Spin's Scores

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For 4,264 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 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: 100 To Pimp A Butterfly
Lowest review score: 0 They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,062 out of 4264
  2. Mixed: 1,147 out of 4264
  3. Negative: 55 out of 4264
4264 music reviews
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    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fallen Empires
    Whether they're trying to obscure the songs' perceived flaws or make some sort of dazzling artistic statement, the band opts for grandiose production (courtesy of Jacknife Lee) and sprawling arrangements--cue the orchestra and the choir--that blunt the effect of Lightbody's deceptively strong songwriting.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Howl Of The Lonely Crowd
    Sounds of a certain vintage, which can net a poignant, tragic-romantic classic ("The Weekend Dreams"), but occasionally overreaches.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Far Side Virtual
    On Far Side Virtual, he makes a glowing, glossy album out of everyday digital detritus.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love Album, Part Two
    Any distinction between "Dry Your Eyes" (which sneers, "Don't pretend to cry") and "The Revelator" (which offers moral support in hard times) is erased by the band's numbing grandiosity.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Blue Slide Park
    He mostly raps on point and with confidence. But the actual words coming out of his mouth sound like they were brainstormed by a bunch of kids idling in an eighth-grade English class.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Spills Out
    It's only when Pterodactyl embrace their underlying pop core and ratchet up the jangle--see the breezy "The Break" or the '60s sunburst "Searchers"--that Spills Out makes an effective splash.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Freeclouds
    Carter Tanton -- of the now-defunct Tulsa and still-thriving Lower Dens -- style-jumps so restlessly that his second solo disc sometimes feels like a multi-artist playlist rather than a one-man show.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dive
    Dive is a pretty and sturdily crafted collection of techno maybe-memories-- hypnagogic pop for a very discerning Ikea shopper.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Stage Whisper
    French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg's voice is small and unaffected (a stage whisper, indeed), but Beck, her producer-songwriter for 2010's celebrated IRM, tends toward the opposite extreme.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Fear of God II: Let Us Pray [EP]
    Let Us Pray offers a familiar Scarface tableau, but Pusha and cast (including a demonic Tyler, the Creator on "Trouble on My Mind") paint his fantasies with requisite fervor.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Crazy Clown Time
    Lynch handles most everything else here--vocals, guitar, writing, production--creating soundscapes that are dark, unsettling, and often confusing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Mount Wittenberg Orca [EP]
    From the deep bellowing bass of Nat Baldwin to the horizon-racing ride cymbal of Brian McOmber, Mount Wittenberg Orca allows Bjork's singular diction to dovetail with the Dirty Projectors' quirky male-female vocalizing, floating weightlessly like a thousand ecstatic whooshes.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Audio, Video, Disco
    Audio, Video, Disco teeters on the edge of self-mockery, not an unfamiliar position for Justice.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Get Lost
    His latest is dedicated to "the spirit of the summer night sky," and that's an accurate, if slightly cornball, description of these six impressionistic guitar instrumentals.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Abandoned Lullaby
    RJD2's collaboration with Philly singer Aaron Livingston bears the qualities that have divided the instrumental hip-hop producer's fans since the 2006 misfire The Third Hand -- most prominently, jazz-rock ellipses and thin, expressive vocals (Livingston's are only slightly better than RJ's own efforts).
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Conditions of My Parole
    Conditions of My Parole, featuring a supporting cast that includes Keenan's son Devo and ex-Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, reveals a more reassuring side of a singer better known for willful alienation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Revelation Road
    Her third self-produced, self-released record in less than two years, is checkered with sweet-and-salty Americana, despite Lynne's tendency to wander precariously close to Jordache-commercial territory
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Great Escape Artist
    For their previous temporary-reunion album, 2003's Strays, these dark alt gods created a superslick din seemingly designed for radio, but definitely not your heart.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Evanescence
    Too much of the time, Evanescence get lost in the cavernous spaces carved out by their unsecret weapon.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974
    His music is also a hodgepodge: square sax-rock, Motown, bongo-heavy folk ballads, and sunshine pop, all tinted by Shin's guitar, which is alternately savage and buttoned-up.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Wolfroy Goes To Town
    His supporting cast has stabilized around multi-instrumentalists Emmett Kelly and Shahzad Ismaily, but song structures dissolve altogether on Wolfroy Goes to Town.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Working in Tennessee
    Working in Tennessee glides along on its Bakersfield groove with the greatest of ease, despite the album's title.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Neighborhoods
    Here, though, watery, joke-free confessionals like "This Is Home" and "After Midnight" sound comparatively adrift.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Less You Know, The Better
    The Less You Know, the Better 
is equal parts frustrating and admirable.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Music Is Better Than Words
    The result is alternately audacious and befuddling.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Elsie
    Bellowing hoarsely while ivories tinkle and muted guitars gently twang, he comes across like a scenery-chewing Method actor marooned in a stoic Ingmar Bergman flick.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Heaven
    For all its languid rookie charms, In Heaven might be best remembered as the harbinger of a more consistent sequel.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Again into Eyes
    Again Into Eyes only truly perks up near the end when they call up their inner Psychedelic Furs on more straightforwardly swooning ballads like "Faith Unfolds."
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Hysterical
    It's an overly gauzy, booming-echo epic that doesn't leave much trace after it's over.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Daybreak
    The muffled, placid Daybreak lacks the burn of the first two parts and never illuminates.
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