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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    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Operator
    Hard-partying techno heads will love the anxiety-inducing tone of Operator; others may see this as a missed opportunity, after a regenerative five-year hiatus, for MSTRKRFT to explore creative nuance over noise.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gratitude
    While there are moments on this album where Benjamin Francis Leftwich's positivity is genuinely very nice to hear, all in all Gratitude is musically beige and lyrically clichéd. Leftwich would be better to stick to what he does best: playing his acoustic guitar and singing about 1904.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Breakin' Point
    Breakin' Point feels like a pop record designed by a committee.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Volume 1
    This is the least inventive product you could have expected from a bunch of varyingly inventive songwriters. Which is to say, it’s not much good at all.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dolls Of Highland
    Craft’s nutcracker vocals and lyrical self-exposure never quite as endearing as they threaten to be.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Low in High School
    Morrissey can alienate fans with outlandish outbursts or with decidedly average new music, but both at the same time is surely too much for even the most forgiving fan.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Thought Rock Fish Scale
    Thought Rock Fish Scale arrives wholesome and homely rather than exciting or challenging, as if missing the lights of the big city.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Wuthering Drum
    Wuthering Dream all too frequently gets lost in its own subtleties.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Open Book
    For an indie record, Open Book does what it does well, and with charm, but there’s an unshakeable sense of wasted potential here.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Realisationship
    Tense synth riffs drive [the track Animals] forward and give it an energy absent from the rest of the album. It is that energy, that immedicacy that made Fuck Buttons such an exhilarating listen, which is so sorely missed on this album.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ö
    The duo commit to a kind of 90s-coded insouciance: lethargic vocals draped over a club-ready chassis and an occasionally unconvincing refusal to try too hard. For a band sold as the city’s next great party-starters, a lot of 'Ö' feels oddly undercooked.
    • 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.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    in•ter a•li•a
    In•ter a•li•a instead sounds vapid and empty, like it's blowing hot air around the room; the band sound like a parody of themselves.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Banshee
    An album with a few moments of sweetness, but which ultimately feels like a pleasant collection of background music.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Flood
    While her captivating vocals remain, Donnelly’s lack of bark and bite from the debut means this record, as the name suggests, mostly washes over you.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Aforger
    The production of this record is flawless, but when so many talented writers are trying their hands at precisely this kind of pop music, substance is paramount, with style a distant second. Sadly, the opposite is true here.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dead Cross
    To be sure, it's a crazed, nihilistic rollercoaster and like all rollercoaster rides it has its ups and downs, its moments of exhilaration and its dizzying plunges into horror.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    WE
    It’s a record filled with trite sentiments and well-trodden musical ideas (or in some cases, badly-trodden).
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Commontime
    Over 14 tracks, repetitive funk riffs and chatty, conversationalist lyrics start to wear a little thin, and a lack of diversity makes for such comfortable listening that you risk all-too-comfortably tuning out.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    United Crushers
    More often than not, United Crushers settles into a groove and gets comfy.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Closer Apart
    Compared to their past work, the album lacks intensity and seems to rely on a heterogeneity of unrefined styles, making it seem more like an album of covers that flirts too closely to the tired hip-hop trope of a single, aimless verse.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Hope Six Demolition Project
    PJ Harvey's least beautiful record by some distance, The Hope Street Demolition Project's intentions are admirable and inarguable. But weighed against the expectations raised by the overwhelming invention of her stout back catalogue, it falls uncomfortably short.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Amen & Goodbye
    Yeasayer constantly threaten to come out with a startling album; alas, Amen and Goodbye isn’t it.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Prophets of Rage
    The RATM members still manage to stir genuine, potentially powerful emotions, but the tracks never get too far before ruinous effects, puerile 'all right' choruses, and chiming end rhymes cause them to collapse.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    ONDA
    Ultimately, ONDA is an interesting but forgettable experience despite its origins.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Every Where Is Some Where
    K. Flay is definitely a Marmite artist and her alternative take on electro-pop/rock is likely to appeal to a lot of people, but unfortunately for some it will be quite difficult to stomach.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Their Prime
    Musically, the good ideas are palpable; a shame, then, that the lyrical ones take such banal centre stage.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bon Voyage
    Wildly inconsistent album.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Ash & Ice
    While this isn’t a bad album, it does feel like a safe one (which is perhaps even worse).
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Head Above Water
    The best tracks here are those which delve into the power ballads that we know Lavigne can produce so effectively. But other than the album's self-titled lead single and It Was In Me, with soaring orchestrals and subtle keys paving the way for her lung-bursting croons, it feels much like a lost Lavigne seeking a sound that’ll just keep her afloat.
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