The Skinny's Scores

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For 1,576 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 41% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 75
Highest review score: 100 Aa
Lowest review score: 20 Heartworms
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,069 out of 1576
  2. Mixed: 502 out of 1576
  3. Negative: 5 out of 1576
1576 music reviews
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    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    In Mind
    Real Estate show that this is a band you can rely on in uncertain times; that’s as good a reason as any to stick around a while yet.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Perfect Version
    Shapiro’s solo album is a portrait in greyscale, dissecting the rules by which we live with nuance and compassion.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Before I Die
    Before I Die firmly establishes Hye Jin’s multifaceted sound and crafts a mood that feels very of the moment.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Possum in the Driveway
    Much of The Possum... feels like an echo of earlier, better work.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Million Dollars To Kill Me
    Grizzling, fuzzy guitars occupy a large amount of the album lead parts and chord shifts between major and minor mix up the mood while still retaining a positive outlook and feeling of cheery hopefulness. It’s short, sweet and easily one of the band’s best efforts to date.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Afterparty
    It’s swift, at just 24 minutes across nine songs, but The Afterparty is Lykke Li at her very, very best, which makes her recent claim at an LA listening party that it could be her last, devastating. It might only be May, but it's already a serious contender for album of the year
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Food for Worms
    It feels cohesive and wholeheartedly honest, embracing its rough edges with vulnerability. Guitar scene frontrunners once again? Most certainly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Cigarettes After Sex
    Cigarettes After Sex ends up overstaying its welcome. Most of the tracks retain the same languid pace, drifting through slowly like smoke lingering in the air.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    IV
    IV isn't Black Mountain's most ferocious album, but you might well find it their most profound.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Twits
    The album works in short bursts of adrenaline. That can leave midtempo ballads like Shoo feeling aimless.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    New Spirit
    Woozy synth chords imbue the scene with a perverse mundanity that feels all too familar. At its best, New Spirit wallows in this kind of everyday helplessness.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The Lamb
    Drinking more water, kicking bad habits and focusing on positive relationships are things which can be easier said than done, and even harder to make compelling art about. With The Lamb, Lala Lala have done that.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Disaster Piece
    Animai's guest vocals feel fresh on Curtain Call but wear a little thin four features in. Mostly, though, Flowdan flexes every inch of hard-won experience for a listen that's brutally, shamelessly exciting.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    WAX
    In a confusing attempt at experimentation, the album shifts through different genres featuring elements of big band sound with the use of brass, synths and acoustic guitar-jazz which at times borders on ‘easy listening’. Despite playing it a bit safe, it is clear that KT Tunstall is very much in charge.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Murmurations
    It’s a creative, energised exploration of the power of both the human voice and electronic music to move us.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Guesswork
    There are times when the keyboards and lyrics gel (like they do on Moments and Whatnot, easily the best thing here) but for the most part, it feels like a pedestrian Morrissey album (without, of course, the taint of dubious politics).
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sex & Food
    This is a smorgasbord of an album: one to be indulged, and one to be savoured.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Forever Turned Around
    All of the beats are familiar, perhaps to a fault, from the instrumental at the midpoint to the shyly epic closer, but Forever Turned Around represents nuanced progress from an admirably subtle band.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nothing
    Nothing remains a heady listen, but there’s an embodied immediacy that’ll make it easy to return to when the sun hits our skin again.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Heretic's Bargain
    All three are considerable technicians and practice refreshing restraint; both in their playing (intricate but not showy) and their sound (sharp and dry, with few effects). The result, however, can feel like a bit of an academic exercise at times – music to be admired rather than really inhabited.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love Yes
    Uplifting and electric, Love Yes is a blast.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Life Of Pablo
    The Life Of Pablo is bursting at the seams with ideas and talking points, from his mental health and destructive ego to the very fact that this album defines how useless the format is. As with every one of his records, you feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Music For The Long Emergency
    While there are some interesting elements to Music For the Long Emergency, and there are aspects of both POLIÇA and s t a r g a z e's music that work well together, the album is generally quite confused and lacking in any real excitement.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Cistern
    The result is a suite of modern classical pieces that freewheel on orbits both real and imagined; a caul of percolating strings, woodwind and guitar, circumnavigating in loose patterns.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Snake Chain
    Vocal highlights aside, the band's simplistic metal techniques fail to materialise the "Catholic sex dungeon" vibes Mahony hoped to summon.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Paint My Bedroom Black
    Although all of the tracks on the record blend seamlessly together, many sadly sound similar to the last, with only a few stand-outs such as Superbloodmoon, a collaboration with American singer-songwriter d4vd.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    An Obelisk
    An Obelisk is by no means a bad record. Each of its songs are solid if not spectacular, and Stickles’ lyrics are always interesting, but as an album it is let down by a lack of variety. You’re left thinking that there’s probably a single great album to be made out of their last two records.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Aisles [EP]
    Aisles is a simple concept, executed spectacularly.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Oh No
    These duets are, of course, not standards. The production is exceptionally murky – mostly collaborators move through the dark, uncertain world Stewart manifests with his Scott Walker-like crooning of glossolalia.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    A Season in Hull
    This lo-fi, devil-may-care air translates well to record, with A Season in Hull capturing and accentuating the band’s characteristic camaraderie and casual, Jonathan Richman-esque charm.... Admittedly, the stripped-down setup has drawbacks too, leaving the material with nowhere to hide and exposing an uncharacteristic patchiness.
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