Exclaim's Scores

  • Music
For 5,105 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:
5105 music reviews
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Filled mostly with retro-cheese instrumentals with a smattering of blue-eyed vocal performances, Weird Drift explores the stranger aspects of love and devotion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hard Boiled Soft Boiled hits all the right notes while whetting the appetite for whatever Odonis Odonis have in store next. For now, you'd be hard pressed to imagine a better follow up to the band's debut.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Mobb aren't exactly reinventing the wheel here, but on album highlight "Timeless," the effect is beguilingly hypnotic.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If you don't love Kweli, Gravitas won't change your mind, but lifelong fans will definitely find a lot to appreciate on this slight but enjoyable album.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Minimum Rock N Roll is a dynamic and vibrant good-time screed; it's not anti-consumption but it is out to have people consume discerningly.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Long-time listeners will revel in the subtle sonic shifts but the rest of us are still waiting for the band to make that major artistic breakthrough we know they're capable of.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is just vintage Crowell, which is to say that Tarpaper Sky is an essential record by one of the best.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The record is just playing true to form for the veterans, proving that the beast is back with teeth bared and a few more tricks up its hairy sleeves.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    To Live Alone in that Long Summer is an elegant, contemplative album that thankfully bears little trace of its long gestation.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is new, fresh, young rap with an edge.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    E s t a r a is a step above genre-bending; this is genre-carving.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    While not as rewarding on multiple listens as anything the Collective has ever produced, Enter the Slasher House is the ideal detour between now and the band's next record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Through the static and fuzz comes a clarity of sorts, that truth is oftentimes going to be something both comforting and discomforting; it's why The Future's Void serves as the perfect modern day soundtrack.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With a lazy pace and slightly detached vocals from Standish, these eight tracks seem to sway like strips of bleached cloth hanging in a light breeze.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    PUP
    The Toronto, ON four-piece deliver their structurally intricate tunes with unhinged ferocity, the raw arrangements never deviating from the outfit's basic live setup of bass, pummelling drums and twin distorted guitars.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It works because of its twitchy pop sensibilities, which gaze longingly back at the '80s, and while that isn't a bad thing, it's still a hard record to get attached to.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Righteous indignation has long fuelled OFF!, but Wasted Years is the band at their darkest and most venomous.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    He might have the Midas touch when it comes to genre, but when it comes to his last word, Terje is wise enough to say it in his first language.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heavily favouring material from his first three albums, but picking carefully from his less well-known post-'70s work, this double album provides a broad and engaging overview of Browne at his best.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Like any good folk record, The Nocturne Diaries explores timely social and political issues, with songs about troubled youth and abuse survivors, but these pieces lack the raw immediacy that makes politically-tinged folk music work.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    With the majority of the tracks being in-and-around the two minute mark, Sage The Gemini presses the gas pedal too quickly before capturing your attention lyrically or sonically.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Inner Fire further cements the Souljazz Orchestra in a class of their own on the world music circuit.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Overall, Holtkamp's constant push into uncharted territory on Motion – Connected Works is highly respectable and a new step forward for him, but its length and fatiguing, aggressive timbre hold it back from being his most pleasurable release to date.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    There are no false steps here in this forest of dreams.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    On Salad Days it becomes a lot clearer. He's honed his skills to write wonderfully weird, often gentle pop songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here and Nowhere Else is another heavy, catchy-as-hell Cloud Nothings record.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    He really can write a song, and the fact that it never wears out its welcome makes his music damn enjoyable.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forcefield strips down the Tokyo formula to its most basic components of guitar riffing, a strong sense of melody and a brilliant ear for unforgettable hooks, which has birthed some of their finest work yet.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    There are no interludes or breaks, a consistency that is both the band's greatest strength and only weakness.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    With Sun Choir, this Edinburgh trio found a way to pull a thousand (almost literally) voices together to create a singular vision.