Pitchfork's Scores

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For 12,704 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 6% same as the average critic
  • 53% 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 Sign O' the Times [Deluxe Edition]
Lowest review score: 0 nyc ghosts & flowers
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10,441 out of 12704
  2. Mixed: 1,949 out of 12704
  3. Negative: 314 out of 12704
12704 music reviews
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    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Mazes
    Mazes is an exercise in accessibility and concision, using familiar, melodic pop templates to support their drone and krautrock tendencies.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Regifted Light
    Regifted Light doesn't seem built to shock or cajole, but to connect with all sorts of people, and to last.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    In and Out of Youth and Lightness
    Even if their whole style is essentially a throwback, there's plenty of room out there for throwback done right. But on too much of Youth and Lightness, they're not the machine they could be.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Salon des Amateurs
    Curious, constantly in motion, full of puzzle-like counterpoints and arresting chord changes, it's a joy to listen to, and one of the brightest, most invigorating records I've heard all year.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Jonny
    Although they've played and recorded together in the past, here they sound as though they're still finding out how to best combine their quirks.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Canary
    While few really stand out on their own, together they lean on one another to impressive effect. As a result, it has the feeling of an album that really holds together. Now that's an anachronism.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Idle Labor
    As with so many bedroom auteurs' debuts, it's tough to separate the creation from the creator, and Idle Labor shows the promise of a precocious songwriter who isn't claiming to have anything totally figured out just yet.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Bob Dylan in Concert: Brandeis University 1963
    Ultimately, Brandeis was more valuable and revealing as a bonus disc than as a standalone album.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    The English Riviera
    Almost all of the songs on The English Riviera sound great, yet few of them really emotionally or physically involve the listener, and there's little to take away besides an appreciation of that effortlessly attractive sheen.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tron: Legacy Reconfigured
    TRON: Legacy Reconfigured succeeds as much as most remix projects do, which is to say about 50% of the time, and without Daft Punk's name attached to the project it's doubtful it would have attracted much attention.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Street Halo
    Somehow, despite a sound bank that has long since become familiar, Burial keeps finding new ideas to animate his worn, mournful samples.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Who Kill
    This unguarded, individualistic expression encourages strong identification in listeners, so don't be surprised if this record earns Garbus a very earnest and intense cult following.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Some Cold Rock Stuf
    Some Cold Rock Stuf makes more sense as a collection of scattered concept pieces than a unified statement.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    A Thousand Heys
    Though it boasts a couple of heaters, A Thousand Heys butts up against the same problem faced by so many others working in this timeless but relatively basic template -- there are undoubtedly listeners who won't ever get enough of this stuff, but how can you distinguish yourself while still maintaining the spirit of your predecessors?
    • 71 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Flux Outside
    The Bangs seem to place every drum stutter, keyboard whirr, and Schafer howl on equal footing, a nice testament to the tightness and democracy of their musical unit, so pushing the songwriting further to the forefront could come at the risk of toppling the delicate balance the not-so-delicate Flux Outside achieves. May they never learn to sit still.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Nostalgia, Ultra.
    No matter the mood, this songwriter is always quick to add fine particulars that make his songs his songs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Trash Hit
    Mr. Dream have mastered the tricks of alt-rock enough to play these sorts of formal games, but that isn't nearly as satisfying as when they push themselves outside of their wry, cynical comfort zone and hit upon something more nakedly emotional.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Lollipop
    There are plenty of great tunes here, just not much character. Lollipop's as catchy as your average power-pop record, but still hardly as essential as the band's peaks.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Wasting Light
    While Wasting Light features a host of worthy set-openers, few prove to be as sticky or memorable as any number of their previous singles.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    So Beautiful or So What
    So Beautiful or So What can be stodgy in its emotions and a bit too devoted to its motifs, but there's something humanizing about the album's shortcomings.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    On a Mission
    There's enough stylistic extension here that Katy finds a way to transcend enough signifiers to call herself pop above anything else.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Meyrin Fields
    This EP sounds like more than the sum of its parts. Maybe it's the realization that Gnarls Barkley will never top "Crazy" or that the Shins may never re-form, but there's an intriguing sense of desperation on these songs, as though both Mercer and Burton are realizing that this band could indeed be their lives.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Queens of the Stone Age [Reissue]
    It's not often that padding out an already hefty album actually improves it, but in the Queens' case, the revised tracklist provides a more accurate portrait of how the band molded its mercurial Desert Sessions experiments into chiseled hard-rock monoliths.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    In Love With Oblivion
    If, like me, you're one of the admirers, then there's plenty to like here. If not, well, give it a shot anyway-- who knows, you might find something you like.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Hyphenated-Man
    Much of Hyphenated-Man has that kind of blunt, unblinking tone. It sounds like Watt is using Bosch's figures to confront some hard truths, but he does so in a spry, often joyous way.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Do Whatever You Want All the Time
    It's a welcome reminder of this band's current status, because one hopes that Do Whatever You Want All the Time isn't an end, but another new beginning.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Reptilians
    A glut of midtempo dithering mostly takes up the second half, and while some of the songs situated there are decent on their own, together they congeal into an asymmetrical mess, exposing Reptilians' front-loaded wiring.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Apocalypse
    Callahan has nothing to add to the general conversation about music in 2011 but is making the best albums of his career.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 58 Critic Score
    The Family Sign
    While the instrumentation of When Life Gives You Lemons signaled a wealth of potential new directions for Atmosphere's production, The Family Sign runs almost entirely on gloomy ballads heavy on maudlin piano chords and keening guitar riffs.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 48 Critic Score
    Smart Flesh
    As long as the Low Anthem discount the idea that this music was once meant to stir the blood, rile the soul, and actually be exciting, it's always going to be historically inaccurate in a way no amount of sepia-toned ambience can overcome.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    C'mon
    C'mon feels more like a collection drawn from throughout the last decade than a completely cohesive album.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Nine Types of Light
    Nine Types of Light is unquestionably TV on the Radio's most patient, positive recording to date, taking its cues as much from Dear Science's serene ballads as its brassy workouts.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Here Before
    Here, the Feelies simply dig up The Good Earth's pastoral, post-Velvets power-pop -- a sound that ruled college radio airwaves in the mid-80s but which boasts few notable contemporary adherents -- and blissfully strum away as if they were performing in hammocks.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Alela Diane & Wild Divine
    This self-titled album gives the impression that they're constantly aware of holding back. Such restraint is ultimately unwarranted: Diane is a strong enough presence as a singer and as a songwriter that she can more than hold her own.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Harbors
    That sense of focus on making emotionally redolent material, and keeping the overall thrust of the project in view despite having many hands on the tiller, are ultimately what makes Harbors solidify into a satisfyingly cohesive whole.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    Helioscope
    Even when Helioscope offers a more traditionally post-rock track, such as "The Trap", Vessels' way with arrangements and sonics produces something refreshingly out of the ordinary.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Here We Rest
    Although he's now logged as much time as a solo artist as he did with his former band, Isbell sounds he's still finding his voice.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Chopped and Screwed
    As it is, it feels like dead patches make up almost half of Chopped & Screwed. Shelve it next to the Knife's Tomorrow, in a Year as an effort that hearteningly shows an inspired artist staking out bold terrain, but one that only fitfully delivers the impact of the artist's previous, pop-focused work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Human Hearts
    Maritime's musical development has become a compelling narrative of its own, each subsequent record in many ways both improving upon and elucidating the last.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    One Nation
    At its best, One Nation sounds like a beat tape left to crackle for a decade in somebody's garage, a kind of post-Chronic spin on one of those far-out late 70s dub-inflected collaborative krautrock LPs. But other times it feels like a series of conceptual curios that seems to think holding the listener at arm's length might even be too close.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Share the Joy
    It's easy to see Share the Joy's place in the Vivian Girls discography, but their place in indie rock as a whole is becoming less clear.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 41 Critic Score
    Euphoric Heartbreak
    Despite good intentions, the wincing lyrics border on pandering and even exploitative, revealing little in the way of insight or palpable compassion
    • 77 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Tomboy
    Tomboy is a much more considered record, with thickly layered psych-style production.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    House of Balloons
    What makes this whole thing work in an album context is that all the thematic and sonic pieces fit together-- these weird, morning-after tales of lust, hurt, and over-indulgence ("Bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain," goes one refrain) are matched by this incredibly lush, downcast music.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Rolling Papers
    Call it mood music for the mindless.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 57 Critic Score
    Raven in the Grave
    The untangled pop of In and Out of Control has been reconfigured and dipped in black eyeliner as the Raveonettes veer toward 1980s goth.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    Doggumentary
    More than many of Snoop's recent efforts, Doggumentary has something of a sonic identity.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 71 Critic Score
    Holy Ghost!
    As slippery and elusive as this album's thrills can be, they'll eventually fall into place, one track at a time.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Cotonou Club
    Twenty-odd years ago, when Poly-Rythmo last made a studio album, they were at their lowest ebb. Cotonou Club finds them at another high.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    The One... Cohesive
    It's a strange combination-- big, lush beats and stories about small victories-- but it turns songs that are celebratory of simple things (a girl sending sexy cell-phone pictures, visiting Paris for the first time) or full of thoughtful sentiments (supporting family, helping community) into something epic.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 64 Critic Score
    Blood Pressures
    The new album feels at once a return to the Kills' beatbox-blues origins as well an attempt to broaden their palette with more sensitive, intimate turns.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 74 Critic Score
    A.H.A.T.H.H.A.F.T.C.T.T.C.O.T.E.
    The lyrics are wrung out with the same shaved-down discipline as the music, where nothing ever topples over into over-wrought emoting. Despite this rigid adherence to restraint, much of this material proves to be emotionally affecting.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Last of the Country Gentlemen
    There's nothing truly transgressive or illuminating or innovative about Last of the Country Gentlemen.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Submarine (Original Songs from the Motion Picture)
    Matched to this sophisticated, admirably restrained music, Turner's Submarine songs have a backwards-looking quality, a guy who's been through it calmly reexamining the scars and renavigating the pitfalls.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Common Era
    Most of the songs are solid, with the possible exception of the slackened "Keep Still", but none after the first has much capacity to surprise us or deepen the palette.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Michel Poiccard
    Even when not stated explicitly, most of Michel Poiccard feels like a love letter to Velasco from remaining founder Johnny Siera; there's a sadness and longing tucked into even songs that aren't ostensibly about Velasco.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    936
    If you can resist getting totally stranded in its opiate-friendly atmospheres, the joys of 936 are easy to pin down.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Horizontal Structures
    Reserved and mechanical as it is, Horizontal Structures is a very warm record. Von Oswald and his regulars soak the music in reverb and atmosphere.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Lesser Known
    Lesser Known, then, is about self-exploration in unexplored territory, and how to lose yourself in that void. Boeldt's escaped, and it sounds like he's all the better for it.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Starting from Nowhere
    This is ultimately mediocre music that sometimes recalls the sound and feeling of excellent music, and the only thing that Heidecker brings to the table is a smirking irony that is not particularly appealing when separated from hilarious comedy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 77 Critic Score
    Cherish the Light Years
    Cherish has the feel of a breakthrough, and Wes Eisold comes across as an artist with a vision that will resonate with a larger audience.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 61 Critic Score
    Screws Get Loose
    From here on out, Screws Get Loose starts sounding like the work of a retro-pop outfit, treading the same ground covered by the Raveonettes, the Donnas, and recent revivalist indie heroes Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    A Dream a While Back
    Though these solo works are not as fleshed out nor quite as transporting as the highlights of Red Hash, they provide a fascinating document of a young songwriter finding his voice, and leave behind lingering questions about what might have been.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Mind Bokeh
    There is enjoyable music here, and I've no doubt that the Bibio project has plenty of life on it.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Belong
    Belong is a bigger, bolder, and brighter follow-up that adds new dimensions to the Pains' sound while nearly equaling the songwriting of their debut.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    You Stand Uncertain
    The album as a whole isn't quite able to leverage that into a recognizable aesthetic, but it comes tantalizingly close.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 26 Critic Score
    Live on I-5
    The problem is that this was, at best, a 1997 cash-grab that probably would've worked in that economic climate, and now you just get to debate whether it's a cynical move on Soundgarden's part or, more likely, something they had absolutely nothing to do with at all.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    Moody, Standard and Poor
    While Obits may have ditched the buzz and scrape of their roots, that music's sweaty abandon, or the pursuit thereof, is still deeply embedded in Obits' sound. And that never goes out of fashion.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 66 Critic Score
    The Return of Mr. Zone 6
    Gucci, who was rap's most exciting figure a year and a half ago, is on a profound losing streak, and it's easy to hear The Return of Mr. Zone 6, his new street album, as an attempt to reverse that slide.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Alexander
    Sure, Alexander is an unsteady and uncertain release, but it's also a trial run by someone who has already made it.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    Too Young to Be in Love
    The 10 songs on Too Young to Be in Love are exuberant snapshots of rock music's earliest years, bursting with teenage romance and allusions to oral sex, but they are also very faithful ones.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Nightingale
    Background check aside, there isn't much air to breathe for any or one of Cooper's many ideas in a given song, leaving the record as a whole even less of a chance to cohere.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Who You Are
    She comes across like a severely dumbed-down Lily Allen at best, and at worst she seems like someone you would want to root against in a televised singing competition
    • 77 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    All Eternals Deck
    There are no ham-fisted reggae rubs or overreaching rock moments; instead, the band simply plays with nuance and purpose, elaborating the lyrics by first understanding them.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Gimme Some
    These guys are capable musicians and studio heads, and mechanically speaking, these are fine pop songs-- well crafted, ably produced, everything in its right place-- but they don't particularly move you.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Telling the Truth
    Telling the Truth has its moments of deeply felt poignancy, but its real value lies in its highly creative and endlessly listenable assimilation of soul, pop, rock, and folk signifiers.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Discontinued Perfume
    This is one of the reasons it's important to approach Discontinued Perfume as a full album, intentionally put together in a certain order. The Caribbean have never been what you'd call a singles act anyway, but here you need to take in the whole picture the band is painting.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 56 Critic Score
    Electric Endicott
    When this sound is done with edge and freakiness, it can be a unique surprise, which is exactly what You Think You Really Know Me was. Electric Endicott is too often the opposite--predictable and numbing, even when it's good.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    W.A.R. (We Are Renegades)
    If you value the merits of a singular flow, then what Monch does on this album can redeem nearly anything. Or at least make something likable out of an album that could've been just mediocre.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 62 Critic Score
    Dolphins
    Dolphins is both hypnotic and staggering at times, but it lacks the extraordinary stamina that those earlier Mi Ami long-players kept from end to end.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Tear the Fences Down
    Clearly a children's song, it's an autobiographical account of the slowed process of overcoming loss--a big idea written for small people but, like a good portion of Tear the Fences Down, one that registers across the board.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Angles
    Though this band was routinely slapped with claims of 1970s plagiarism upon their arrival, it's unlikely that many people have ever mistaken a Strokes song for one by Lou Reed or Television. So it's ironic that their mimicry can be uncanny on Angles.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    Bible Eyes
    This is an album that sounds invigoratingly abrasive when you're moving and pins you to your seat when you're not, a study in pushing the limits of distortion that works as just plain good club music.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 49 Critic Score
    Boys and Diamonds
    Boys and Diamonds bustles with African, Indian, and Caribbean rhythms, and boasts some genuinely interesting production in places. But the songwriting is ultimately too blocky and dull and slapped together for it to succeed as the thing it most wants to be-- a pop record.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 69 Critic Score
    Build a Rocket Boys!
    It's no slight to say the record's distinguishing quality is the one Elbow has had since the beginning, an honest humanity that's imperfect but can be appreciated if you live with it.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Several Shades of Why
    Several Shades of Why gives us that softer, gentler J Mascis. But it's not kids' stuff -- these are lullabies for adults, offered up with a compassion that doesn't come easy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Riot Now!
    They were and continue to be first-wave, American indie rock survivors whose legacy has become, at this point, less about their music and more about surviving. Riot Now!, the veteran outfit's first full-length in five years is a meat-and-potatoes rock record that goes one step further in explaining why that it is.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Cervantine
    Though they'd likely be the first to tell you how much they still have to learn, Cervantine's ravishing exploration of sound is another step towards mastery.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 54 Critic Score
    Blessed
    Ultimately, Blessed has the feel of a transitional album-- from lonely to married, from troubled to contented, from regretful to joyful.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Lasers
    Lupe often has enough trouble staying out of his own way, yet Lasers doesn't suffer for that reason; it just feels like the flaming wreckage of a project that never had a prayer.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    II
    They're more interested in following intuition than patterns, and II is way more physical than mental. Its density, pace, and exuberance are, for anyone that likes to get lost in sound, basically a sonic amusement park.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    The Mind Spiders
    Ultimately, Mind Spiders is tailor-made for those of us who value that four-on-the-floor reverie above all else.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    No Color
    Lyrically, No Color is a step in a new direction for Dodos -- for mostly better.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 72 Critic Score
    What a Pleasure
    It'll be interesting to see where Beach Fossils go from here, because What a Pleasure is the type of release that shows they're talented, but still have a little work to do fully capitalize on it.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Too Beautiful to Work
    The record, then, turns out to be a fairly bloodless experience, a trait that suggests the Luyas should take heed of otherwise dangerous advice: A little violence never hurt anybody.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 79 Critic Score
    Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang
    Few rappers could bring such an engaging sense of energy to a project so focused on preaching to the converted.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 73 Critic Score
    Land and Fixed
    While the music on Land and Fixed revels in this newfound clarity, the vocals are still processed and manipulated. Where that juxtaposition worked on earlier recordings (when the two sides were still on the same playing field), it doesn't coalesce nearly as well here.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Last Night on Earth
    Even at their best, though, Noah and the Whale struggle to overcome a trying-too-hard odor that permeates everything they do right down to that ill-advised band name.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 81 Critic Score
    He Gets Me High
    Rare is the EP that sounds so crucial to an artist's catalog and narrative, but it won't be surprising to look back on this release in a few years and see it as pivotal in Dum Dum Girls' career.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 65 Critic Score
    Dead Reckoning
    Sometimes the fervor gets to be too much for them: the grating but mercifully brief "Blood for You" is little more than the junkyard clang of the rhythm section and Sollee's stuck-pig shout, and the verses "Cradle on Fire" seem to get away from Sollee, who loses the melody somewhere in the back of his throat. But there's few moments when they don't seem to be throwing everything they've got into these performances, and that furious intensity drives them past both rough patches and easy comparisons.
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