The Boston Phoenix's Scores

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For 1,091 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Pink
Lowest review score: 0 Last of a Dyin' Breed
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 956 out of 1091
  2. Mixed: 88 out of 1091
  3. Negative: 47 out of 1091
1091 music reviews
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    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    This Is Happening
    As its title hints, this overstuffed album of addictive party starters seems likely to be stuck in our present for a long time to come.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
    Maybe it’s Lambert’s dark, rocking side that makes her ballads sound so disarmingly tender, sweet, and vulnerable.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Conor Oberst
    It’s just an Omaha boy playing some good old country pop--for once.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Fool's Gold
    The spirited chants and intricate beats give Fool’s Gold unity, and the precision is inviting. They never break from their tight sound with a boldly original gesture, but there’s no need to risk spoiling this fun set of songs.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Echo Party
    Despite the technological tweaks and inventive aptitude that this sometimes Afro-topped sound genius reveals in every crevice of his latest grab bag, Echo Party is true to its name and anything but tedious.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Sound of His Own Voice
    Harding sounds invigorated and in great humor.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Astrological Straits
    Although some may find the noisy rambunctiousness and jarring bursts offputting, Hill imbues Straits with an irresistible playfulness, and his talents as a drummer (and a frontman) will leave listeners dumbstruck.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Local Business
    Patrick Stickles finally overworks his music to match his trying-too-hard fables.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Bleach: Deluxe Edition
    Rock-stardom is not necessarily what you hear beckoning on Sub Pop’s 20th-anniversary reissue of Bleach, which comes with a sludgy live set taped at Portland’s Pine Street Theatre in 1990. In a way, though, that only makes this program of lumpen lumberjack-metal moves more interesting.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    House of Baasa
    If at times the album works as dancefloor aerobic-pop, its true utility is in providing the soundtrack for two people to get lost in the vortex dance of each other's eternal-seeming embrace.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Out of the Game
    Out of the Game is melodically smart and consistently rewarding.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Celebration Rock
    An inspired, exhilarating spectacle that makes good on its gang vocals, feel-good (but not cheesy) lyrics, pleasantly muddy production, and galloping sense of self-confidence.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Reign of Terror
    Reign of Terror is way awesomer [than Treats].
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Clash the Truth
    The beauty of Beach Fossils has always been in the tension between Payseur's disaffected deadpan and the band's super-visceral live shows (before Beach Fossils, he spent years playing in hardcore bands) and on Clash much of that post-punk energy translates seamlessly.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Slaughterhouse
    All of this should be terrible or grating, but because it kisses and licks every flaw and quirk with such purposeful gusto, the result is immensely entertaining and kind of magical.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Yeah Right
    Bleeding Rainbow provide tunes to which one could satisfactorily gaze at his or her shoes during any point of the year.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rapprocher
    Rapprocher does what last year's (s)excellent debut EP Journal of Ardency did so well, letting Harper be the pretty face of electronic compositions that, with her aid, become liberating, confident, oozing with inviting overtones.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ugly
    If world domination is in question, hooks could be more defined, production could be less flat, and Paternoster's yodel most resembles the forgotten Lunachicks. But she and this Brunswick, New Jersey–born trio have staked an impressive claim.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lex Hives
    If there was ever a worry of the Hives maturing- or simply becoming less like the Hives - there isn't anymore.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Good News
    Good News is the sound of a gifted writer declaring his humanity in all its filthy, fucked-up glory.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Us
    The same goes for nearly every cut in this hip-hop opera, a rare work of rap that simultaneously inspires self-confidence and aggravation with the broken world around us.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Partie Traumatic
    The lyrics run, uh, let’s say straightforward, but Black Kids know as well as any good sentimentalists that delivery is everything; teenage yearning couldn’t hope for a much better vehicle than their pouting power pop.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nostradamus
    It’s a ridiculous album, sure, but take "Defenders of the Faith," replace the Metallion with Nostradamus, double the number of awesome riffs, add the occasional pan flute and symphonic embellishments, and you have the most grandiose metal record likely to be released this year.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ashes & Fire
    Ashes & Fire is as close as it gets to the brilliance of his first post-Whiskeytown offering, Heartbreaker.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Audio, Video, Disco
    Justice never lose sight of the big picture, aiming to blow your minds and sub-woofers with equal determination.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Harps And Angels
    Yet as welcome as it is to have Newman’s acerbic wit back, it remains a singular pleasure to listen to a simple, devastating ballad like 'Losing You,' which is wrapped up in sympathetic strings and absolutely devoid of irony.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Goodbye Bread
    Segall spent six months writing and recording Goodbye - his longest investment in a record yet. The time spent soaking in the classics has paid off.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rad Times Xpress IV
    Rad Times is a towering paean to a time that never was, when too much was never enough, and a three-minute song could gloriously last forever.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ninth
    In all, Ninth is a striking return to form.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
    Phoenix deal with an American genre on its own terms--and in its own language--far better than most homegrown bands.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Life is Good
    On Life Is Good, he's lyrically and musically rich as he's been for years now.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
    Their third effort finds the four-piece twisting confessional post-punk into something startling, brash, and exhilarating.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Pumps!
    A little order goes a long way in making Pumps! their most accessible album to date, but what makes it their most successful album is that it still sounds like Growing.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    No More Heroes
    None of the Solillaquists of Sound (S.O.S.) is originally from Florida, and that begins to explain how they could compose an eclectic cornucopia as sweet as No More Heroes.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nootropics
    The dreamwave immersion and haunting power of Hunter's vocals invite comparisons to fellow Baltimore mood-wizards Beach House, but whereas Teen Dream aimed for beauty even at its darkest, Lower Dens keeps things weird.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Revival
    The title Revival is no hype: Fogerty is again in full command of his talent for blending heartfelt writing with irony-free meat-and-potatoes rock.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    More Fish
    For the second time in 2006, Wu-Tang’s Ghostface has released an album that makes it seem everyone else in the hip-hop world should be paying more attention to Ghostface.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Voyageur
    The indie-leaning direction of the album suggests that the Canadian singer-songwriter is coming into her own.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Youth Novels
    Youth Novels, one-ups the competition by being sillier, funkier, and less comfortable--more “Konichiwa Bitches” than Keren Ann.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Build a Rocket Boys!
    This fifth studio album is a humbly gorgeous collection, propelling an already dynamic band into even more dramatic, heart-wrenching territory.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Electric Cables
    Anyone's pop cynicism should have a hard time getting out of bed on this one.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Jhelli Beam
    One consistency across all of Jhelli Beam--and particularly on such select selections as the introductory 'Split Seconds'--is Busdriver's enduring verbal dexterity.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Welcome Oblivion
    Welcome Oblivion tracks like techno-folk haunter "Ice Age" and the doom-pop jaunt "How Long?" make uncredited cameo appearances in your nightmares until you go insane and eat your own hands.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Easy Come, Easy Go
    The rest of this satisfying album is a classic Hal Willner production, complete with the unusual cover choices (Decemberists, Espers, very late Eno) and the usual Willner Family Players (Nick Cave, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright, Marc Ribot) in back-up duties.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Voltaic [Live]
    As Bjork no doubt hoped it would, the result--long on material from that year's Volta but also featuring such oldies as 'Army of Me' and 'Pagan Poetry'--captures both energy and detail.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lessons In The Woods Or A City
    This Seattle wunderkind trio's debut full-length arrives like a freaky reward from a cosmos that has watched us persevere through 15 years of tightening jeans, steadily ramping foppism, and the crushingly beige influence of adult-contempo alt-country.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
    If there are a few dull moments, that’s all part of recording an album that functions like one extended, magnificent achievement of a song.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Gossamer
    The revelation in Gossamer is Angelakos's inner voice.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    La Roux
    The result is as baleful and forlorn as most dance pop is swishy and effervescent.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Chronicles of Marnia
    These on-record musings never reveal the off-record Marnie, which is a shame, but the sprawling, chimerical Marnia brings you close enough to be captivating anyhow.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ready For The Flood
    Nothing's as timeless as "Blue" or "Waiting for the Sun," but the thrill here is all about those two lonely voices that find each other, in this future of theirs, caught up in that rush of harmony.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sugar
    Giving us a taste of what this genre [shoegaze]could encompass with a modernized touch.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    I See The Sign
    On I See the Sign, even the quietest moments sound bold.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Lay It Down
    Singing gets no more graceful than Green’s hot buttered tenor, which he plies here with every micron of grace and soul he can muster. Add the Dap-King Horns (able backers of Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse) and this is more than a soul album. It’s an album with soul.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Tooth Of Crime
    It’s a sonic adventure thanks to Burnett’s current signatures: booming drum kits sans cymbals, knotty guitars, lyrics sung through amplifiers, and an open, airy quality that’s the antithesis of modern rock production.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Here
    It's hard to find many flaws in this new disc from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Past Life Martyred Saints
    Past Life Martyred Saints is more focused and confident than the work of many of Andersen's peers. It's likely we've not even heard her best yet. And even if not, this is pretty sweet as is.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The National Health
    A no-frills, consistently engaging album with heart - and hooks - to spare.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Robert Pollard Is Off To Business
    Pollard has long been in the business of writing songs, but here he seems invigorated; and for the first time in a long while, his business is mixed with pleasure.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    LP3
    The result is some kind of cosmic machine music, reflecting not just a stoner’s world of internalized minimalist headbanging but an entire universe of culture, texture, and possibility.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Depart From Me
    Confident non-jumpers shouldn't be concerned that this disc weeps with you're-always-dying-inside woe-is-my-love-life misery.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Wasting Light
    Bringing in Nevermind producer Butch Vig risked dangerous nostalgia, but his analog recording gives a fresh, warm feel to the proceedings.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    What Day Is It Tonight? (Trans Am Live 1993-2008)
    These numbers are soaked in a disorienting futurist nostalgia that epitomizes Trans Am’s ironic humor and their ability to transform leaden clichés into gold.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dirt Farmer
    Fans of old-time music, that vague notion of a genre called Americana, and bedrock artists like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard should find Dirt Farmer, Helm’s first solo disc in 25 years, appropriately haunting.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
    Callahan sprinkles his world-weary perspective with enough wry humor to make the album pleasant and endearing.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rot Gut, Domestic
    Rot Gut, Domestic never sugarcoats its uglier tendencies, and yet the uncompromising--and uncomfortable--nature of the music is oddly compelling.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Electric Dirt
    The organic, timeless quality of that voice--especially haunting on Helm's own tale of a farmer's struggle, 'Growing Trade'--is offset by the sweetness of his daughter Amy's harmony singing, as well as by bright eddies of slide guitar and mandolin, all of it creating an appealing balance.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    The Tarnished Gold
    Cosmically in tune and harmony-rich, they excel in presenting their colorful, kaleidoscopic view of the world.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    No, Virginia...
    No, Virginia ranks with Elvis Costello’s "Taking Liberties" as a B-sides/leftovers album that turns out to be more fun and more revealing than a thought-out official release.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Kin: Songs by Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell
    The writing is as crisp as the playing, ornate but without added contrivance, a credit to producer Joe Henry. A tuneful 10-song novel.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Western Teleport
    Every so often a bright, nerdy, nasal-voiced and infallibly catchy male songwriter appears to less critical notice than he deserves for his remarkably concrete lyrics and thoughtful melodies.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Rain
    The recent full-band reunion "Volume 4" was a small triumph, but Rain may be even more satisfying, since it’s the best work Jackson has done with a line-up that’s not strict-rock-band.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sleep Forever
    Sleep Forever is about accepting mortality, and if its skill represents the possibilities of their earthly journey, long live Crocodiles.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Fragrant World
    Yeasayer remain the new-millennium kings of studio manipulation, and it's downright jaw-dropping that they're able to experiment so wildly in the context of such catchiness. Fragrant World feels like a victory lap.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Dive
    Throw on those headphones and head heavenward.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Midnight Souvenirs
    Although his latest is less personal, it has a similarly broad emotional scope and a warm sonic palette far from the house-rocking R&B that’s the foundation of his four-decade career.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Velociraptor!
    For the most part, Velociraptor! is a stellar representation of K-sabes magnificence and dexterity.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hysterical
    Hysterical is built for the long haul, and it appears, after a patch of rocky terrain, that Clap Your Hands are too.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Ladyhawke
    New Zealand multi-instrumentalist Pip Brown a/k/a Ladyhawke presents us with a treasure trove of found blips, as if the 1980s had been nothing but a gigantic mirror ball to smash and paste back together.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Everything Is Borrowed
    Even though his heavy drug phase seems to be largely over, Borrowed is his "Sgt. Pepper"--not because he’s spelunking far-flung experimental trenches, but because he finally understands that life is larger than his ego (self-depreciating as it was).
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    La Llama
    The sonic touchstones are rediscovered gems of Latin American psychedelia mixed with the work of romantic cantautores (singer-songwriters) from the waning days of Franco in the '70s.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Crazy Itch Radio
    So the first-listen impact has been lessened, but the growing affection ends up in the same place as always.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Angels Of Destruction
    Their songs of experience suggest they spent some time exploring that darkness, only to have found the light on the other side.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Still Living
    While mostly a California creation, Still Living echoes the sounds reverberating across the Pacific from New Zealand - think '80s/'90s bands like the Chills and the 3Ds, whose splashy reverb tanks were almost louder than their amps ("Call Me"). Or even Galaxie 500, whose Dean Wareham is a native Zealander ("Bradley").
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us
    Thibodeau’s melodies, which have always been pretty, are now beautiful.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Cannibal
    I can feel my IQ slipping a few notches with the passage of each track on this disc, and gloriously so: it takes brains and balls to make pop this smart sound so dumb.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Open Your Heart
    One of the more interesting rock albums in recent memory.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Survival Skills
    The guest-heavy formula mostly clicks, particularly on 'Clean Up Crew' with Rock and 'The Way I Live' with Mary J. Blige, but a few misfires--including awkward Slug and Immortal Technique verses--stop this memorable collaboration just short of greatness.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Quiet Nights
    Ogerman charts emphasize minor keys, creating a moody emotional palette for the album. And, as usual, Krall's honeyed voice and carefully chiseled playing are as spare and perfect on every cut as her core quartet's accompaniment.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Family of Love
    Family of Love is strong, with songs that suggest rather than demand, but nonetheless maintain Dom's glossy, candy-coated summertime sound.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Sun Bronzed Greek Gods
    The track's sonic cousin, "Burn Bridges," still stands tall on sparkly synth loops and bumper-sticker lyrics ("Burn bridges/Make yourself an island"), but the rest of the EP soars mostly on lo-fi surf pop made by landlocked youth using Casios and Fruity Loops in bored bedrooms.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Something
    Veteran rock legend Alan Moulder and eclectic electro-guy Dan Carey make sure Something sounds as huge as its aspirations, bringing an impeccably massive sheen to every note.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Kiss Each Other Clean
    On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam's muse must have told him to pull back on the reins.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Still Night, Still Light
    Some bands make a third album; others make something more like a third refinement of "the album." This feels like the (charmed) latter.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    A Wasteland Companion
    A Wasteland Companion isn't a sonic tidal wave, per se - it's built on some of the folk troubadour's quietest, most intimate tunes in years. But where emotions are concerned, it pummels.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Koi No Yokan
    Koi No Yokan is not only the year's best metal-rock-space-pop album--it's also the finest Deftones album, front to back, to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    So This Is Goodbye
    You can’t ask for much more from a sophomore album.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Tron: Legacy
    We'll never know what goes on behind the helmets, but who cares? The sheer audacity of this action-movie-reboot soundtrack is its own reward.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    From Here We Go Sublime
    It feels endless — in a good way.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 88 Critic Score
    Hold On Now, Youngster
    Even Youngster’s more modest near-ballads, like 'My Year in Lists,' preserve the band’s boisterous style through outlandish lyrics (“You said, ‘Send me stationery to make me horny’/So I always write you letters in multi-colors”) and ecstatic delivery, making twee fare like long-distance relationships or working in a bookstore seem like serious pop paydirt.
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