Spin's Scores

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For 4,305 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 50% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.5 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971
Lowest review score: 0 They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,099 out of 4305
  2. Mixed: 1,151 out of 4305
  3. Negative: 55 out of 4305
4305 music reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    In Another Life
    His well-aged craft shows on his fourth LP in 15 years.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tyron
    What the album lacks in political incisiveness, it gains in the nuance of its twin perspectives. Having told the story of his country, slowthai is ready to tackle his own.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Saint Dymphna
    When the band wraps itself around singer Lizzie Bougatsos' singular shrieks, they ascend to vertiginous heights on 'Holy Communion' and 'Dust Storm,' creating something truly transformative.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Happy Hollow
    An emo album that you don't have to be 17 to actually enjoy. [Sep 2006, p.100]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Atlas
    What's great about Atlas, the quintet's huge, intentional about-face of a third record, is that it most definitely didn't organically occur.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Follower
    At times it’s hard to tell where exactly he’s going, but that’s okay when it’s all too easy to get lost in the Field’s subtly nimble percolations.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sunbathing Animal
    These performances never surrender to the anxiety of influence: All those comparisons are mere reference points for a loose aesthetic that values sustained chordal vamps above all else.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Fortune
    Most of Fortune's tunes revolve around love and politics, which McArdle nails with a combination of wit, cynicism and sorrow. [Nov 2004, p.117]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Supreme Balloon
    Although they're purely instrumentalists, Matmos can too, with a charm that sets the laptop duo apart from lesser lights for whom chilly beats and icy synths are ends in themselves.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Wrecking Ball
    Consistently spirited and glowering, a discomforting album that never leaves his narrative comfort zone, equal parts impersonal and important.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Expanding Flower Planet
    Deradoorian’s arrangements now feel less exploratory than rudderless, her harmonies more droning than direct.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    So It Goes
    Whether directly inspired by backpack rap or just embodying the raw energy of that era, the group has none of the preachy divisiveness that made that movement a half-joke.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Bake Sale [EP]
    But for every song with a strong concept, there's another that meanders through so-so rhymes without any memorable phrases or punch lines. [July 2008, p.92]
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Coming Home
    What it does best is address the simple lament of not having anything to twist to in too long.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Taiga
    What's so brilliant about ['Taiga'] is how Yoshimi finds spiritual connections between unlikely genres. [Oct 2006, p.102]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    American Saturday Night
    On American Saturday Night, Paisley extends a hot streak began with 2003's "Mud on the Tires," singing about regular life in the USA wit and charm that make suburbs sound like heaven on earth.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sun
    Sun is hardly sloganeering, but its Power to the People ruminations are more potent and topical than you'd expect from a pop record--and certainly one made by Cat Power.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Maths + English
    Scattered. [Jul 2007, p.95]
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Water Curses [EP]
    The title track is a garrulously burbling treat, but the piano-led whale song 'Seal Eyeing' reveals the group as comfy at the deep end of their sound pool.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ripe 4 Luv
    What elevates Ripe 4 Luv beyond four absolute bangers and four darn-good in-betweens is how it uncovers the creepiness of power pop relationship dynamics.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Sisterworld
    Sisterworld veers between frenzy and foreboding, exploring the City of Angels' demonic side, from Charles Manson to Bret Easton Ellis, while producer Tom Biller adds richly detailed Hollywood orchestration.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Go-Go Boots
    It's yet another trip to the part of town where you really shouldn't be, in a district the Truckers call home.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Perfect World
    The duo leaven Perfect World’s miserablism with just enough smeared hooks and doom-metal licks to make converts of the underground faithful and the casual headbanger; as tortured triumphs go, this debut is a doozy.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Post Tropical
    Both chilly and warm, soulful and soft, Post Tropical is an intricate ice sculpture of an album, and a fantasy come true for anyone who's ever misted up over Maxwell's version of "This Woman's Work."
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Crimson
    Crimson... still has its share of macabre wordplay... but the real attraction here is the music, which sounds just as dramatic as the imagery. [Jun 2005, p.105]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Holding Hands With Jamie
    The way the album veers between savage energy blasts and more deliberately paced displays of power is extraordinary.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Hot Shit
    Quasi sound feistier than they have in years. [Nov 2003, p.114]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Das Not Compute
    Though they've traded some of the unhinged thrash of 2002's Black City for keyboardy atmosphere, the band's Goteborg gloom can't hide the hooks. [Jun 2004, p.108]
    • Spin
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sound the Alarm
    This quick, free joint project is comparatively frizzy, and doesn't leave a bruising stain of forced mind expansion--just a pleasant memory of good times had by reclaiming “jewels” from the corporate overlords of mainstream rap.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hallucinogen [EP]
    Kelela obviously doesn’t shy away from wearing her label’s signifiers, but on Hallucinogen she transcends them, the same way she outlasted lazy classification into PBR&B in 2013, swimming to the hazy surface of a new kind of future sex/love sounds.
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