The 405's Scores

  • Music
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:
1530 music reviews
    • 78 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    It's a good album, full of high points, but it never excites in the way it threatens to.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Inji is an erratic debut album, an invitation to go forward into weirder territories with Dust in the future. As invitations go, however, it's intriguing enough to take up.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Based solely on intuitive improvisations between musicians, he has produced an engaging interpretation of the ominous air and electricity Schipper creates. Victoria, and its music, seizes the beauty and terror we find within those moments when we throw ourselves into a new, uninhibited context.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    While unrelentingly committed to his personal story, Vince rapturously integrates dense and conscious-filled narratives of his inner life, packaged vibrantly over layered and unpredictable production executively produced by No I.D with support from DJ Dahi, Clams Casino and Christian Rich. Among 20 tracks, there's no filler to be found.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Freedom is nothing more than an exercise in competent stadium rock.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Enjoyment of Mercy as a whole hinges on whether you consider the boyish, faltering vocal to be strong or cheesy.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    It's better paced than Arc, which had great songs but grew tiresome. It's the insular nature of these songs that makes the album better than their previous efforts, a purity emerges from their new found restraint, there is depth to be found in its breathing room.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Son Lux's remix value is through the roof, settling nicely along the lines of Purity Ring's debut, The xx, or even some of Thom Yorke's solo tracks. That said, each of these examples are revered, but not lived up to.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    PINS architect and frontwoman Faith Holgate has always stressed the band's desire to maintain a disparate sonic palette and it's an MO that can be felt throughout the first half of the album.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    With Grievances, Rolo Tomassi seem ready to take their first step onto the stage in front of a wider audience.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is an arena-ready and festival-ready record that, in true Florence and the Machine fashion, is packed to the brim with alarmingly catchy hooks and astounding vocal theatrics from its vocalist.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Moroder's attempts at creating a 21st century version of his prior success results in painfully artificial, sterile, boring music.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    In Colour breaks no new ground to be sure, but as an accessible crossover record it does a perfectly serviceable job. It's light, breezy and pretty, as ephemeral as the exhilaration of clubbing without really evoking the thrill of it all.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    They can be packed to the brim with the thoughts and feelings of a whole collection of people. For Algiers, it is this ability to connect with hearts and minds that ultimately makes their record among 2015's strongest thus far.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    The musical event drips in unprecedented additions that welcome alternative vocals from Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae and Jesse Boykins III to the track list, along with fervent features from King Louie, Big Sean, J Cole and Quavo, that lure the rap artists out of their comfort zones and onto intricate live compositions.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There's a cracking EP in amongst the tracks on Boys, but no shortage of filler, too.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    While it is a solid, if unspectacular debut with promise for the future, it's difficult to fight the feeling that Before We Forgot How To Dream is an album which hides behind big production because it is afraid to be intimate.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    If each of these eleven songs didn't deviate from their affective formula until now, there's not much reason to change it up. I do wish I could hear more lyrics and emotional sentiment.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    The record's ability to be simultaneously dense and accessible, joyful and thoughtful, inspiring and cautionary, allows it to make a case for being an essential record for anyone in their twenties.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The world it creates is in many ways richer, more affecting and bolder than the ones that came before.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Compactness aside, the tracks here don't give up on lyrical imagination.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 55 Critic Score
    It has interesting moments and one cannot really fault Kozelek for looking to present a different narrative than his previous record. But there is no denying that Benji set a high bar and this record borrows elements from it, but does so with disappointing results.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Valet's third LP is proof that hazy guitars and dream-pop vocals aren't just for smoke-filled basements. When done right, anyone can take the journey and float with the music rather than get buried inside.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    Sonically the album is engaging and intriguing, but that's only the first layer. The lyrics are poetry, each word there on purpose, just like each note and beat.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A$AP Rocky has always been an innovator and his creative attempts have always been bold. At.Long.Last.A$AP is no different there.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    All in all, When The Night Comes is unsettlingly monitored and controlled--but that kind of discomfort makes for a pleasantly digestible experience.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    While it was a throwaway reference earlier, the contrast between Girlpool and LCD Soundsystem exhibits why Before The World Was Big is such a refreshing listen.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 85 Critic Score
    The end result of Unknown Mortal Orchestra's third outing is a intoxicating concoction of brooding psychedelic musings, complete with otherworldly synths and fluttering modulations, on one of the most complicated and divisive topics one could imagine a pop record taking on.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Shortly after the release of Swimming Through Sunlight, Brown complained that he was already bored with its songs and admitted the band hadn't considered how it would feel to be bashing out the same garage band combinations a year later (the answer: tedious, if their new material-heavy live sets were anything to go by). With Heydays, they needn't stress about falling into that trap again.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This is music full of heart and imagination and it is well worth investigating, even though some long standing fans of hers may be puzzled at first.