CMJ's Scores

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For 728 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 67% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 27% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 90 Harmonicraft
Lowest review score: 30 IV Play
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 663 out of 728
  2. Mixed: 64 out of 728
  3. Negative: 1 out of 728
728 music reviews
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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lese Majesty
    Lese Majesty is a seriously weird album, but it succeeds in calling the genre’s current established order to question and challenging what it means for something to be considered a hip hop record, all while remaining sonically pleasing enough to keep the listener engaged with the ambitious message that Shabazz Palaces is adamant at getting across.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Moms
    With one album completed under the new lineup, Harris and Seim show that they'll continue guiding Menomena in interesting, unpredictable directions.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Monomania
    Deerhunter wins more than it loses on Monomania.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    James Blake
    James Blake transcends dubstep, and perhaps artificiality as a whole.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wyoming
    Full of memories and unanswered questions, Wyoming asserts a sense of limitless depth, as the duo’s members seem to have developed a greater understanding of one another than on their debut.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Letters Home
    As depressing as it may seem for Defeater to tell a story with no happy ending, it’s only by confronting those feelings of disillusionment and hopelessness head-on that they achieve some sort of catharsis. Letters Home does just that.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Money Store
    An album that's incredibly incendiary and challenging (while still entertaining).
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Lion's Roar
    Some of the best parts of The Lion's Roar are when the Söderbergs harmonize together.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Give In
    For the Chicago trio, comprising Nate Eiesland, Alissa Ricci and Ryne Estwing, its haunting yet beautifully bare album is a textural journey over new terrain.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Strangers
    The album’s strongest moments come when Felice settles on his deep, lush baritone and considers using it in favor of poetic lyrics or complex instrumentation.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WIXIW
    This isn't a joyful album, but it's inviting and almost welcoming in ways that might surprise people who primarily associate the band with the alienating onstage antics of giant frontman Angus Andrew.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Plot Against Common Sense
    Those looking for simple, safe rock probably won't like The Plot Against Common Sense. But if you want to think while you thrash, give this one a spin.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Major Arcana
    Major Arcana sounds like a girl’s (or dude’s) animated beer-soaked bar vent and its crafty delivery makes it entertaining, therapeutic, and universal.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    En Yay Sah
    This music has deep roots, but Nabay's version of bubu is more contemporary and club oriented than folksy.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Yuck
    In fact, a lot of the album may be confused for being from another time period. But nostalgia works in the band's favor on this first release--even though it wears its influences right on its sleeve.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    2
    The songs here are too strongly crafted to be mistaken for the work of some teen slacker.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Cyrk
    Though Le Bon composes in the dark, she shows us a lighter, quirkier side in CYRK.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Transcendental Youth
    They may not be particularly youthful anymore, but there's plenty of transcendence to be found on this record.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    You Are Not Alone
    Despite reaching her eighth decade, Staples is making music that is strikingly modern, but the defining concept of the album is timeless: unadulterated hope.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Victim of Love
    Bradley’s sophomore album, Victim Of Love, burns hard and slow.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Age of Adz
    The combination is ethereal and transcendent.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hair
    The chemistry is electric, but Hair's most rowdy, rewarding moments occur when Segall and Presley's respective genre sensibilities clash instead of compromise.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No One Wants To Be Here and No One Wants To Leave
    Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave will do more than satisfy existing fans of the band; new fans too would do well to start here.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sahel Folk
    Sahel Folk is a steadily moving work of clean sound not typically found in live works.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dye It Blonde
    Dye It Blonde blows away the fuzz and polishes the scratchy sounds off their last recordings, revealing a whole lot of something we didn't hear before.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oshin
    These songs seamlessly trickle from one to the next in a perfect collection of sounds, showcasing both complexity and musical depth in this mostly instrumental music.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Golden Age of Apocalypse
    The Golden Age Of Apocalypse is all warm vibes and morning sex instead of Cosmogramma's seriously zonked and far-out space grooves-light and airy melodies carried out on bass with the tinkle of synth and keyboard, clear uptempo drumlines and a high soul-influenced singing voice doused in reverb.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Kings
    No Kings provides a kind of artistic oasis, a glimpse into how great hip-hop can be when placed in talented hands.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Drop
    That sweetness is exactly what we need after devouring the indulgent, carb-heavy, extra-sauce sound that is Drop, and (at the risk of allowing this metaphor to spiral further), we leave feeling totally satisfied and craving more at the same time.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Live from the Underground
    This is a fun, ambitious collection of songs that offers just as many snazzy aesthetic pleasures as it does dorm-room philosophy sessions.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    You're Nothing
    These songs won’t convert skeptics, but they’ll give the faithful a few bloody noses.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Marissa Nadler
    While Marissa Nadler is more musically complex than earlier records, she maintains her overall aesthetic, both bucolic and tragic.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Stay Gold
    There doesn’t appear to be much room for hope, but they execute their sadness so beautifully that it’s easy to accept their blue moods.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Goodbye Bread
    Goodbye Bread shows Segall's calmer side, but the frantic instrumentals, heavy guitar riffs and rough-around-the-edges sound remain, betraying his decidedly harder roots and showing that Segall hasn't gone totally soft.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Everything in Between
    The album fights back against the tide of boring, quiet music, and nearly every song feels like a throat-rupturing protest against standing still.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    C'mon
    On Low's ninth full-length album, the slowcore trio from Duluth creates its most inviting work to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic
    Foxygen is never overpowered by its influences.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cruise Your Illusion
    On their full-length debut, Milk Music keeps those influences intact with raw, warm sludgy rock that brings them out of the fuzzy shell of 2010′s Beyond Living EP helping to secure a unique personal identity that respectfully builds on a classic sound.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nootropics
    Despite the lack of direct emotional content in the shrouded lyrics, the music has an ache to it, a yearning that suggests a desire to connect but an inability to make a connection.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Give the People What They Want
    The Dap-Kings prove once again to be an almost mind-bogglingly crisp backing band, with tickingly taught percussion, sticky bass lines and sweat-inducing brass. But it’s Jones, of course, who holds together every song with her now-classic vox.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Picture You Staring
    Luckily, Picture You Staring does deliver on the promise of its lead single.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hot Dreams
    he album is as much seductive as it is creepy, with hollow and haunting sonic gestures that together compose an alternate universe ambience.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Club Meds
    The sedation blurs the transition of space and time, and Mangan skillfully plays with the passing of each to create unexpected pacing that adds to the overall feel, giving the album moments that range from subdued melancholy to impassioned rock.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The King of Limbs
    Though King Of Limbs may be the band's simplest and most inaccessible album to date, the tone and mood created by the chaotic start and smooth finish makes it an exciting work.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Arabia Mountain
    Black Lips puts on a hell of a show on Arabia Mountain, and it doesn't even need riots and stage diving to keep you interested.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twins
    The album, however, cannot shake off the feeling that it's a melting pot of Segall's previous albums from this year.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Big Biz Quadruple Single
    Listening to Quadruple Single is not a passive experience in the least.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hell Bent
    Hell Bent is one of those debuts whose effortlessly-evoked sound kind of shocks you.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Lazaretto
    The music is smart, diverse and tuned to perfectionist standards, but frequently the lyrics leave the listener wondering, “Where is White’s gut on this?”
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Visions
    Grimes has come into a cleaner, more distinct version of her IDM self, albeit one still influenced by Aphex Twin, TLC and Enya.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Swing Lo Magellan
    The Dirty Projectors are still fantastic weirdos making fantastically weird music, but Swing Lo Magellan humanizes them by letting you see through to their heartstrings.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Invisible Way
    The Invisible Way may not be the most significant brick, but its sturdiness is something to be admired.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Slow Focus
    This is the first Fuck Buttons album that feels like post-invasion music. Victory lingers, but it also stings.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sleeper
    Sleeper will probably be viewed in hindsight as "That kinda boring Ty Segall album."
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    True [EP]
    With seven tracks, it's more assertive than an EP but without the fully developed personality of an album. It's just enough that we know where Knowles stands: on her own.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Well-Done
    It's no-bull, gritty hip-hop for hip-hop's sake, forgoing radio-friendly hooks or overly flashy production in favor of inspired storytelling and colorful slang.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Brill Bruisers
    The songs are catchy and celebratory in every way we could hope, and what’s more, this album itself is a cause for celebration.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    I Am Very Far
    This album isn't going to isolate fans of Okkervil's older material, but it is going to require an acceptance that change has arrived.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bahamas Is Afie
    Bahamas Is Afie is an album that draws very specific parameters for itself and makes a point of staying well inside them. Bahamas never over-plays or over-shares, hence the resulting album is one that rewards repeated listens.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Coexist
    While the xx allowed itself to get mildly playful on its debut album, those moments are stripped out on Coexist as the band further minimizes its already minimalist approach.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    DSU
    Throughout DSU, Alex G fills in gaps and layers over his songs’ simple backbones with shy yet enthralling tweaks and shuffles.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Telling the Truth
    Telling The Truth is an hour of purely enjoyable songs that could have been, and are luckily not, lost gems.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Last Summer
    Last Summer sees Friedberger stretching her limbs as a three-dimensional indie darling.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    D
    While D is undoubtedly a grower, it's unfortunate that White Denim's experimental tendencies don't always lend themselves equally well to good songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Skelethon
    More than ever he seems to accept his differences and embrace them, making an album that is more a solid work of art than anything previous.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Generals
    Working again with her loyal producer Richard Swift, they master what many think is impossible and maybe even contradictory; they create a serious and intellectual pop album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Girlpool [EP]
    All in all, Girlpool is the kind of EP made for those moments when you feel big on the outside, but aren’t so sure on the inside.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Plateau Vision
    Like a tour guide who occasionally gets lost in his own museum, Haldar's unbridled excitement about his subject matter can be both exhausting and infectious.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Melody's Echo Chamber
    Although it could have ended on a stronger note, it's a fitting conclusion to the pleasant trip through Melody's spacey dreamworld.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Moon Rang Like a Bell
    The Moon Rang Like A Bell is both subtly understated and completely overstated.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Album of the Year
    The MC attacks his words diligently with rabid vigor, giving Album the forceful push of someone carrying the weight of loved ones lost.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dedication
    Dedication, while a great exercise in atmosphere, doesn't get anywhere past where it started. It begins in gloom and minimal electronics, remains there-hell, it wallows there-and finishes off its life there.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Home Life
    Home Life follows Andrew Cedermark’s displacement in this world, searching for answers as he rides a train with no set destination in sight; and along the way he was able to create a rollicking, bemused album that highlights his skills as a lyricist, allowing us to join in on the journey.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Uzu
    YT // ST is not subtle, yet it’s still simultaneously visceral and generally accessible, while maintaining its unique voice.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Shut-In's Prayer
    In a sparse 34 minutes, A Shut-In's Prayer switches tracks, tempos and narrators often enough to feel relatively fresh from start to finish.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Xen
    The album’s 15 tracks don’t quite reach the 40-minute mark, but each track has a unique identity that both stands alone yet slips into the narrative of Xen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Glass Boys
    It cannot be denied that this album can’t help but fall short of the previous two records’ effect, given the massive quantity of pioneering moves captured in those albums. Nonetheless, whether or not Fucked Up can see it, they’re still doing the music world some good.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sukierae
    As a whole, the album is charming, but deeply moving. The instrumentation is often simple, as are the lyrics, and the result is a rewarding, slow-building work of serious depth, and a long overdue solo debut for one of the genre’s finest songwriters.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Conatus
    Towards the end of the album, tracks tend to blend into each other. Jesus definitely continues to push what she's good at, but this doesn't make for much variety.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Time for Dreaming
    Rounding out Bradley's raw emotion is his bombastic backing band: Daptone's funky Menahan Street Band. But however many names are dropped, Bradley's innate showmanship and voice--a mournful alto bellow--are all his own.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Horror
    The Horror is a highly effective album because of how its sense of doom infects you.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Our Heads
    Hot Chip has written an album that touches the many feelings on the spectrum of love, while staying true to the humorous and entertaining musical idiosyncrasies that the band has enlisted for the better part of a decade.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Nepenthe
    It will give you, near exactly, what you put into it. That’s what makes Nepenthe relevant: its masterfully complex compositions come across as simplistic; they’re accessibly intellectual.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Underneath the Pine
    The rest of the album holds up to the single's brilliance, as Bundick traverses quite a few genres-from his trademark chillwave, to acoustic dream-pop ("Before I'm Done") and severe piano-led ballads ("Good Hold").
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Personal Record
    Despite these retro touches, there’s something modern about the album’s ability to shrug off heartbreak, to grab victory from the jaws of defeat and then kick defeat in the jaw for being such a dick.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here and Nowhere Else
    There’s a sense of maturity and control present, without losing their trademark edge.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    No Color
    Overall, it's a solid, well-crafted effort from a well-loved indie-folk band.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    With Light and With Love
    The band’s tendency to venture into festival-ready rhythms and guitar noodling has remained an integral constant on their releases. With Light And With Love is no exception, but it also finds the band exercising their unique roots-pop expertise to an even deeper effect than before.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cerulean Salt
    While the new record represents a considerable leap in ambition, it retains the hand-made, intensely personal quality that defined Crutchfield’s earlier work.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Teenage And Torture
    Much like the disordered thought patterns that come before sleep, dream-like backing vocals and twangy instrumentals transport us into another reality.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Night Time, My Time
    My Night, My Time is a pop album that’s offbeat in its self-awareness and on point with the steep hooks and expansive beats that make pop music pop.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Metal
    Black Metal is Blunt’s most realized work yet, but it’s still shrouded in mystery. There’s no reason for that to change, and there’s not even a hint here that Blunt is anywhere near ready to fold.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Ultraviolet
    If there’s something holding the album back, it’s that the band is almost too efficient and unforgiving in its editorial choices.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oxymoron
    It’s not that Schoolboy Q is the best lyricist; and there’s not an immediately profound life lesson here; there are no mind-boggling internal rhymes; but Oxymoron is amazing mostly because it attempts to heal past bruises with more bruises. Schoolboy hides nothing and everything leaves a mark.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Alone Together
    Some tracks are wildly successful on an individual basis, but they're cut short or steamrolled right over as Riggins whips through what seems like every sonic concept he's had in the last two decades.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bright and Vivid
    Bright And Vivid takes enough elements from both Calder's debut, Are You My Mother?, and her work as part of the New Pornographers to retain its very Calder-ness, while still evolving into a robust folk-pop record.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Twelve Reasons to Die
    By teaming up with the visionary mastermind Adrian Younge he’s created an inventive and thrilling album that will go down as one of his best.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Other Worlds
    Other Worlds doesn't get overtly weird, but it's surely expansive-sounding.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Atlas
    These songs are Polaroid snapshots of friends, families, lovers, cul-de-sacs and empty highways. Some are perfectly, sentimentally fuzzy, and some don’t quite make it into the scrapbook.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sunbathing Animal
    Mainly, the band locks into grooves and reigns in some of the cackle of earlier releases, while wisely drunk-dancing in the under-four-minute mode.
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