The Line of Best Fit's Scores

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For 4,495 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 64% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 32% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 77
Highest review score: 100 Adore Life
Lowest review score: 20 143
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4,040 out of 4495
  2. Mixed: 438 out of 4495
  3. Negative: 17 out of 4495
4495 music reviews
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    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Wasted Years
    Wasted Years is unlikely to appeal to a whole new legion of fans, but those already on-board should be happy with their order of ‘more of the same’.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Means
    As a whole, it’s just a shame that on Means, FEWS’ originality seems far between.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Food for Worms
    Food for Worms is frustrating in its lack of direction, but more than anything, frustrating because it could be spectacular.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Love is Dead
    All of those tracks ["God’s Plan," "My Enemy" and "Wonderland"] feel sparse, built softly with a light touch, which is why the overblown, full-steam-ahead manner of much of the rest of the album is so maddening and--given their past pronouncements on big studios and producers--so utterly perplexing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Yours, Dreamily
    Despite the writing on several songs being undercooked, coupled with production that’s overbaked, Yours Dreamily has its charms, but the onus is on the listener to find them and given the clutter in the styles and songs here, that’s not an easy thing to do.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    No Lube So Rude
    A comeback, then, that proves the case for Peaches herself while underselling her music.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Beauty Behind the Madness
    This is the same old monotonous Weeknd melancholy, only distilled through a huge pop filter. Which certainly makes it listenable, and a little bit nicer, but far from the innovative mainstream breakthrough album we were promised.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Let's Wrestle
    There’s little to get excited about here--there’s no wheel reinventing, no formula shake-up, no scrawling outside any boxes... it’s just pleasant, familiar indie-rock that verges on wishy-washy.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Head Carrier
    There’s no denying that Head Carrier generally veers between sounding like an exhausted tribute to their former configuration to feeling something akin to a disposable Frank Black solo effort via a few conciliatory tracks.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Musique de Film Imaginé
    It’s music from an imagined film, not an imaginary film in music; and although laudably ambitious, it goes down as an opportunity missed.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Artificial Sweeteners
    Artificial Sweeteners doesn’t have a great deal of low-end to it, and struggles for genuine groove as a result.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    New Facts Emerge
    “Brillo De Facto” prove vaguely purposeful efforts on the surface here, a second, third and fourth listen reveals a band seemingly bereft of inspiration, regurgitating tame Fallisms with--and it really pains your writer to say it--riffs conjuring every middling young rural pub rock band of the early Noughties.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    SALVATION
    The record is certainly sparkly, but its hollowness is glaring. SALVATION is so desperate for someone to call it iconic that it neglects what makes an icon anyway – personality.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Foam Island
    Despite all of the duo’s lofty intentions, slick artwork and studio trickery, the soggy samples and limp singing guarantee you won’t go back for seconds.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Fall Forever
    Fall Forever’s bare-bones approach is perfectly pretty, but never vital; perhaps, sometimes, more is more.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Déjà-Vu
    Expecting Moroder to reach the heights of "I Feel Love" is, of course, futile, and yes, after a few repeated plays you may find the odd track or two that stand out from the rest, but there’s little you’ll love to love here.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Maui Tears
    There’s plenty of kernels of good ideas here, but very few of them feel properly developed; just as their genre’s been thrust into the spotlight, Sleepy Sun seem to have developed stage fright.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Anthems for Doomed Youth
    Anthems never quite lets itself be business as usual; the sound is cleaner, but not polished to a sheen. The anger is still there, but it’s tempered a bit--only a couple of tracks (including the aptly named "Fury of Chonburi") really pick up the pace to a recognisably Libertine degree. Lyrically, though, every facet of the band’s existence is dissected.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    A Folk Set Apart
    Yes, B-sides and rarities are sort of supposed to feel rough or incomplete, but A Folk Set Apart seems to be characterised far more by its misguided decisions than by its lack of polish or perfection.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Freedom
    This is not a terrible record, just a bland and misguided one.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Signs of Light
    It’s perfectly passable, but everything that marked The Head and the Heart out as potentially exceptional has been buried.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Songs
    Songs is the sound of a talented man with a little too much focus on trends and on a too-wide cache of influences, to the point where even he sounds unconvinced by his own music.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Friends
    Friends is White Lies’ least inspiring record both musically and thematically; they appear to be back in identity crisis mode, and it might not be recoverable this time around.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Social Cues
    The underlying intensity to their music on previous records is stripped away, leaving in its wake a bland and largely forgettable experience.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 45 Critic Score
    Tender Madness
    It was too easy for Weiss and Presant to make a record like this: they’ve not challenged themselves, and they’ve certainly not challenged the listener.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    A Youthful Dream
    A Youthful Dream sounds too much like the result of a punk group attempting to break out of the strictures of their genre without knowing exactly where else to turn.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Uncanny Valley
    Uncanny Valley is unfortunately too insignificant to escape the looming shadows all around.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    I Said I Love You First
    I Said I Love You First barely even tries to entertain during its runtime. It’s fundamentally uninteresting music.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Black Radio 2
    Black Radio 2 just falls short of being anything more than generic sounding pop, produced by a jazz trio tinted by success.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Effluxion
    Effluxion doesn’t ask questions, or make you want to ask questions, or answer any that you might have had. The only question you can ask of Effluxion is what the title means.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    - (Subtract)
    We're left with 14 songs that, as promised, deliver a more personal side of Sheeran, who pens ruminative statements such as "Is this the ending of our youth when pain starts taking over?" ("End of Youth") yet he still alludes us through pop songwriting that is convinced emotions need to be dressed up as repetitive pedestrian motifs and served up on a silver platter.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Jesus Is King
    People will say it's better than its predecessor, but at least that album had the good sense to be as gross as it was unlistenable. JESUS IS KING isn’t even as hilariously shit or infuriatingly offensive as Ye – it's one great tune and a bunch of other ideas, and it isn’t entertaining in the slightest.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Making Of
    Ultimately, those adamant that the mid-Noughties garage-rock revival was the most important thing that's ever happened to music might find something to enjoy from The Making Of, but for the rest of us The Bohicas have produced remarkably unremarkable first effort.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    What's Wrong With New York?
    The Dare is trying to present the New York songbook to the Zoomer masses with such generality that he legally cannot be paternity-traced to any one act. Slap a bass on top of some rumbling rhythms and a synth so glitchy that every line feels like a mis-input that made it through post, and all that’s left to do is pull a line from your notebook of “TikTok virality potential.”
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Sisyphus
    Sisyphus is a tragic waste of a vivid storyteller.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Comedown Machine
    The Strokes have shamefully settled for average, and have failed even at that.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lights Out
    It’s simply not striking enough to elicit a stronger response than this, as well polished as it may be.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Based On A True Story
    It’s not a hilarious disaster, it’s not a tabloid tell-all or, you know, actually good. It’s Smith’s late career in a nutshell, just about getting over the line thanks to his star wattage, and all the weirder for its smoothed-out polish.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Blanket
    The stories he attempts to weave into each track mistake frankness for plainness, venting with both the vagueness and the strange specificity of an Instagram story stating, “Only the real ones will know.”
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    When You See Yourself
    There’s nothing inherently bad about When You See Yourself, but it feels like you could merge it with any releases from their last decade of activity and construct an album that has some heart to it.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Idols
    Idols fails to expand on the promise of its grand opening statement, instead resulting in a heavily flawed fourth outing, overly reliant on the use of tired rock caricatures and repetitive song structures.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Solar Power
    Songs like “Solar Power” redeem the album’s sluggishness, with a fun attitude over an upbeat track which would feel like the carefree joyous song on the album, if the rest of it wasn’t so up in the clouds. ... All the genius on Melodrama seems to have stayed there, leaving Solar Power high and dry without any flavour or journey to embark on.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    You're Not Alone
    The berserk, nihilistic energy that made Andrew W.K.’s name is gone. In its place is something more affirming but more ponderous. Song after song goes for big, anthemic goosebump moments, but the melodies aren’t memorable enough and the sentiment, even as sincerely as it is delivered, feels forced.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    This Machine Kills Artists
    It is an interesting experiment, but realistically most listeners will struggle to get past the first couple of tracks before reaching for their trusty copy of Houdini.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It's the End of the World, But It's a Beautiful Day
    The sounds present could all be attributed to any other artist and would sit fine but given they wrote a purported 200 songs for this new era, there should at least be some sonic substance to this outing. Thankfully, this new electronic palette they’re toting isn’t wholly lost. They carry it at times with at least some semblance of aplomb.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Revamped
    Lovato’s move to heavier music is by no means a mistake, but this reimagining of her old music feels artificial. Generic pop music is turned into formulaic rock music, lacking the substance and authenticity of her previous album.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    These People
    Richard Ashcroft’s fifth solo effort ultimately feels like an unruly mess--there are lots of ideas here, but none that feel truly developed.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Outside
    Outside sounds exactly like the repetitive spinning wheels on a bus (going ’round and ’round) and causes you to become restless and slightly angry of its lack of forward movement.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    COME CLOSER
    Come Closer is a hostage to 90s Euro-Club-isms and torn in half by the lesser devices of two highly talented individuals, a near-first in music where a collab brings out the worst in each participant.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Music of the Spheres
    The album is delivered as a mishmash of ideas that misfire from the get-go, missing out on the potential it built in the lead-up to its release.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kid Kruschev
    To give some credit, the duo do play around with genre here, dabbling with electro, metal and hip hop across its tracks, but fail to make it cohesive.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
    There might well be a genuine intention on Ebert’s part to produce something of real artistic worth, but so long as he remains as verbally vapid and as musically undisciplined as he has been on this record, it’s hard to see his output having serious appeal to anybody who wants to be engaged on a level beyond mindless singalong.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Mosquito
    With the experiments being so hit and miss you’re left looking for familiar thrills, but even when delivering these, the band sound so much like there are motions to be gone through that you just aren’t inclined to feel engaged.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    About Last Night...
    While many of the right components are present, About Last Night... feels like a plate of empty calories; struggling to reach a sense of genuine empowerment on account of its overstuffed production and lyrics that are vague to the point of meaninglessness.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Donda 2
    Donda 2 is a complex of lacklustre ambling beats twinned with sluggish energy, only occasionally piquing (“We Did It”, “Too Easy”, "Pablo"). In fact, rarely does Ye find any stride. [review is for V2.22.22 Miami version]
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Possum in the Driveway
    Most of the time, it sounds like each song has been half-written, then forgotten for a bit, then returned to with too little time to create something truly interesting, forcing Mulcahy to fill in the gaps with basically whatever will rhyme with the sketches of lyrics he had originally.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Data Panik Etcetera
    It’s good that Data Panik Etcetera knows exactly what it wants to do instead. Unfortunately, it does this with none of the edge, none of the drive, none of the sheer urgency that made them as great as they were in their prime.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Curse of Love
    For the most part The Curse of Love doesn’t offer any of the pop hooks that made early Coral albums so enjoyable.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Sacred Hearts Club
    Sacred Hearts Club is record of frustration on the listener’s part--we know they’re capable, but Foster the People have again failed to recapture the brand of youthfulness established in their hype-fuelled industry breakthrough. Equally, they fail to mature into an alternative sound with adequate craft to entice attention.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Girl with Basket of Fruit
    Unfortunately Girl realistically functions as little more than a jumbled hodgepodge of colorless notions, and another notch on the wall.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Evil Friends
    The songs themselves don’t shine through the production.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    All Your Favorite Bands
    All Your Favorite Bands is plenty polished, but scratch the surface and there’s close to zero going on beneath it; it’s the kind of record that you’re in danger of forgetting before it’s even finished playing.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    My Garden
    Utterly forgettable.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 35 Critic Score
    Out of Touch
    The outright corniness of some of the tracks--the steel drums of “Night Chef”, the softened yacht-rock of “Conceptual Mediterranean (Part 1)”--test the listener’s patience. Ultimately the purposeful superficiality of Out of Touch renders it inessential.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Deep States
    Nothing about Deep States feels authentically trippy, authentically dark or authentically weird. Near-on every element feels both forced and misguided, be it the performances, songwriting or the production. If in desperate need, just relisten to that Squid album instead.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Radical Optimism
    Nobody needs to know the details of Lipa’s real life to lend her songs weight, but there should still be something in her performance, delivery, songwriting or production that sets them apart from platitudes, from background noise.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Supermodel
    The album is lacklustre, and suffers for a lack of purpose and intent.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Chapter 1: Snake Oil
    By failing to commit fully to straight pop craftsmanship or to genre-bending experimentation, the project feels lyrically bland and sonically uninspired.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Full Bleed: Caught on Tape
    Full Bleed reveals a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of black metal. It doesn’t sound like a black metal record and never gets close to sounding like it.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Sheezus
    Comebacks are often ego trips, but never quite as brazenly as this.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Notes on a Conditional Form
    Notes has no such common context, and ends up feeling flat, directionless and inessential, where its forebears felt vital, worthy of devoting a life to. For a band with proven dexterity in deftly capturing the nuances and quick changes of contemporary conversation, it is disheartening to witness them with nearly nothing of note to say.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Blonde
    Blonde is a crushingly unoriginal piece of work, weirdly proud of its derivative nature, and anybody who wanted to listen to this kind of album could easily find a raft of better records in the last few years alone.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Xscape
    Seventy-five percent of the tracklisting consists of lovingly bastardised fan-favourite versions of demo tracks that have been online for up to eleven years.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Montage Of Heck: The Home Recordings
    The Home Recordings largely serve as a further step back along the creative path, to a point where we either see songs at their most infantile stage or at a crossroads where Cobain, the tireless perfectionist, probably realised he could take them no further.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    143
    Nothing sparks on 143. It’s all about easy endings and uncomplicated emotions, thus targeted for basically anyone, but what she doesn’t know is that the majority aren’t as tasteless now. The comeback singles are met with brutal reception in every direction. “Wonder” is the only one with replay value, which features her child’s voice and perhaps hints at their undetermined gender identity, leaving it up for them to decide whenever ready (“Beautiful girl”, “Beautiful boy”). The truth is – and she must know even if it hurts her – everything else signals a career nosedive from which her reputation might not survive. On the bright side, though, 143 adds more shade to a colourful year of pop music.
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