No Ripcord's Scores

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For 2,825 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 54% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Strawberry Jam
Lowest review score: 0 Scream
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,983 out of 2825
  2. Mixed: 765 out of 2825
  3. Negative: 77 out of 2825
2825 music reviews
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    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Sun and Shade
    Woods should take the cue from Bill Callahan and what he accomplished with Smog: if you are going to delve into the restricting realm of lo-fi, there has to be emotional and appealing substance and quality in the songs themselves. Lowering the production quality does not, as in a double helix, imply that the songwriting quality will improve.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Family Jewels
    Unfortunately, her constant insistence on being so ham-fistedly quirky and zany soon becomes wearing, and simultaneously rescues and spoils the whole album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wake Up The Nation
    Lyrically Wake Up The Nation is largely inscrutable, while sonically it remains a shambling and ungainly listen.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Weekends
    Considering how the lyrical content and flat as a rug singing in Weekends was written for an elementary school child to understand, they probably should've kept it that way; it occasionally downgrades the songs to a point where they are unable to rise above their cheesiness.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Temper Trap
    When it comes to developing and honing the craft of songwriting to present a signature sound with a variety of ideas, The Temper Trap fall short.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Raditude
    Weezer disappoints again. The rest of the tracks are, for the most part, more throwaway power-pop in the vein of the "Red Album."
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Born Again Revisited
    Most bands are simply prolonging the genre’s decline by playing insensibly catchy pop under the sonic crust we’ve come to know it for. Failing either, we’re left with the dull ad nauseums of the musical record. And that, in a sentence, is Born Again Revisited.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Garden of Arms
    There are some nice moments in the mess, and sometimes I'm almost tempted to look past the annoyances before they build up--but sometimes, that's frankly just not possible.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fuse
    Ultimately, the record just sounds comically one-paced and disappointingly stale. As I said, Thorn’s voice is lovely, some of the little stories are smartly narrated, but it’s just nowhere near enough.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Obsidian
    Obsidian is a shallow and unsatisfying exploration of this dark side.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Courage Of Others
    What Midlake has crafted here is monastery music – glorified Gregorian chants that achieve nothing if not snuff out the candle light in your head that represents your slowly melting interest.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Heretofore
    While the concept of exploring new horizons seems like a perpetually Megafaun thing to do, it's a case of too much too soon and of a band reaching for places they have no business going toward.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Portamento
    As an album, it's probably the dullest anticipation of the year.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Pagans in Vegas
    There's a patchwork of pleasantness woven throughout.... By the time the closing tracks roll around, the album has fallen apart entirely. These instrumentals are complete afterthoughts and belong nowhere.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Trip
    If you want to hear this sort of thing done properly, you'll find happiness in the more sedate moments of the peerless Saint Etienne, but there's little to recommend The Trip. It's not much more than a Christmas bauble: shiny and polished on the surface, but with little of substance on the inside.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Semicircle
    The nostalgia lacks anything close to the authenticity that Thunder, Lightning, Strike achieved, and the sound of the 2018 version of The Go! Team struggles to get anywhere far from persistent annoyance.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lulu
    Up until Lulu, I didn't think it was possible to be both enamored and disgusted at the same time. Mind? Blown.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Comedown Machine
    Just like the band itself, it presents something of an ongoing identity crisis for the band, one that hasn’t figured out how to advance their sound except to put more meat on the bones.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    All We Are
    All We Are has potential, but it's squandered on their debut in an attempt to make a spacey, moody soundtrack.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    And They Turned Not When They Went
    Far beyond simply avant garde, this is one for the abstract devotee.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Too True
    The band needs to play to its strengths, rather than a production style. This is not a band that sounds good with buried instruments. This is a group that sound best when they are in your face.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Chromatics
    It’s largely inoffensive and bland, with a few above average moments, and has a tendency to fade into the background.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Prism
    There is little in the way of actual technique or subtlety, and as an album, Prism falls short of its predecessors in the innovation and charisma department.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Cigarettes After Sex
    At once droll and melancholic, Cigarettes After Sex struggles to earn the aural beauty it desperately seeks.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Preliminaires
    Less a jazz album than an eclectic selection, Preliminaires is inconsistent and demonstrates Pop’s reluctance to deviate completely from his safety zone.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Chimeric
    Although these compositions show a ton of improvisation, Radian pigeonhole themselves to a one-note range that imprisons Chimeric with a threatening, claustrophobic mood.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Blanck Mass
    Despite the promising influences and the strong pedigree, essentially all that Blanck Mass offers is a distorted, unusual take on new age music, and while interesting in small doses, it makes for a long, repetitive slog over the course of an hour.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped
    Krug is a songwriter whose craft is best when met with the editing of other musicians--left to himself, however, we are left with a very forgettable retreat into his very OMD-obsessed psyche.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Zoo
    The song writing is passable, the sound is passable, but passable is usually as boring as it sounds.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My Bloody Underground
    For most of My Bloody Underground, Newcombe vocalizes like a decaffeinated Kevin Shields, barely audible under the weight of reverb that blankets just about every track.
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