Splendid's Scores

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For 793 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 65% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 33% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Humming By The Flowered Vine
Lowest review score: 10 Fire
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 654 out of 793
  2. Mixed: 119 out of 793
  3. Negative: 20 out of 793
793 music reviews
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    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Everybody Wants To Know
    Other than the last three songs, Everybody Wants to Know is an album you should know about.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nice Cheekbones and a Ph.D
    The Posies' latest effort offers five power-pop gems that match the best efforts of this veteran Seattle band.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Dark Matter: Moving At The Speed Of Light
    A welcome blast from the past.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Otto Spooky
    It shakes the foundations of our music-consuming habits and plays with our genre expectations; it fucks with our minds a bit, just for kicks, and, more importantly, liberates us from the pernicious tyranny of monotony.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Treble & Tremble
    One of the best and most moving albums of the year.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Liberation
    As a political album, Liberation may only be half-successful, but I'd still take angry Trans Am over the schlocky Trans Am of TA any day.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kiss & Tell
    Slick, well-constructed and mall-friendly.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    dios (malos)
    Through smart songcraft, a powerful command of pop vocabulary, and skillful track sequencing, Dios Malos deliver an album that expands and grows more complicated with every listen.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Politics Of The Business
    While Politics of the Business follows in the conceptual footsteps of its forbears, its all-too-literal sense of moral responsibility does get a tad tiresome, occasionally sagging into diluted dogma.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Volcano, I'm Still Excited!!
    Their bouncily hummable tunes and tortured lyrics about girls might evoke thoughts of groups like Weezer, but these guys aren't nerd-rock clones.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Trouble Every Day [Soundtrack]
    As spectacularly successful as the Tindersticks have been in their tribute to the horror of Trouble Every Day, I'm hoping for a lighter confection from their next collaboration with Denis -- something more along the lines of Nenette et Boni.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love & Distortion
    The hour-long Love & Distortion never loses steam; it delivers on its title, and is unique enough to avoid lyrical banality.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Green Imagination
    Green Imagination succeeds because it rarely seems obvious or disingenuous, even as it indulges in copious quantities of shamelessly retro fun.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Let There Be Morning
    Let There Be Morning isn't designed to bowl you over with its size and scope; rather, it's a quietly compelling, lushly orchestrated affair that slowly but surely melts its way into your heart.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Blowback
    Remove "Girls" and "Wonder Woman" from Blowback and you'd have a solid album.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shock City Maverick
    His machinegun flow is as cerebral as ever, but too much of the album's production slides by in a dignified haze of twinkling clips and clacks, devoid of real grime or grizzled substance.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cloud Making Machine
    Admittedly, not all of Cloud's most ambitious tracks work ou.... But in the end, it's Garnier's ambition, combined with his talent and professionalism, that make this an album worth seeking out.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Gimmie Trouble
    Gimmie Trouble reminds us that Adult. don't sound like anyone else... Not even themselves.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    At Sixes And Sevens
    Most of Loewenstein's work here simply puts a happier spin on Sub Pop's raw, rough-edged rock formula -- the sort of thing Kurt Cobain might have written if Prozac was free.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Out West
    Gomez do nothing to rethink or reinvigorate their earlier recordings; in fact, when Out West's renditions are compared to the originals, the live versions sound dull and lifeless.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Impossible Thrill
    The low points are easier to spot than the highs, which tend to peak at a low elevation.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Plastic Fang
    The album is never anything more or less than it pretends to be. It offers a good time, and it delivers. As a soundtrack to mindless partying, it is first-rate.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Tree City
    In the end, Tree City's quality makes its carbon-copy nature all the more frustrating.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    D.U.M.E. [EP]
    Shrill, sharp, twitchy compositions that can be as abrasive as they are compelling.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Antidote
    After a while, the songs begin to sound the same, and while Martey's vocals are consistently strong, the fact that she almost always sings in the same range robs them of much of their effect.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Autumn Was A Lark
    This spruced-up EP is devoid of the rampant stylistic deviations that have ruled their later work, instead trading upon simple acoustic song structures and soulful vocal leads that recall the strummy days of I Hope Your Heart is not Brittle.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Church Gone Wild / Chirpin Hard
    At nearly two hours long, Church Gone Wild/Chirpin Hard is anything but a precise masterstroke. It is, however, a flawed, majestic account of what can happen when a band splits down the middle to compose on their own terms, with no artistic differences and no coalescing of ideals.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Velocity of Sound
    In terms of pure power-pop delight, Velocity of Sound is hard to beat -- it's one of those records that taps directly into your musical pleasure center and jabs repeatedly at the best bits.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
    A fascinatingly cinematic, image-laden and claustrophobic album that feels like the someone else's nightmare.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Richest Man in Babylon
    The tunes just circle like SUVs in a parking lot; there are traces of a head of steam, of a nod towards explosive tune-structures, but it seems the ball is dropped at the last minute in favour of a holding-pattern approach -- the familiar bassline and chorused keys. It's a letdown.
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