The 405's Scores

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For 1,530 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 57% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 39% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.9 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998
Lowest review score: 15 Revival
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,296 out of 1530
  2. Mixed: 209 out of 1530
  3. Negative: 25 out of 1530
1530 music reviews
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    • 96 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    To Pimp A Butterfly
    As a project that's substantially left-field in good kid m.A.A.d city's wake, To Pimp A Butterfly will almost inevitably receive more acclaim from critics than fans. Kendrick clearly wasn't focused on retaining the considerably large audience he attracted with its predecessor, and the album's stronger for that. Proving that he'll keep us guessing for years to come, Kendrick has truly solidified his place in rap history with this album.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    DAMN.
    This is Kendrick Lamar playing the game, and making everything else look dangerously irrelevant while he's at it. Be afraid.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Black Messiah
    Vocally, Black Messiah is sparse, but sonically, it is accomplished and fulfilled. Every sound, every instrument, every lyric and harmony is in the place it needs to be.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Skeleton Tree
    The death enveloping Skeleton Tree doesn't get in the way of his limitless sense of emotional elaboration.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Crow Looked at Me
    It may not be one you play often, but it's also one you will never forget. It's omnipresent. Words fail.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Lemonade
    Pop culture's reigning diva appeared in raw form--a vulnerable mess and unapologetically enraged as she thematically confronted her husband and father's alleged infidelity publicly, through visceral imagery and emotionally loaded sonic offerings.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Titanic Rising
    An ambitious, varied and ardently rewarding listen, Titanic Rising is pop music for ages and worlds far beyond our own, and an emphatic show of prowess from one who is sure to be one of indie’s new radiant lights.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Gold & Grey
    With Gold & Grey, Baizley and his cohorts have produced a monumental work of art that’s as dark and forbidding as it is bright and triumphant. It perfectly balances light and dark, revels in the creative possibilities of music-making, whilst plumbing emotional depths that might have you worrying a little for Baizley’s state of mind.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Carrie & Lowell
    Carrie & Lowell is just the latest in a long line of unimpeachable achievements.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    No Cities to Love
    No Cities To Love finds the trio facing inwards, rocking out in a tight space, writing short and punchy punk songs and just generally enjoying bouncing off each other once more.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    G Stands For Go-Betweens, Vol. 1 [Box Set]
    This is an exhaustive, but not exhausting collection. It will be fascinating to hear what surprises lie ahead on Volume 2.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    St. Vincent
    It's an album that, despite its placement more as high art, isn't afraid to embrace pop music for everything it's worth, managing to be accessible while also challenging, drawing the listener in with familiarity to then unleash upon them this cryptic, paradoxical world that just begs to be explored over and over again.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    The Dusk in Us
    On The Dusk In Us, we have a handful of tracks that see Converge pushing at the boundaries of their sound, even escaping it entirely. This leads to some of the most accessible, catchy, and (uncoincidentally) most emotionally resonant work of their careers.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Black Origami
    This is not the work of somebody wanting to shortcut their way into making “atmospheric” music by cutting and pasting old ideas. Rather, it’s the mark of someone establishing their unique authorship with the utmost certitude.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    All Mirrors
    Angel is unprepared to commit to anything in the long term, but is always fully committed to now, and this has allowed her to make her boldest and most purposeful step yet.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Safe In The Hands Of Love
    The music found on Safe in the Hands of Love thrives. It's just as boundary pushing but at the same time, it offers easier access points to the complex and often messy but brilliant world of Yves Tumor.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks [Extended Edition]
    By turns distant and unknowable, fleeting and eerie, and even serenely gorgeous, Apollo found Eno continuing to toy with, and reach for the edges of, a sound he himself perfected. ... The album stands out of time, never ageing, forever seeming to beam in from a future just out of reach. Much like the event it memorializes, forever there may it stay.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Coloring Book [Mixtape]
    Sonically and conceptually, the all-purpose artist isn't interested in coloring in between the lines, but focused instead on offering a vibrant option to things once defined as black and white.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Big Fish Theory
    While this album is being heralded as a triumph by many, to this writer it feels more akin to an in-between; furtive steps in a new direction that will almost doubtlessly be mined even more successfully next go round--assuming our hero doesn't veer in yet another direction. What's sure is, we'll never be bored.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Seat at the Table
    A Seat At The Table--like the headlines of 2016--is the score of black pain, black rage, black strength and black joy. And for everyone else enjoying the enticing R&B, it's for the rest of us to quiet ourselves, listen, learn and respect.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    To Be Kind
    Incredibly, they're becoming even less safe, even less predictable, as they near pension age; on this evidence, long live Michael Gira.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Divers
    This is an album that is constantly unfolding over its themes, so the only option remaining is that of acceptance of her ingenuity. If you want to make it easy, you can acknowledge the density and move on. If you want to understand the core of the record, you'll have plenty of details to work through for what now seems like forever.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    A Moon Shaped Pool
    Very few records are able to transport the listener to a different world full of visceral, palpable feeling for even just one listen. A Moon Shaped Pool manages to do it over and over again with the feelings deepening rather than cheapening with each successive listen.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Masseduction
    From the very start you can hear and see the ideas that were explored in the clips and videos stretched to their fullest, most histrionic range.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
    Barnett's emotional candour on Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit shows us that sometimes she brushes off her mistakes and sometimes she dwells on them--just like the rest of us.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    Run the Jewels 3
    We've had countless albums predicating calls for mobilisation before, and they're generally provocative and valued but ultimately specious, but on RTJ3 there's a visceral directness that cuts to the aorta.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Persona
    He's created an album that stands as one of his most evocative and ambitious so far.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    POST-
    As a collective package, POST- is incredibly accomplished. You’ll relate--hard--you’ll be shook, you’ll feel attacked, because this record underlines in red marker some uncomfortable truths which are articulated uproariously. POST- has set an extraordinarily high bar for the rest of punk in 2018 to clear.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Designer
    At their core, the songs are fundamentally concerned with unguarded and confessional intimacy yet the manner in which they are presented is a hindrance as, on the whole, there is a sheen to Designer which it could well do without.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Extra Painful
    Unlike so many reissues of late, the out-takes and demos on Painful genuinely do give an insight into how the record was made, how the band honed their sound and what direction they were headed.
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