Magnet's Scores
- Music
For 2,325 reviews, this publication has graded:
-
60% higher than the average critic
-
3% same as the average critic
-
37% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.1 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 73
| Highest review score: | Comicopera | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest review score: | Sound-Dust |
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,874 out of 2325
-
Mixed: 380 out of 2325
-
Negative: 71 out of 2325
2325
music
reviews
-
- Critic Score
The seventh LP by these Hot Topic/Warped tour faves sees the onetime mainstream screamo success story trying really hard to acclimate itself with whatever constitutes the present mainsteam-music climate. [No. 149, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Dec 22, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Though I generally partake in the Kool-Aid, some of Pollard’s post-GBV stuff has admittedly either gone over my head or missed the sweet spot. Brown Submarine’s pleasures, however, are inarguable.- Magnet
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An enchanting collection teeming with well-crafted hooks and fiery passion unheard since the epic, under-appreciated Faith and Courage a decade ago. [No. 85, p.56]- Magnet
Posted Mar 20, 2012 -
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Having carved out a signature sound from the start, Local Natives continue to sound both fresh and familiar. [No. 136, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Oct 18, 2016 -
- Critic Score
His latest EP pushes his glossy pop inclinations even further; the five tracks are quick and sweet, gussied up with quirky instrumentation. [#82, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Nov 21, 2011 -
- Critic Score
Wire needs more of the barbed wit and brute anger that has enabled the band's best post-2000 work stand up to its iconic '70s recordings. [No. 120, p.60]- Magnet
Posted Jun 4, 2015 -
- Magnet
Posted Aug 15, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Throughout, McCombs hits a brilliantly unpredictable songwriting stride. [No. 103, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Oct 18, 2013 -
- Critic Score
At his best, Ward's always walked a fine line between eloquence and vagueness, hope and disappointment. It's been a great source of tension, and he does that about half the time here. [No.86, p.59]- Magnet
Posted Apr 12, 2012 -
- Critic Score
The trio still churns as mixing hot butter with bourbon and gargling gasoline [No.91 p.59]- Magnet
Posted Oct 4, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Morrissey regains his knack for conversational hooks and his wry, literate sense of humor. [#71, p.105]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Sometimes the gambles pay off... and sometimes they don't. [#74, p.108]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
He slouches in with "Sisters" and begins his album-long teetering on the brink of affectation, sounding like a teenager with restratint. [#59, p.89]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
There are great moments that grasp for--and sometimes reach--the bombastic ground between Radiohead's pop days and Sunny Day Real Estate's proggier side; then there are long stretches that fail to push any buttons at all. [#59, p.90]- Magnet
-
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
A collection of sandblasted songs that redefines its sound and pegs Ladybug as something other than '60s pop purists. [#61, p.101]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Serene, synthetic drones and sparse, resonate bass give the music body, and enthusiastically applied echo makes these instrumentals as dizzying as a vintage Lee Perry mix. [No. 98, p.58]- Magnet
Posted May 10, 2013 -
- Critic Score
The 10 tunes evoke nothing but a good, unusually brisk-feeling and '70s-like Luna record. [No. 147, p.58]- Magnet
Posted Oct 17, 2017 -
- Critic Score
The music's trickiness never seems gratuitous, though, because the changes in direction correspond to a lyrical stance that articulates the struggle to figure out what's constant in a world of change. [No. 131, p.59]- Magnet
Posted Jun 1, 2016 -
- Critic Score
Bejar's fans will clearly identify his unique musical fingerprint, and may have no clearer understanding of these songs than anything else in Destroyer's incomprehensively wonderful pop oeuvre in the King's English. [No. 105, p.54]- Magnet
Posted Dec 18, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Sometimes the pace renders parts of the LP a slow-bore, but there's still enough effective moody dynamics to giver 'er a spin. [No.92 p.56]- Magnet
Posted Oct 22, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Haden can find that sweet, glacial pace that makes a song seem both inevitable and important. But his deliberate delivery of lines such as "Oh the Depression, it ruined us, it ruined us, it ruined us" can be distracting and turn songs into history lessons. [No. 132, p.59]- Magnet
Posted Aug 2, 2016 -
- Critic Score
Choir Of The Mind is more often introspective and engrossing. [No. 146, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Sep 18, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Best experienced in depressed darkness while contemplating your existence. [No. 117., p.59]- Magnet
Posted Feb 20, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Black Moon Spell is King Tuff's glammiest work yet, echoing the swagger of the New York Dolls and the sexy, stoned vocal styling of Marc Bolan. But it still rocks. [No. 114, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Nov 5, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Daughter OF Everything fits neatly alongside recent work from guys like Mikal Cronin and Ty Segall, and untethered garage rock like this never goes out of style. [No. 107, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Apr 8, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Morris sounds even more infuriated than he did 34 years ago on Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown. [No.87 p.57]- Magnet
Posted May 30, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Stealing Sheep could have easily made another weird art album, and it would have been great; instead, it made a weird pop album, and it's a bold step into a bigger world. [No. 119, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Apr 15, 2015 -
- Critic Score
With its simple riff and typically anthemic chorus, the immediately indelible "The Birthday Democrats" amply proves that Pollard's unprecedented creative spark shows no signs of going dark. The rest of How Do You Spell Heaven confirms that notion. [No. 145, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Aug 15, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Get lost in this stuff and you won't find your way back out. [No. 109, p.52]- Magnet
Posted May 16, 2014 -
- Critic Score
It All Starts With One's songs all deal with love's discontents, and their desperate beauty should make a hit with those who like to wallow in desperation and unhappiness. [No.87, p.52]- Magnet
Posted May 11, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Everything about the resulting album elevates what could've been a gimmicky lark into something affecting. [No. 136, p.53]- Magnet
Posted Oct 18, 2016 -
- Critic Score
A pleasant bedroom-style record that sometimes sounds more like rough sketches than fully formed ideas. [No.99, p.58]- Magnet
Posted Jun 18, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Sadly, the first full album of new Swervedriver music since 1997's 99th Dream is 10 loud and thick attempts to recapture the catchiness, energy and all-important mood of timeless classics and exactly that same number fall short of the magic. [No. 118, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Mar 12, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Eitzel is a far cry from Dido, but he still manages to find a proving ground where his nicotine-stained fingerpicking and tales of emotional erosion can make an uneasy peace with the precision of the Portishead crowd. [#50, p.90]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Everywhere you turn on Photo Album, [Ben] Gibbard is in transit, singing songs of traveling across America while his bandmates slowly perfect the post-punk melodies that snake their way through these crooked pop songs. It's a great pairing. [#52, p.82]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
The results [of the combination of DJ culture and blues] sound less contrived on this outing [than on 1998's Come On In]. [#48, p.81]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Sounds like somebody has exited the coffeehouse with a strong jolt of caffeine. [#74, p.101]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Darnell has written and produced as many alluringly and subtly contagious melodies -- featuring lyrics rapt with cuttingly humorous tales of ruined relations, self-satisfying sexuality, vacation thrills and street-level detritus -- as Sondheim. [#81, p. 57]- Magnet
Posted Nov 11, 2011 -
- Magnet
Posted Oct 22, 2012 -
- Critic Score
It's bright and shiny and perky.... But it also risks being faceless--it's Tegan and Sara's least personable, most superficial record. [No. 95, p.60]- Magnet
Posted Feb 11, 2013 -
- Critic Score
With All The Times We Had, they've nailed the harmony-drenched, foot-tapping folk/rock of the Seattle sound. [No. 96, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Jun 28, 2013 -
- Critic Score
It's a treat to hear Cohen so comfortable in both his old and new skins. [No. 121, p.53]- Magnet
Posted Jun 8, 2015 -
- Critic Score
The Sword continually updates ridiculously classic rock tropes in the most wonderful ways. [No. 123, p.60]- Magnet
Posted Aug 13, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Between Waves might be the least Relapse of all Relapse titles, but that's what genuine eclecticism looks like. [No. 135, p.53]- Magnet
Posted Sep 20, 2016 -
- Critic Score
It's not as fun as [1999's Play], but the broad outlines comes from a similar Play-book, with Moby talk/sung vocals amid coos and hums of female singers. ... It's an inviting album but it's bleak. [No. 150, p.56]- Magnet
Posted Apr 17, 2018 -
- Critic Score
There's plenty of upbeat rockers, but a bulk of the record is made up of ballads and slower jams. [No. 102, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Sep 19, 2013 -
- Critic Score
As with his solo output, Jose Gonzalez has a clear vision for his music's direction, and he sticks to it with admirably rigorous discipline here, making the majority of Junip more steady than indistinct. [No. 97, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Apr 16, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Passage has all the elements of a classic, from undeniable hooks to head-spinning shards of noise. [No.87 p.55]- Magnet
Posted May 24, 2012 -
- Critic Score
It's as crucial and cool as set of eternally intertwined new-wave voices as Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson, and that's saying a lot. [No. 106, p.54]- Magnet
Posted Feb 21, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Mountain Battles turns longtime engineer Steve Albini's bare-bones studio work into a virtue and spins Deal's ADD-afflicted worldview into gold. [Summer 2008, p.97]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
The arrangements here never add anything to the songs that you haven't heard a thousand other bands do just as well, if not better. [No. 118, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Mar 12, 2015 -
- Magnet
Posted Jul 9, 2015 -
- Critic Score
The musicianship is smart and faultless, but also too subtle. [No. 96, p.54]- Magnet
Posted Mar 15, 2013 -
- Critic Score
The stylistic range is surprisingly broad and definitely campy. [No. 122, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Jul 10, 2015 -
- Critic Score
The music works well on its own merits, though it's sometimes tough to know how ironically we're supposed to hear the Yawpers' penchant for the standard furniture of hardscrabble Americana. [No. 126, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Nov 17, 2015 -
- Critic Score
There are moments when all this earnestness turns sickly and Burns gets too serious about his gifts... but the eclectic moments of bass, banjo and French vocals... manage to jerk things back into focus. [#71, p.88]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
We're left with a meandering, psychedelic buzz--not a dizzying, mind-expanding head-trip. [#71, p.102]- Magnet
-
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
The result is the soundtrack to a mid-day timeslot at any of the massive festivals popping up in every corner of the country where the band's celebrity still won't be draw enough to redirect most attendees' focus. [No. 125, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Oct 14, 2015 -
- Critic Score
Lush and smooth, funky and ethereal, Celestial Electric is a sublimely down-tempo album filled with beautiful vocals and gorgeous orchestration. [#81, p. 52]- Magnet
Posted Nov 11, 2011 -
- Critic Score
Angergard vivid production is the perfect foil for Komstedt's warmly detached vocals, and fans of Saint Etienne, Beach House and Blondie's "Heart Of Class" should take notice. [No.99, p.53]- Magnet
Posted Jun 18, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Love it or hate it, in her hands or someone else's, Ono's music does what fine art has always done: It dares you to feel. [No. 128, p.54]- Magnet
Posted Feb 12, 2016 -
- Critic Score
The A Frames ultimately come off as serious students of history, not fashion. [#67, p.84]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
The band reemerges from the California desert four years later with a self-titled sophomore effort that's every bit as satisfying as its predecessor. [No. 106, p.60]- Magnet
Posted Feb 21, 2014 -
- Critic Score
Deviations from the script are interesting but not as successful (the jangly 'Jump In The Fire,' the rockabilly 'Branded'). Luckily, they don’t detract from the main course: a heaping helping of straight-up rock ’n’ roll like only Reis can deliver.- Magnet
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
While there's a bit less winsome lilt and a bit more loud fuzz, the songs still sound like a bulked-up amalgam of early Pavement, Television Personalities and your favorite shamble-rock outfit. Why change it if it works? [No. 136, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Oct 18, 2016 -
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Wonky finds the head-lamped pair still hitting those marks [being innovative within the confines of electronic music], even if it isn't quite as revelatory now. [No. 86, p.56]- Magnet
Posted Apr 10, 2012 -
- Critic Score
There's no "Cinnamon Girl's" here, but "Farewell American Primitive" and "Only In My Dreams" breathe the same catchy air. [#90, p.53]- Magnet
Posted Sep 5, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Discerning Anglophiles will warm to the charms of the Divine Comedy's 11th album, Foreverland. [No. 136, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Oct 18, 2016 -
- Critic Score
There's so much good music here, performed affectionately but not reverently, that it's a keeper. [No. 132, p.60]- Magnet
Posted Aug 2, 2016 -
- Magnet
Posted Apr 12, 2012 -
- Critic Score
Interesting sounds? To be sure. Impenetrable songs? That, too. [#73, p.94]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
As good as IN///PARALLEL is, Harrison leaves you curious to hear how much greater he can be when he really lets loose. [No. 147, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Oct 17, 2017 -
- Critic Score
Arriving ten years after her solo debut, Little Heater has managed to take the anachronistic qualities of Irwin's sound and imbue them with real relevance. [No.91 p.55]- Magnet
Posted Oct 1, 2012 -
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Hold is the most fun Melvins record in a minute, somehow combining two of the weirdest bands in the history of American rock to come up with an almost-straightforward rock record that shreds hard. [No. 115, p.59]- Magnet
Posted Nov 12, 2014 -
- Critic Score
La Sera tips it bonnet to the long-gone AM-radio sound of the '60's girl groups but with ... guitar noise and snarky attitude. [#86, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Apr 6, 2012 -
- Critic Score
The instrumentals, which mix grainy field recordings with more forthright electronic melodies, assert a strong presence, but not enough to rescue Hymnal from a state of irresolute inbetween-ness. [No. 96, p.58]- Magnet
Posted Mar 15, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Another gem, and, not unexpectedly, one of his darkest collections. [No. 114, p.59]- Magnet
Posted Nov 5, 2014 -
- Magnet
-
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
A pleasant if vaguely unsatisfying collection of songs. [#61, p.106]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
These are just tender pop songs, timeless enough to defy categorization. [#60, p.95]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
While longtime fans may lament the paucity of instamatic anthems, 'All The Old Showstoppers' and 'Unguided' reveal their charms with each new verse. [Fall 2007, p.106]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
The Notwist’s last album, 2003’s "Neon Golden," was irresistibly catchy and irretrievably downbeat. Both of those qualities are muted on The Devil, You + Me, the German combo’s long-in-the-making follow-up.- Magnet
- Read full review
-
- Critic Score
An even more esoteric, and yet - oddly enough - more accessible record than her debut. [No.87, p. 51]- Magnet
Posted May 11, 2012 -
- Critic Score
As tasteful as it all is, you still wonder what Vetiver is bringing to this material other than reverence. [Summer 2008, p.109]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
It's an interesting experience and definitely an entertaining listen, even if you'll have no clue what you're listening to half the time. [No. 94, p.57]- Magnet
Posted Jan 4, 2013 -
- Critic Score
With Anything Could Happen, Stinson not only shows that Bash & Pop 2.0 has potential staying power but also that he's worthy of comparisons to his mentor. [No. 139, p.54]- Magnet
Posted Feb 14, 2017 -
- Critic Score
It proves quickly to be a break for the better, though, forging its unique identity on account of Tatum’s ability to turn a tune in many more ways than one. [No. 129, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Mar 30, 2016 -
- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
Despite the experimental tendencies in the music, this is an album that catches attention in the home speakers as well as in the art scene. [No. 97, p.55]- Magnet
Posted Apr 16, 2013 -
- Critic Score
Pop uses the strengths and weaknesses of his many guests to differing--and sometimes distracting--effect. [#61, p.88]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
It's everything you ever loved about obscure French and Italian new-wave cinema soundtracks without the stench of rancid popcorn. [#55, p.74]- Magnet
-
- Critic Score
High concepts don't always result in high art, but Commonwealth comes close enough. [No. 113, p.61]- Magnet
Posted Sep 18, 2014 -
- Critic Score
While no one track jumps out as a single, the entire album is something of a near cubist deconstruction of the band's sound. [No.88 p.60]- Magnet
Posted Jun 19, 2012 -
- Critic Score
The duo’s third LP won’t reconcile the two camps; in fact, Heart On may be the first EODM album to really make the detractors’ case. Chugging riffs and falsetto vocals abound on these 12 tracks, but instead of indulging whatever black magic that kept 2004’s "Peace Love Death Metal" and 2006’s "Death By Sexy" from devolving into jokey karaoke, Hughes and Homme decide to play it mostly straight.- Magnet
- Read full review