PopMatters' Scores

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For 11,090 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 43% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 53% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 69
Highest review score: 100 Funeral for Justice
Lowest review score: 0 Travistan
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7,433 out of 11090
  2. Mixed: 3,399 out of 11090
  3. Negative: 258 out of 11090
11090 music reviews
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    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Drag on Girard
    The fuzzed-out lead guitar, the languid vocals, and the unbridled backbeat that keeps it all together nail this resemblance down, recalling Bug-era Dinosaur from the late 1980s. ... Tracks like “Wishing Well”, “Cheewawa”, and “Bainmarie” from that LP are beautifully rendered.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Stoned Cold Country
    Stoned Cold Country represents the most overplayed hits on classic rock radio. They are all great songs, but they seem to have been chosen by whatever had the highest stream count. What’s more, the arrangements of these warhorses rarely vary beyond faithful recreations, except for an added texture here and a different intro there.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    93696
    93696 weighs in at nearly 80 minutes, and its numerological conceit does make one suspect even the song lengths might be perfectly poised elements in some delicately balanced scheme.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    With Love From
    While With Love From is not the most visionary pop record released in recent years, it doesn’t need to be.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    10,000 Gecs
    The duo reaffirm their status as hyperpop ambassadors while implementing a notable mainstream savvy, including memorable beats, hook-ish melodies, and vocals that epitomize an au courant slacker vibe.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    V
    Neilson and co. still know how to get wild — their usually-yearly “SB” EPs are filled with experiments and unchecked ambition — but for all the years of waiting, V is simply a good new album from the group. At times very good, but not with the consistency they had become increasingly known for.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Songs of Surrender
    Their sense of surprise was exchanged for maddeningly consistent predictability. We are left with Songs of Surrender, a quadruple album that sounds exactly how you think it would.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Aşk
    Though it’s easy to think of Aşk as Altın Gün’s comfort zone, it’s also clear that this album has a lot more to give in terms of energy and creativity, one that continues to seize new acid-soaked horizons.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Big Talk
    Dickenson’s anger against America’s direction has musical muscle behind it.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Endless Summer Vacation
    The album is not only precisely what Cyrus’ discography and identity needed but perhaps what we as a culture need now.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    A Colossal Waste of Light
    There isn’t a single dud among the 13 songs. They’re expertly played and attractively produced by Buck. Some of them partake of a dreaminess, yearning, and even an occasional touch of sadness that complicate the album’s generally sanguine musical disposition. ... A Colossal Waste of Light really does come to sound more and more like vintage R.E.M., hence the unavoidable and unfair comparisons to Stipe.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Afterpoem
    In general, Kanaan drops her listeners off down the street from where she’s picked us up. We may recognize the surroundings, but something feels different about where we find ourselves by the time her music’s ritual magic has achieved silence.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Bless This Mess
    Meg Remy and her collaborators have channeled her recognition of the communicative depth of dance music with creative, nearly flawless production. The result invites us to consider and embrace this blessed mess that is our bond and is an early frontrunner for consideration among the year’s best albums.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles
    Your Mother Should Know is an artist at the peak of his powers, interpreting the songwriting of a group of musicians whose music will last long after we’re all gone.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Hypnogogue
    Whether calming you with lush numbers like “Aerodrome” and “The Coming Days” or tickling the edges of your mind with “Thorn”, the result is another stunning record, no matter who’s pulling or plucking the strings.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    How to Replace It
    If How to Replace It proves anything, it’s that dEUS remain as restless on matters of genre as they ever have.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Food for Worms
    A well-crafted and brilliantly performed album, it showcases a group bringing in new influences and ideas, all with an infectious sense of enthusiasm and energy. It’s an exciting third chapter for a band that, for all that assuredness, still sounds hungry.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Workin' On A World
    This music is too good not to be shared. DeMent sings and writes from the heart. The 13 songs are powerful statements of love and indictments of bad behavior.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Strange Dance
    All the pieces are there, and many fit together quite well, but the sum of the parts is not delivering what was promised.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trustfall
    Trustfall, her latest studio effort, is the most vulnerable she has been in years in a way that doesn’t sound formulated but honest and reflective.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    La La Land
    It’s too early to say if the era of Alien Lanes is gone for good, but it is safe to say that this group lineup has helped add another tool to Pollard’s songwriting toolbox. Not to mix metaphors, but it’s a look that they wear well. Consider the transition successful.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Cracker Island
    Yes, goddam it, Cracker Island is as good as Demon Days.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Breaking the Balls of History
    Breaking the Balls of History continues this momentum of irrepressible songcraft. Carrying the torch for three decades now, Quasi have become one of the more enduring musical collaborations out of the Pacific Northwest, and this is a peak moment in their discography.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Every Loser
    This is his most consistent, fully realized album since Brick by Brick (1990). It’s maybe even his best in more than four decades since New Values was released in 1979.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Optical Delusion
    Like their first reunion album Wonky, Optical Delusion makes a case for Orbital remaining a creative working force without actually being their best work.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Trois
    Acid Arab weave sand-blown Korg synth filigrees in ways that would make Dabke keyboard titan Razen Said proud. On ٣ (Trois), their third album (of course), the pulses quake, inviting us all to the post-pandemic party.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Raven
    The inclusion of trans rapper Rahrah Gabor on “Closure” is a fun and exciting change of pace but is still a small interlude on a record that is otherwise without features. Likewise, from its production choices, lyrical and thematic content, and overall aesthetic, Raven is less a bold artistic statement than its author might wish to convey. Despite its flaws, Raven is still a worthwhile listen.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Norm
    The sensation of incomprehension itself is part of the record’s charm. The music itself is suggestive, rapturous, mysterious, and mesmerizing. The lyrics set the mood. Each song works on its own. The connections between cuts may be vague, but they share an alluring magnetism.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Desire, I Want To Turn into You
    Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is one of these future classics. ... Engaging at every turn and carefully calibrated to its point of view, it represents art pop hitting yet another dizzy apex.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    All of This is Chance
    “Birdy From Another Realm”, feel like the well-trodden ground in the artist’s oeuvre. This can be a little jarring when set against the more creatively and emotionally ambitious tunes and, while perfectly pleasant, could stand in the way of the project as a cohesive experience. All of This Is Chance is nonetheless a beautiful and bold album that showcases an artist unafraid to develop her sound further, revealing more of herself in the process.
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