This is an album for the Spotify era--a disparate collection of eleven singles, with no unifying message or even common mindset I can discern.

All told, it’s a solid record with no glaring weak points (a first for the Foo Fighters) and with some of the band’s more rewarding and adventurous songwriting.

The New Sidewalk isn’t their great album, but it’s undoubtedly a stepping stone on the way there.

For the band's loyal fanbase, Everybody's Coming Down proves an experimental but mostly successful step further down a path of fuzzy, theatrical rock and roll.

While their third record The Wack Album may be the group’s weakest effort to date, it still shows off their abilities as hook writers and as the preeminent hip-hop satirists in today’s industry.

If the whole record were as explosive as these final two songs, it might have been Switchfoot’s best. As is, Fading West feels like a somewhat minor release from a band that has never lacked for dependability.

Return to the Moon is far from disappointing. More accurately, it is a scattershot collection of unique sonic experiments and National-esque B-sides that are unlikely to sway opinions of Berninger's primary outlet either way.

No, this is not his strongest work to date, but it certainly keeps him in the conversation.

For the most part, Ghost on Ghost is a good record that disappoints because we know its creator is capable of something more powerful.

Then Came the Morning is still a solid next step for a promising young band. The songs are catchy and memorable, the musicianship is impeccable, and the production... well, suffice to say that Aaron Dessner should soon find himself an in-demand producer in the folk/Americana world.

The Terror is a frightening trip, a fantastically cohesive album, and one that could have benefited greatly from a bit more editing and perhaps a little better track sequencing.

In comparison with the current post-rock landscape, it's largely uninteresting, but in creating a palatable easy-listening experience, it's a definite success. Like its predecessors, though, this is one story that's probably best told at bedtime.

The recorded calls between Ty and his brother that crop up repeatedly develop their characters while the story, for T.C. at least, remains stagnant. Free T.C. places an emphasis on the intimate, human relationship between these two men.

He has done his best to deliver the kind of care-free, gaudy rap album that will be blaring from the speakers of house parties everywhere for months to come, and B.O.A.T.S. II #METIME readily delivers on that promise.

Once again, they have created an album that sounds very little like their past recordings and yet still sounds exactly like The Twilight Sad.

El Pintor is a well-produced album that proves Interpol are still a quality band, even without the extreme hype to back them.

Lowborn is a fairly strong record on a song-for-song basis, and the added emotional heft of it being a swansong helps to elevate it above the weaker entries in the band’s catalog--even despite its numerous issues.

What we're left with is an album that sounds like something of an identity crisis. It's far from a total loss and there is much here that is definitely worth revisiting in that old reliable Avett Brothers sort of way.

There’s still a great album somewhere in this Philly quintet and we hear flashes of it throughout.

Overall, the Recover EP is a perfect stepping stone in Chvrches’ brick road.

While Four Year Strong will never be the band that wrote Rise Or Die Trying again, they prove on their new self-titled record that they have bigger steps ahead than the ones they left behind.

Hawthorne Heights gets better with every release, and Zero is their best effort yet. The band has honed their talents and refined their music nearly enough to be a different band, and one that sounds better than ever before.

By broadening the themes, growing up a bit, and going deeper, 25 hits upon some truly transcendent moments—moments that deserve the millions of lives they'll soundtrack. It's just hard to fully praise an album that stops feeling like an album three-quarters of the way through.

When combined with crisp guitar work, meaty bass lines, and thunderous drumming, the screams fire bullets against the enemy track after track, and unlike with Attack Attack's This Means War, Memphis May Fire are winning the battle with Challenger.

The beauty of a record like I’ll Be The Tornado, which spends so much time in the devastating minutiae of heartbreak and pain, is its realization that the bad can still do lots and lots of good. It’s a fairy tale thought to think that life won’t get in a gut punch or two, and Dads have made a record that revels in failure for truly triumphant results.

This album may be a step up from his previous outing, 2012's God Forgives, I Don't, but Mastermind hints that the Rick Ross story may have nowhere else to go.

This Addiction promises exactly what the title describes, as most older fans will eat this up.

This is one of the better electro-pop albums of 2011, one that will stimulate your senses and rope you in with its instantaneous catchiness.