The Skinny's Scores

  • Music
For 1,575 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. Negative: 5 out of 1575
1575 music reviews
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    While it lacks the truly avant-garde attention of her previous record, trip9love…??? still contributes to her tripped-out, sensual surrealism with the intent of an artist willing to unfurl. In a carefully improvised moment of surprise, a definitive auteur of the modern feel decided to waltz into the centre of the dancefloor and yearn through that great release.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Nothing here feels inauthentic.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    God Games provides glimpses of what makes The Kills so compelling, but is unlikely to convert many new listeners to the cause.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Overall, Santhosam has the fresh vibrancy of a mixtape, but with the smooth cohesiveness of an album – it’s the self-assured debut of an artist who has fully arrived and is ready to carve out a distinctive space of her own.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    All That Was East Is West of Me Now, begins as a noisy yet meditative record with crunching guitars and snapping snares, before settling into a more reflective pattern to suit the resigned sighs and stuttering sounds his tunes twist taut upon.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. is overlong and perhaps too diffuse for its own good, but to hear Moreno wholeheartedly indulge his melodic instincts makes the whole exercise a worthwhile one.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Goodnight Summerland is musically, lyrically and thematically enrapturing. It is a record of pure beauty and elegance, brimming with beguiling melodies and dazzling progressions.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Jonny arrives after a decade as the same well-paced and tender exercise in running in place, exactly where they always leave off.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Sanguivore is a love letter to the 80s, whether it’s punk, pop, hard-rock or heavy metal, and it’s bursting with great songs that are sure to please long-term and new fans alike.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The record makes time for sharp skit humour and ends with a dazzling dance-pop groove. Where Cheek smooths down her effervescent ability to discard genre for more conventional psych-rock numbers, it’s not as exciting. But she can even do that better than anyone else.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    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.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s funnier, weirder, and plays with a more colourful blend of Americana. It also reveals more depth and ambition.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    On Want You to Know she assures us that 'beneath the layers there is simplicity'. Despite this, there's always an emotional distance created by screens and technology, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Gracefully distilling a profusion of self-loathing, Javelin is a heartsick high. No one yearns like Sufjan Stevens.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The pieces as a whole feel fuller, and more ambitious than anything Roberts has done to date. It marks another stunning development in a series that remains essential listening.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Her most honest and reflective work to date.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    This album could easily have been wrapped up in misery and the trope of the tortured artist, but instead it’s a pleasure to hear Tamko stepping bravely into a happy place.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    The album is truly extraordinary – it is a once-in-a-career masterpiece that synthesises difference through abstracted self-observation. It is a vehicle for making meaning, an invitation to try again.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bird Machine is a worthwhile coda to Linkous’s legacy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Mid Air is a must-listen for anyone looking for a sentimental electronic dance anthem or for a song to say the words we are sometimes afraid to say.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Blake’s sonic ecosystem thrives in fusing seemingly discordant sounds. In striking electronic karate chops and pouring into careening chords, he makes the man-made appear organic.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    As a standalone record, End of the Day does not always justify its existence. Some tracks are simply too empty, leaving a noticeable divide between audience and artist. It takes a concerted effort to listen to the album as a single track, and it perhaps would be best enjoyed alongside the film it was first written to accompany.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    When it works, it’s thrilling, especially on the moody Moi and the mercurial, atmospheric Sons and Daughters. Elsewhere, Palms of Hands and Dusty are perhaps a little grindcore-by-numbers. Still, Neil and Vennart have presented their vision in uncompromising fashion, and those who yearn for Blackened Sky-era Biffy will unquestionably find something to love.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Slowdive are scene vets that have seemingly perfected their sound, but still have enough drive to keep nudging it forward, one shimmering soundscape at a time.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Window is indicative of a newfound assuredness for a band which itself has stretched from a two-piece to a full foursome.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Meek’s vocals have always been quality, but on this release he has truly reached another level. The soft breathiness is used to the greatest emotive evocation yet, and the controlled manner in which his voice breaks cleanly into the following note in a way inimitable to few others than teenagers (certainly with less class than Meek) is impressive to the point of awe.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It's perhaps not the finest Hiss Golden Messenger album, but it's certainly one of the most joyful, and in the current climate, maybe that's just what we need.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    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.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Overall, Learning How to Live and Let Go fluctuates in tone. But this doesn’t negate the clear effort the band have put into making this record a lot more experimental than any of their previous releases, and it’s still chock full of heart and vulnerability in its lyrical content.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Hozier’s far-reaching vocal range is on full display on Unreal Unearth – as an artist, he possesses that enviable fearlessness when it comes to being earnest. At times, the gospel overtones in the album reach cinematic scope. In places, this orchestral breadth comes off as over-produced, in a departure from the intimate honesty we've come to expect of Hozier.