The Boston Phoenix's Scores

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For 1,091 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Pink
Lowest review score: 0 Last of a Dyin' Breed
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 956 out of 1091
  2. Mixed: 88 out of 1091
  3. Negative: 47 out of 1091
1091 music reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Is This Hyperreal?
    Returning after 11 years of officially not existing, what's left of ATR could've focused their energies on kicking lots of ass. Instead, they indulge spoken-wordy, freshman-year non-profundities that mostly siphon energy from the get-up-and-f*ck-some-shit-up ethos present on a few okay tracks like "Activate" and "Codebreaker."
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Pala
    For a densely layered, expertly produced dance-rock album, this second full-length from British three-piece Friendly Fires is perplexingly bland.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Laugh Now...Laugh Later
    Hooks are competent and decent but never demanding enough for you to race out to get a song's lyrics embedded into your skin.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Safari Disco Club
    Safari Disco Club is unlikely to find itself in the speakers of many dance parties on this side of the Atlantic in coming weeks.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Departing
    Of all the possible directions the band could have taken, they decided on generic coffeehouse folk pop, with predictably pleasant-yet-dull results.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The King of Limbs
    The King of Limbs, a breezy exploration of the depths of subliminal glitch-folk, is this band's admission that the labyrinth of post–OK Computer zigs and zags they've led their audience through may never again lead to an arena-rock goldmine.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Something Dirty
    It lacks the playfulness of the early Faust records, where the band's experiments with jazz, folk, and raunchy rock and roll were coated with acceptable degrees of avant-garde theatricality.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Zonoscope
    The contrived sheen marring much of the album dissolves, and things get industrial real quick. That dark and uncharted - for Cut Copy - territory might be the way to go heading forward.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Spiritual Mental Physical
    What Spiritual, Mental, Physical documents is a group kicking around possibilities that could go somewhere great, but as they appear here, only a handful of these half-cooked ideas deserve an audience.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The World Is Yours
    Nary a tippy toe strays from the well-trodden path; it's as if Lemmy and the boys spent every couple of years locked in a studio with their own discography and no outside noises that might besmirch the purity of their brand. There are occasional hints of self-awareness.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ritual
    Ritual is so grandiose that it rarely has room to breathe.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Flaws
    Still, like the lovable Muppet, Flaws is just a little too green to have any major impact.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Loud
    Part of the problem is Rihanna's essential blandness in a post-Gaga/post-Idol pop market, but mostly it comes down to the siren-song nature of her amazingly recognizable voice.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Alive As You Are
    Where's the band's personality? Promises glimmer everywhere, as when off-kilter instrumental breaks start stabbing away at "18th Street," but the entire album eventually drifts past without delivering anything as sonically-or emotionally-provocative.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Suburbs
    It would help if the songs were better, but with all the up-and-down scales and chirp-chirp-chirpiness, the American Express commercial gradually gives way to a Riverdance special on pay-per-view.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Aphrodite
    Aphrodite feels like a disjointed hodge-podge of shallow Hi-NRG dance-floor bangers for a decidedly older crowd.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Here's To Taking It Easy
    Forsaking subtly Southern melancholy in favor of jangling, twanging hillbilly heartbreak, Here's to Taking It Easy misplaces amplified country fever instead of channeling it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Stuck On Nothing
    The rest of the album, which was produced by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, never quite lives up to that early peak.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Valleys Of Neptune
    For a visionary guy like Hendrix, this glorified compilation isn't as imaginary as it could be.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Gorilla Manor
    Gorilla Manor is listenable and inoffensive, but it doesn't express a single aforementioned component of its genre with any gusto.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Odd Blood
    It's all meant to sound fresh, but it doesn't always sound good.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Soft Pack
    Nothing about The Soft Pack makes you wanna know who these guys are or what they have to say about the world outside their practice space.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Them Crooked Vultures
    The release is not without brief visits to riff heaven, and it’s in the details that there are pleasures to be found....But too often you bop along to the tight drum/bass syncopations only to forget what you’re listening to--or worse, why.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Music For Men
    In the end, the record seems an ascetic exercise, complete with drumstick count-ins.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love 2
    Like any great jingle, it leaves you with nothing but a vague craving for the product, without quite knowing why you need it.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Resistance
    These straight pop tunes are great by themselves, but after slogging through the symphonic sludge, you’re likely to find The Resistance a jumbled, forgettable tracklist.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Everything Is New
    Not everything is new on Everything Is New, this young London singer's sophomore set, but enough is to make you wonder what on earth persuaded Jack Penate to ditch the ample charms of his terrific debut.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Of The Cathmawr Yards
    Of the Cathmawr Yards is Ambien-fueled folk that never rises above room temperature, well-crafted yet lacking in passion and vitality.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Harmonium
    Their loping AM-radio psychedelia--like later Stereolab or lighter Dungen--engages with enough noise (if not complex rhythms) to keep the band out of mawkish territory.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Further Complications
    The meta quality of the immoral, libidinous singer refracted through unblinking irony feels too transparent for a songwriter of Cocker's depth.
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