The Skinny's Scores

  • Music
For 1,342 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.4 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: 100 Exactly as It Seems
Lowest review score: 20 Heartworms
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 5 out of 1342
1342 music reviews
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Their experimentation lies more structurally than sonically here. ... It also means that when they do lock into an extended groove it feels all the more impactful, be it the slinky The Little Maker, or the fractious firestorm that emerges in the middle of Momentary Art of Soul! It makes for an album where brevity belies what an enlivening and broad world it contains.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Bathed in a heavenly glow, it’s easy to let these songs wash over you, but Chua’s soothing vocals invite us to lean in and listen more closely.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s a coming-of-age bruiser of a record that transcends their brutal blend of J-pop and metalcore to more daring soundscapes.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Praise a Lord… is Yves Tumor’s most palatable music to date, and for those that have enjoyed the hurricane horror of their production previously – listen back to Noid with its blood-curdling screams and whirring sirens – the clean lines here will feel a little too neat. But with a new sense of clarity in sound comes a conceptual rigour.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The album may not be more than the sum of its parts, but thankfully those parts are packed full of enough weird and wonderful sounds to ensure another excellent Fever Ray album.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Across the album, Uchis seamlessly slips between English and Spanish. ... When the journey comes to a close, it couldn’t be clearer that, in Uchis’ world, love is the message.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    WOW
    WOW blurs the line between intentional and incidental noise to celebrate the sonic richness of everyday life and the ability of sound to trigger memories.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Overall, Follow the Cyborg is a striking debut with both surrealist sensibilities and melodic hooks – marking Miss Grit as one to watch.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The record feels like someone truly in control of their craft, to the extent that it begins to suffer from this a touch, all of its edges honed too perfectly, too considered to leave any sense of spontaneity, even if it is often beautifully done.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    It feels cohesive and wholeheartedly honest, embracing its rough edges with vulnerability. Guitar scene frontrunners once again? Most certainly.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    It’s all here, and though it may not reach the dizzying, if somewhat bloated, heights of 2017’s Humanz, it still slaps.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Too often the album feels like a case of enacting genres rather than letting their influence seep in. It leaves the record feeling like a grab bag of ideas, some of which have been polished to brilliance, others of which haven’t been fully realised. There’s clearly a great album in there, just one that never quite gets the momentum to show itself.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This album is littered with strangely beautiful imagery. ... Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is an exciting new milestone for Polachek.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Staying on theme for 40 uninterrupted minutes leaves you craving some lyrics, even a scrap, that make contact with the wider world.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Across the record, Kelela’s striking and deeply affecting vocals are baked into sultry, hypnotic soundscapes that captivate and hold onto the listener at every turn.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Reflective and funny, Yo La Tengo would be forgiven for recording endless victory laps at this point. Instead, they continue to defy.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    This is a record with a remarkable scope. Hawk’s lyrics are still vivid and romantic; brooding, teasing and taunting as his narrators’ gaze shifts from Berlin rooftops to Scottish seaside towns.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Heavy Heavy is rarely an easy listen, but it's never less than engrossing.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Barrett has moved away from the big city, but small-town living has inspired his most accessible work to date.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    A nourishing balm of self-acceptance, Cautionary Tales of Youth is a full-throttled call to open up to vulnerability instead of shutting yourself off.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Staggering, and arguably the purest and fullest expression of the band in its current form. ... For those already converted, this is sure to tattoo a permanent smile on your face, but it will no doubt satisfy even the most casual appreciator of punk, hardcore or classic rock too.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are long stretches, particularly during the muted take on V1 in which the pieces are impressive rather than affecting, where you can marvel at Malone’s skill with timbre without being moved in any way. It leaves a sense that the album feels more like one for the most committed fans of all three artists, but one that, given the chance, has some astonishing moments.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    At its best, Time's Arrow is mystical but commanding, with electric synthscapes pulling you deeper inward. However, at times the sonic landscape they’ve created risks suffocation, leaving little room for manoeuvre between one song to the next – a lighter touch in areas could stand to draw out more subtle nuances and make for a more compelling journey overall.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rush! perfectly captures the sense of spontaneous authenticity that makes for a one-of-a-kind show. Måneskin continuously prove that outcasts deserve a good time, and they are here to give it to us.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Late Developers is not simply a collection of offcuts but a catchier and more diverse collection than its companion piece. It finds the group pulling at the threads around the edges of their sound and, in a couple of cases, striding out into new territory.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    12
    The diaristic, stripped back process it was necessary to use to assemble 12 makes it a much looser, more instinctive listen. ... What we are left with is a record of endurance, struggle and the lingering ability to create something new. 12 shows a path can be made, even into that unknown.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Permanent Damage is a thoroughly impressive and self-aware debut from an artist who is unafraid to wrestle with feelings of loneliness, alienation, and self-destructive tendencies out in the open.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It’s these 12 weary waltzes and bright ballads, written gazing upon the sea from the window of his Cellardyke studio, that will find their way into your heart forever.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    CACTI is understandably more subdued than her self-titled debut, but the boisterous numbers it does contain, like spite, might feel more dynamic played live by humans – it feels like the energy that makes her such a captivating performer is being restricted by her drum machine.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Rozi Plain is miles away from the sedate folk of her early career, though the subtle interpolation of additional elements is so masterfully done that she makes it look easy.