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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    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Prophet Speaks
    The title track of Van the Man's 40th (!) studio album, the slow jam is a brilliant blues number based on rolling Rhodes keyboards, fat horns, thin cymbal splashes and a vocal with such clarity, concision and quality that it will stop you in your tracks. Yep, that good. The rest? Well, you've seen this movie before: blues, jazz and soul standards delivered with minimum fuss and maximum quality.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Romaplasm
    It’s all reassuringly consistent and distinctively Baths, managing to be both personal and kinetic as well as fantastical and otherworldly. He may not have switched up his style between albums, but now with this hat-trick of gems, there’s no need.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Competition
    Essentially, while Hunter is fiercely conveying an important message, one's enjoyment will depend on the unsubtle nature of the message or the slightly formulaic nature of the music – but with openers as soaring as Galapagos, it sure is hard to resist.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Render Another Ugly Method
    The second album from Leschper’s Atlanta outfit Mothers, it reaffirms the band’s talent for making the familiar sound so strange.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Doggerel
    Pixies needn’t ever escape their core identity, but they can enhance it like they have done here.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Reflection of Youth
    While Reflection of Youth doesn’t always capture the more brutal side of growing up sonically, Bruland does give off the sense that she’s come out of the other side, older and wiser.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Tissues
    It adds up to a remarkable work of often queasy beauty that never releases its grip.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    ANNO: Four Seasons by Anna Meredith & Antonio Vivaldi
    ANNO stands as a collection that casts an old master in a new light while cementing Meredith’s place as a constantly startling and boundary-breaking contemporary composer.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Magic Ship
    The songs are resonant and cleverly unhurried--the group aren’t afraid to sit in silence, letting a feeling wash over the listener for a beat before continuing their story.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Brian Jonestown Massacre
    While there's nothing particularly new or breakaway on this self-titled release, it’s a familiar feeling that will leave fans more than satisfied.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Inner World Peace
    Is Inner World Peace going to change the history of music? Probably not. But it will absolutely become a comfort album for many.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    I Hear You
    An earnest but keenly self-aware synchronisation of Gou’s ‘eyes on the Top 40’ dance music with an artistry that is both curious and willing.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Welcome To Sideways
    It’s a well-rounded selection of tracks on an album that can sit comfortably next to your best Fabric and Watergate compilations.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Helter Seltzer
    It’s not teeming with future classics, but it’s their most solid and replayable record since Brain Thrust Mastery.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Catastrophist
    Rest assured, although still more cerebral pleasure than triumphalist pop breakthrough, this uniquely accessible record is a subtle delight.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Marble Skies
    Marble Skies finds difficulty in consolidating each defining element into a smooth blend, leading to a record that’s bookended by heart-stopping tracks with a frustratingly stodgy middle passage.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Oxy Music
    Without doubt, Oxy Music honours Cameron’s skill as a storyteller, and his unique ability to embed some of the most outlandish lines into sanguine melodies.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Great Thunder [EP]
    Much more than mere offcuts, Great Thunder instead offers some stunning moments from Waxahatchee with Katie Crutchfield at her most off guard and most personal.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Marauder
    What Marauder provides is a top-up of Interpol for the band’s most dedicated fans, but nothing that approaches their former glory.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Geography
    This festival-friendly record attempts to turn Tom Misch (whether intended or not) from a producer and guitar-player into a pop star. It hasn’t quite paid off.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    New Me, Same Us
    New Me, Same Us finds its vigour in the sweet spot between pure pop and the band’s more adventurous tendencies. When an emotionally-charged, jazz-inspired piano climax cuts through the otherwise smooth veneer of New Fiction or when Where You Belong leans fully into a part-funk, part-R'n'B groove, the band really hit their stride. It’s just a shame there are some stumbles on the way.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Saviors
    The resulting album, Saviors, is a hugely entertaining return to form, with some of the seminal American rockers' best music in decades.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Curve of the Earth
    Apart from a few tonal blips (Taken By The Tide may well be a smuggled-in Band of Horses track, and 1985’s piano ballad proves an idling mid-point), Curve... is a remarkably slick experience.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Pussy's Dead
    Edwards, Carla Azar and Eugene Goreshter have taken their sweet time, and Pussy's Dead is satisfyingly, luxuriously self-indulgent as a result.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Desecration of Desire
    All in all, this is a welcome return for Dave Clarke and an album declaring his rightful place at the helm of electronica.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Love is Dead
    Love Is Dead shows CHVRCHES attaining a greater urgency and darkness in tracks such as the dramatic, M83-esque Deliverance and My Enemy, a stuttering, drugged up duet between Mayberry and The National’s Matt Berninger.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Vessel of Love
    Album opener Angel Fire make it tempting to categorise Vessel of Love as an uplifting summer album. Yet Cook’s lyrics contain a haunting melancholia, touching on love and survival to create a bittersweet effect. There's a hidden depth to her breezy pop that will stay with listeners for days.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Sorcerer
    Sorcerer may not offer much in the way of straight-up pop thrills, and undoubtedly requires patience to truly appreciate its merits. ... [But] it’s an impressive statement of intent.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Ullages
    Both blissful and bloody-minded, Ullages is raincoat-clad gift from goth heaven.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Outer Peace
    Chock-full of gluey basslines and gleaming synths, Outer Peace is very much a dance record and it’s pure ecstasy.
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