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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Am Easy to Find
    It would be rash to immediately start writing The National’s obituary, but this really does sounds like the band is preparing to wind down, for a period at least. It seems like we’re really no closer to answering that first question. Where do The National go from here? It could be a while before we find out.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Here Comes the Cowboy
    The end result is the kind of unique album that only results from someone who has spent a career staying true to themselves, playing every instrument, writing every song, adopting a singular fashion stance, and even opening their own record label. This album is a reflection of that growth, and hopefully a promise for more of the same.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dogrel
    They're smart, clueless, and ready to take the festival circuit by storm.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Placeholder
    The rousing, yet equally understated the book on how to change part II brings closure with a welcome luster, though it's not enough to salvage the album's soporific middle half.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Panorama
    It serves as the nuanced companion to the disquieting narrative of Rooms of the House.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Grey Area
    On the whole, it's a smart and satisfying record. If she can achieve such mass appeal on an independent release, it will be fascinating to see where she goes if she agrees to sign with a label. Hopefully it won't trip up her laser focus on what matters: herself.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Not Waving, But Drowning
    Not Waving But Drowning showcases why Carner is heralded as one of British hip-hop’s biggest talents, but this isn’t quite the revelation his debut was. That being said, any album that includes an interlude dedicated to England winning a World Cup penalty shootout will always go down well.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Life Metal
    Calling Life Metal a great metal/rock/guitar album, ultimately, is a disservice: This is a sonic meditation channeled through humbuckers and hearts.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    High Anxiety
    Recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio, High Anxiety will encourage your neck to snap, Weil’s over-the-top vocal delivery combined with the band’s refreshing lack of constraint apparently “too heavy metal” as spoken aloud during the altered soundbyte that follows Riding the Universe.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    On the Line
    No amount of musical pedigree can save her commonplace lyrical sentiments, though, which are too noticeable to ignore. Which, to a degree, slightly misstep a personal journey where she takes account of a bevy of life experiences with genuine autonomy.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's Real
    It's Real is a traditional rock record through and through. But like that secondhand vinyl sitting on your shelf that never got reissued, it contains deep, thick grooves that always sound fresh regardless of its dwindling shelf life.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Social Cues
    Though Cues features some of their most accomplished songs yet, their eagerness to please both sides (not to mention a woeful Beck cameo on the dub-reggae fusion of Night Running) make for a sometimes coldly calculating listen.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Designer
    There's a marked inconsistency in her voice—something lilting, sometimes guttural--navigating her usual distress with a presence that is as hammy as it is heartfelt.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cuz I Love You
    There's nothing wrong with Lizzo's so-called "genreless," agenda-forward sound (nor did Pitchfork claim that there was, and I'm not one to side with their opinions as a rule), but it does lack a certain cohesion and maturity.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Father of the Bride
    Father of the Bride does succeed in a musical sense-it could've done without the sparse synth ballad 2012 or the bastardized bossa nova of Spring Snow, to give a few examples, but most of these instrumental curios reaffirm Koening's reflective, and possibly solitary, approach to get back into the flow of writing music.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Oh My God
    While his music has reached new heights of production and depth, his penmanship remains pedestrian.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In League with Dragons
    Though Darnielle skillfully furthers his compositional approach in In League with Dragons, there are times where his unbounded, bookish wit gets the best of him.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I Need a New War
    Finn is operating at a whole new level of finesse here, and gifts us something truly beautiful.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Ventura
    Coming across as a familiar yet fresh sound, like a reconciliation of a past lover, Ventura’s soulful presence was crafted by time. Memorable and intimate from the start, Ventura completes Oxnard, as Malibu did to Venice; tying up all loose ends and graciously ready for the next chapter.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Serfs Up!
    Serfs Up! feels effortless for the wrong reasons--though Fat White Family's sheen of coolness and atmospheric moods almost hides a lack of songcraft, it's best suited as background music.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Laughing Matter
    Their song-oriented approach recharacterizes a project that was once known for their simple, garage revivalism. Wand now rise above that notion--it's a refreshing move that makes it even harder to pin down their artistic evolution.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Titanic Rising
    Despite Mering's sonic flights of fancy, Titanic Rising is a lean, 40-minute recording that carefully considers her performative sentiments with fine craftsmanship. No emotions go astray.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Plastic Anniversary
    Matmos successfully craft an environment both musical and tactile, some of the elements stretched to such extremes and arranged so well that they sound convincingly like instruments.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Inside the Rose
    On Inside of Rose, the duo chisel their rimy, amorphous arrangements into a finely pointed portrait of emotional disintegration.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This Is How You Smile
    This Is How You Smile feels like an exercise in restraint but not in a dull suffocating kind of way. What makes it work is how even as he continues embracing more conventional instruments and structures, Lange still leaves room for himself to tinker and experiment at the same time. For music so understated and gentle, it's almost startling just how powerful it's capable of being.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Post Earth
    Feels' seething frustrations thrash with a clearer focus and no shortage of attitude.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    What Chaos Is Imaginary
    Songs like All Blacked Out and Chemical Freeze are suffused with melancholic ambiance, where descending minor chords provide a fullness to their otherwise spare arrangements.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Crushing
    She provokes an emotional groundswell in the quietest of moods, one acoustic song at a time. But the knotty, country rock groove of both Head Alone and You Were Right show that she can also shake off those doldrums. Maybe not as much as we’d like, but as she repeatedly denotes in Crushing, healing is an everyday process.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Olympic Girls
    Fullbrook mottles sonic accouterments throughout with graceful finesse, though sometimes at the expense of songs that dissolve into a foggy blur.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Weezer [Black Album]
    He implicitly tells you to “die, die” on the Slightly Stoopid-resembling Zombie Bastards, after all, a joyful retort to the haters who won’t shut up about how Weezer has become a meme in musical form. But Cuomo, ever the mercurial songwriter, later goes off over the pleasures of parasailing on the escapist, Paul McCartney-recalling High as a Kite. And that’s when Weezer (Black Album) peaks.
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