Exclaim's Scores

  • Music
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:
5096 music reviews
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The musicianship of the guest artists is impressive, and Jameszoo's interpretations of their work are startlingly creative. The whole package is likely to be one of the year's best, and certainly one of its most original.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Music for Psychedelic Therapy is a magical union of nature and creativity, a space where the mind can open, and do so with transportive beauty.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ambitious, experimental and brilliant, The Inheritors is a unique release that confirms James Holden's place not only as a DJ to watch, but also as a producer to pay close attention to.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The album's greatest strength lies in its cinematic quality. Every song feels like a scene in the bigger dream The Ridge represents as a whole.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    She crafted something challenging, mysterious and memorable. Gorgeous was simply a by-product.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Mobb aren't exactly reinventing the wheel here, but on album highlight "Timeless," the effect is beguilingly hypnotic.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Back with arguably more certified bangers than before, clipping. throws caution to the wind with soul-rending sonics and elite-tier rapping. At the very least, Visions doubles the likelihood of a hapless Disney+ user following Diggs from Hamilton to a horrorcore masterclass.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    While the Black Dahlia Murder have always been an impressive band, Nightbringers finds them on top of their game and performing better than ever before. The album has elements of their earlier material, but present them with a polished and perfected vibe across the board.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    They embrace vulnerability, taking time to address modern issues (read: symptoms of capitalism), while also imbuing a real sense of fun, artistic merit and instrumental democracy in the record's 11 tracks.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    By immersing himself even deeper into the world of dub music and its equally minimalist and maximalist tones and tropes, Grim Reaper sounds stronger than anything he's accomplished so far.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There's not enough space here to get into why Sleater-Kinney may be one of the most important bands of 2015, but one thing is clear: they've already delivered a serious contender for one of the year's best records.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Beach Fossils have found a balance that's better than anyone could have hoped for.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Never before have the band felt so complete and realized in causality of their sound than on Modern Mirror.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Remains an unlikely and absolutely wonderful and essential listen.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Hearing it now, After the Party is delightfully bittersweet. Years on, when time has continued to pass and age has continued to set in, it'll be devastating.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Harlan & Alondra feels like an older album in the same way that Buddy gives the impression of rappers from the past, but when you add in modern day energy, the album becomes very special.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Juice B Crypts responds with 11 tracks of knotty, electronic rock puzzles.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Kiwanuka is therapeutic for all parties involved. It's honest, psychedelic, enlightening and recalls blackness defined by acoustic folk and the organic soul of past artists like Gil Scott-Heron, Bobby Womack and Otis Redding.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Baker is careful not to glorify life's darkest moments, and certainly doesn't on Turn Out the Lights. Rather, her candid portrayal of pain is a rare and beautiful gift.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is DIY revolution groove and as such, is an inspiration to those who wish to express outside the norms.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Vibrant, it colours outside the lines. Poignant, it's transparent with altering modes of bravado, vulnerability and desperation. It is, thoroughly, a Frank Ocean album, yearning for perfection, sating the audience's hunger for dynamism, yet with the persistent feeling that the artist feels it's all a failure.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Menuck and Doria found a new creative partnership, and each return to are SING SINCK, SING provides that crucial reminder while offering a shoulder to cry on.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As the musicians begin to ebb and flow toward the ninth and final movement, it's clear that Pharoah Sanders and Floating Points are so metaphysically in tune with their latest creation that their respective musical personalities almost disappear into the waves of sound, making Promises a recording that is more of a transcending mind meld than it is a collaboration.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    De Doorn is not only a continuation, but also a rebirth of Amenra's pilgrimage of apocalyptic heaviness.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    What this songwriting team has to offer isn't just pretty, though it can be that--it's also pretty profound, passionate and substantial.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Power In The Blood is a masterpiece in a storied career.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As short a release as it is, the tight six-track EP packs a punch. This is essential material for both country listeners and fans of Orville Peck, who, through his dedication to authenticity in aesthetics, joins the likes of Shania, Reba, Dolly, Johnny, Kenny, Merle, Hank and countless others among the genre's greats.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It's surprising, deeply moving and occasionally stunning.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Strait is doing what most contemporary country artists shy away from, which is successfully bring back the real deal. He is effectively and triumphantly making traditional country music cool again.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    At the heart of it, Morbid Stuff just still sounds like friends having fun and making catchy, cathartic punk anthems for teens and almost-adults alike--offering a brief, but much needed respite from the hell that is everyday life.