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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    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Loma
    It’s a testament to Loma’s abilities as sonic world-builders that a number of tracks sound less like traditional songs than they do field recordings from shadowy, secluded habitats somewhere far from civilisation.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Blue Raspberry
    A hint of musical theatre elsewhere sees the record lose some of its bite, but in general it’s a robust rejoinder to some of the more depthless musicality of soul-baring, 'authentic', indie-rock. Kirby is instead funny, scathing and full of clarity about her personal epiphanies.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Ultra Truth
    The record is a bit slow to get going, and at times meanders into excessive atmosphere – next to The Slow's Bullet's ambient fuzz, the urgent jungle rhythms on Higher and Devotion in particular pop. But Avery is engaging with the art of the album as a sum of its parts, and from start to finish conjures a fantastical, dreamlike world.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How Do You Spell Heaven
    There’s nothing wrong whatsoever with How Do You Spell Heaven, it’s just that Pollard works best when walking the wire between fucked-up weirdness and acts of songwriting genius, and wobbling either side. Here he’s looking towards neither heaven nor hell; simply trudging (albeit stylishly) on terra firma.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    VENUS
    Resigning itself to well-trodden paths, Venus seems curiously content charting no new territory.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Macro
    Although the project offers quality in production and vocals, tracks like Roller Coaster and Bang Bang Boom fall a little flat with overly repetitive refrains. Despite some hiccups along the way, Brijean have continued to carve out their own sound through an increasing mastery of production and vocal talent. The album achieves dreaminess without sending you to sleep.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Heart Pressed Between Stones
    For all its bodily closeness, Camila Fuchs hold back on scratching and pinching when they should.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Vertigo
    Griff’s debut album is proficient pop, polished and clean – but to the point of sterility. It needs a bit of defilement.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone
    This release marks a new sense of sincerity and authenticity for the band and the thematic issues which the lyrics raise are vocalised in a wonderfully relatable manner, free of any flounce or artifice. However, without humour the album feels a bit flat and even overly morose.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Liminal Soul
    With its screeches of synth and operatic vocals it’s a strong final blast, but points towards a record of more tonal variety. As it is, the other songs in its final third, which work perfectly well when listened to in and of themselves, can’t help but feel like re-treading ground covered better earlier in the record.
    • 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.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Popular Manipulations
    Bandleader Robert Grote yells with a whole lot of heart throughout Popular Manipulations but often struggles to translate that passion into meaningful lyrics.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Resistance Is Futile
    The tunes are massive and buried in strings, synths and stacked harmonies, but the subtlety of the lyrics is lost in tunes like the Gary Numan-esque In Eternity and Broken Algorithms' Appetite for Destruction obsession. It's left to album closer The Left Behind to offer a signpost to where the Manics could go next.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Tourist
    As The Tourist continues to unravel, so too do the tracks--captivating in parts, but lacking a unifying urgency.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    You Had Me at Goodbye
    You Had Me makes for a luxurious if over-rich listen.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Invitation to Her's
    By its closing tracks though, the relative lack of shade to balance the bubblegum-coloured light can become a bit cloying, the endearing charm of the sugary nature fading slightly. Nevertheless, Laading and Fitzpatrick have still delivered a debut that suggests they’ll be continuing to craft impossibly catchy off-kilter pop for years to come.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Miss Anthropocene
    Miss Anthropocene is an uneven record, and one that arrives with considerable baggage that threatens to turn it into a punching bag. But Grimes' proven abilities as a producer win out. There are superfluous, overlong passages, especially when the brightness in her music drains away.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The Ridge
    The presence of Jeremy Gara on drums peppers the record with a likeable melodrama that’ll seem familiar to fans of Funeral or Neon Bible, although this particular record requires much closer listening to fully appreciate its charms.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dreamstate
    At times though, the album’s dreamy nature lacks the variety and depth exuded on Owens’ previous works like Inner Song. Its reverb-soaked aura may be lovely, but it rarely drifts course.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Loggerhead
    Pensive, resting beats provide a backdrop to the album's many experiments with it really popping in its quieter moments of lyrical reflection and confrontation. Loggerhead requires repeat listening to discover its true depth.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Drift
    There are plenty of pleasant enough moments on the band's seventh record as there are on all of them, but one wonders if they'll ever recapture that magic that briefly made them feel a bit special.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Snow Angel
    Snow Angel is a well-calibrated blend of ballads and upbeat pop; self-contained but not unambitious. Not dealing in grand epiphanic or showstopping moments but rather steadier, more subdued honesty, Rapp jettisons the debut pop album rule book.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
    He shares the ennui, dissociation, irony and unfulfillment of his particular celebrity destiny, coupled with a biting and original take on a more widely shared quotidian anxiety that listeners will note with nods and laughs and hums of recognition. But a hit or two would have been nice.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    TRU
    Overall, TRU is a promising step for Ovlov, albeit one that doesn’t always succeed when it comes to standing out from its peers.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Dissolve
    It’s imperfect to be sure but that’s what debuts are all about. This is potential incarnate.
    • 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.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Twerp Verse
    Twerp Verse is a polished, sonically inventive record that’s both playful and punchy, but its purpose feels unclear.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bambino
    The studio mix is excellent, and sample-heavy interludes provide a welcome break from what at times seems like a label compilation. One unifying thread, however, is the playground-fidelity sampling and the prominent, plucky bass, which gives the album a Parliament-ish, heavy funk overtone.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Rest
    The constant changes in tone that come with such disparate collaborators mean that the album never settles into a comfortable groove the way 5:55 or IRM did.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Womb
    There’s very little room for light and shade amongst their wall of cavernous synths, and while this can generate an evocative mood (the bursts of percussion and gloomy electronics of pink lightning does give the impression of thunderstorms) it can sometimes feel like James and Roddick are happy to operate within their comfort zone. Nevertheless, fans of Purity Ring fans will undoubtedly find WOMB to be a welcome return.
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