No Ripcord's Scores

  • Music
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:
2825 music reviews
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bradford Cox has created a work that musically and lyrically will attach itself to your consciousness, reflecting exterior experience and encouraging inner association with the former.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The only problem (and I don't even know if its a problem) is that every track registers as an epic of some sort, so much so that the album itself registers as a pleasurable, cathartic blur rather than a cohesive statement itself.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This is another huge step forward for a band not afraid to take them.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Falling... is a remarkable leap forward; as Lightspeed Champion, Hynes is, at last, a serious contender.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Vampire Weekend is indie rock with its edges sanded off, polished to a clean, sparkling sheen.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Even if this type of thing isn’t your bag, it’s really pretty irresistible and is worth a shot.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The fact is there are just too many smart, well-written songs on this album to get hung up on the messy sound.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This collection is simply a joy to listen to, with great singers lovingly rendering great songs with a talented producer at the helm.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A work of remarkable beauty, Elegies To Lessons Learned contains far more reasons to be cheerful than it reasonably should, and if you’re looking for post-rock done properly then iLiKETRAiNS are more than on the right lines.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    It’s as brazen, bold and brilliant as anything it’s done thus far. It is, as Thom Yorke claimed, very minimal. Yet, the album never sounds half-finished, but instead focused and refined. It’s as vital as anything the band has done.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Grounded enough to know the limits of the listener (songs meander, but only to the confines of their ideas, never tiring out a single theme), but more than adventurous enough to remain extremely exciting.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    They've just released their second very good album, Hera Ma Nono, and the collaboration is still positive and unforced.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This may be his best rock record since "Born In The USA" (I think I prefer "Lucky Town"), but that’s not saying much. Frankly I suspect his heart is in the quiet acoustic stuff, but it’s still great to hear him pick up the old Esquire once in a while.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    There may be nothing exactly wrong with Good Arrows as a record, and I’m sure that in a different time and situation it would be considered a respectable if shallow pop record.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Harvey’s audio experiments are celebrated with the release of each new album. But I wonder what she would do without any limitations.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    By pushing pop into the dreary without all the drab, Iron and Wine strikes a balance of truth and hope that can get muddled by a scene dominated by pessimists.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Smokey is lengthy, as are all of Banhart’s albums, but make it to the last track and the reward is reminiscent of Banhart’s infallible 2004 album, "Rejoicing in the Hands."
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bedroom is an album of dynamics and contrasts with its biggest asset its heart; chipped, cracked or broken, naivety is replaced by genuine emotion. Sometimes it’s boring and sometimes it’s endearing.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Like unsettling lullabies, The Cave Singers brand of folk music is contemplative, but isn’t that of a summery strum.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trees Outside the Academy sparkles with an eclectic (yet accessible) sound that has my early vote for Album of the Year.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Asleep at Heaven’s Gate is strangely flawed because the warmth of the first two albums has been exchanged for grandeur and detached shellac. By no means is this a fall from grace for Rogue Wave, but it is the band’s first significant stumble.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    A 55-minute mess called Curtis, undoubtedly one of this year’s worst releases.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Strawberry Jam, 2007’s strongest album so far.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    While another concise and accomplished release from an immensely talented rapper, it fails to really deliver the one thing Kanye's always excelled at: beauty.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's far and away the finest record Frank Black has produced in a long time, and shows that it's time for the old pretenders to show the new pretenders a thing or two about writing a rock song.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    On a Saturday night, in an adrenaline soaked club with a nasty bass--Simian Mobile Disco is amongst the greatest fun you’ll ever have. But on a perfectly round, 16 gram piece of plastic--it ain’t really worth a damn.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    There's not a single stand out track, good or bad; and the likes of this album have been released, oh, a million times over, in the past 8 years--it’s not bad, not good, just a drop in a calm, tepid, flat ocean.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Take this album to your heart and cherish it as the sweet, accomplished, and skilfully made, underappreciated little gem that it is
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Our Ill Wills surpasses the band’s 2005 debut "Howl Howl Gaff Gaff" because it takes modest chances and expands on the band’s strengths, doing so cordially all the while.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The album isn’t without its faults--its probably too long, and though the production may differ from other albums, it blurs together somewhat over the course of the album. However, there’s one song on this album that renders all such complaints irrelevant--the title track. None Shall Pass is undoubtedly one of the best things Aesop has ever done