pill come off not as a series of sketches, but rather a tasting menu of Naples’ musical talents that’s satisfying even after multiple spins.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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The frequent Röyksopp collaborator has clearly learned a thing or two from the dance mavens, sprinkling Ten Love Songs with the mainstream-minded, four-on-the-floor thumping that should make American pop stars seethe with envy.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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At its best, We Fall treats its revolving door of guests less like a cavalcade of strangers than a band of familiar colleagues.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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After closing the door on her Electra Heart era, Marina Diamandis knew she needed to reinvent her persona. Froot achieves just that, adeptly flirting with chart sugar on the title track and “Better Than That” but more often than not, digging her heels into raw, nail-biting reality.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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They’re caustic and incendiary as hell, but they’re also unbelievably fun, an exciting and rare quality in music this visceral.- Spin
- Posted Apr 20, 2015
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Second Hand Heart is a whisker less awesome, but in the last month only Earl Sweatshirt’s album could match its acerbic brevity.- Spin
- Posted Apr 14, 2015
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The LP is the group’s most enjoyable, but also their most potent, all the more menacing for its unlikely grinning.- Spin
- Posted Apr 10, 2015
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As music alone, the band is looser and more flexible than ever, deploying Superchunk’s Jon Wurster for accents and subtleties outside of his main band’s dynamic range, and punching out the gate with highlights as varied as the Louisiana ragtime of “Southwestern Territory” and the punked-up “Choked Out.”- Spin
- Posted Apr 9, 2015
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Ivy Tripp cements that Crutchfield is better able to hone in on her fears and articulate emotional realities.- Spin
- Posted Apr 7, 2015
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It’s far more interesting and hard-hitting, with bizarre hooks where you least expect.... Taken as a whole, The Powers That B (what a title, right?) suffers from the typical overlong-yet-undercooked double-album dilemma that makes it hard to imagine playing either side in a year that isn’t 2015.- Spin
- Posted Apr 3, 2015
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