Exclaim's Scores

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For 5,096 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 38% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Vol.II
Lowest review score: 10 California Son
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,315 out of 5096
  2. Mixed: 753 out of 5096
  3. Negative: 28 out of 5096
5096 music reviews
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    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    More
    It's a worthy continuation of the unfulfilled upswing they were on when they called it quits feels like an undeserved bonus. More is unlikely to win Pulp many new fans, but that would be presumptuous to really want (and undignified to aim for) when you can otherwise hit the mark so authentically.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saturn
    Drama is softened by sincerity on the record, as NAO finds balance in the wake of chaos.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Wildflower
    While the days of heavily sampled music seemed dead and gone forever, the Avalanches have somehow managed to pull off an album that's as much a mastery of red tape as it is of musical prowess.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    EX EYE
    These musicians understand that heaviness is most effective when balanced by some light, making their debut both inventively punishing and soaring.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    White Men Are Black Men Too
    White Men Are Black Men Too is a perfect storm of influences and talent that make for an unforgettable album.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Visions of Us on the Land
    Visions of Us on the Land combines made-for-TV sci-fi soundscapes, Americana, pop, rock and indie-folk with thundering percussion, psychedelic synth, gospel choir and distorted guitar in a sonic palette that charms and mystifies.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    An Evening with Silk Sonic
    Not one second on the album goes to waste. It's an efficient half-hour endeavour where every song, (save for the rousing intro), sounds like the grand finale of an epic live production.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Black Encyclopedia of the Air
    With Black Encyclopedia of the Air, Moor Mother uses her genre-agnostic style to tackle to world's most popular genre and make it undoubtedly her own.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Unflesh
    Unflesh is a bold and assertive statement for what pop music can do in 2014.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cost Of Living Adjustment
    It's time to wake the hell up. Cost of Living Adjustment hits like piping hot, full-bodied espresso right to the heart, and it's the band's best work yet.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sour
    By the end of the album, Rodrigo has established her voice and showed listeners that she's not afraid to be vulnerable. SOUR is a strong debut that vividly illustrates the beautiful chaos of being inside a teenage girl's brain.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    As the Love Continues
    As the Love Continues is one of them. Already an enduring album, it will surely solidify Mogwai's venerated status as shamans of our collective consciousness.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apocalypse
    The album's winning touches come from Bruner's soulful vocal melodies. They're a calming element tying each of the record's varied creative efforts together beautifully.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Rival Dealer [EP]
    Burial's tracks have always sounded sentimental, but it was usually contrasted with caustic backdrops that gave them some bite; on these two tracks ["Hiders" and "Come Down to Us"], it's the missing element.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    LP [2015]
    On LP, Container shows his ability to create a complete barnburner of an album in the least flashy and showy manner possible.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wrangled
    Wrangled lacks ambition.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's Almost Dry
    Even if It's Almost Dry isn't the flawless masterpiece that many had hoped Push would deliver this time around, it's still a great album with many standout moments.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Scheherazade
    The songs on Scheherazade are original, though richly informed by traditional Americana. Most of them sound like they could be from any time in the last 80 years.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Beyondless
    Iceage make unpleasant music, but their bland sentimentality is the most disagreeable thing on Beyondless.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nothing Feels Natural
    The band only falters when they lean on stock symbols, as on the materialist-baiting "Pink White House." If those lyrics sound lazy, it's only because Nothing Feels Natural is so taut and particular otherwise.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Whelm
    This is essential listening for fans of Owen Pallett and Ólafur Arnalds.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Eyes on the Lines
    Eyes on the Lines is unmistakably a guitarist's album, yet luckily for most, Gunn's song writing is also remarkably accessible. The listener may not find themselves with catchy vocal hooks stuck in their head after a first listen, but they'll definitely be humming riffs and guitar lines for several hours afterward.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Symbolic Use of Light
    Progressing across a grid, Olson's explorative approach to loop-based production of music reveals an intuitive and refreshing approach to deriving emotive depth from a machine.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Mechanics of Dominion
    It's a delicate, cautious demonstration, but Mechanics of Dominion is a bold, gripping and brilliantly nuanced addition to Esmerine's gorgeous catalogue, swelling with hope and brimming with energy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Devour
    Pharmakon's devouring is whole and ugly, but it carries a rewarding narrative about the importance of suffering — we're eating ourselves alive, but we're also becoming stronger for it, each act of self-cannibalization and each listen to this album more like a single coil in an upward spiral of transcendence than a snake eating its own tail.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me
    At times Clouds risks being dragged down by its bleak outlook, but ultimately it's a moving portrait of a band on the brink of its own breakthrough.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    All Melody
    It's an impressive compilation of provocatively disparate ideas, but taken in in its intended order, there's a mesmerizing continuity to it all.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    PAINLESS
    For all its fear and itching paranoia, PAINLESS is a buzzing thrill.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Reloaded
    NYC's Roc Marciano follows up his 2010 critically celebrated solo debut, Marcberg, with a sequel nonpareil in its originality and craftsmanship.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Significant Changes
    Juxtaposing the escape provided by club culture's immediacy with the harsh realities confronted in the lab, Significant Changes sets a reality check to something danceable, but its success is wholly reliant on Jayda G's balanced presentation and steadfast commitment to both missions, tonal shifts like "Orca's Reprise" providing chill-out wind-downs for the party while the club anthems provide some sorely needed release.
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