The tempos drag, the lyrics are nothing special, the electronics nothing much to care about. Instead of sounding like the teenage spawn of My Bloody Valentine and Mouse on Mars, now they sound like Radiohead's very earnest cousin.

Crams every last piece of the Offspring puzzle -- slickly produced rock racket, hints of anti-establishment rabble-rousing, and reams of relationship and strip mall culture gaggery -- into its brief half-hour run time.

The album winds up sounding too reserved and heavy-handed, which makes it a disappointment not only compared to what the group has done before, but also to what the girls have achieved outside the group.

The productions are much better than the songs.

The problem is that the album is perhaps too subtle for its own good, and even after repeated listens, it fails to connect on any meaningful level

Though most of his career highlights also appear here, a parade of Paul Van Dyk productions is not what most listeners need to stave off boredom; his productions all work from a similar framework, and work best in the context of a broader mix set.

The Mark, Tom and Travis Show is indeed a real rock show and catches Blink 182's shameless personalities and childlike giggling about oral sex, dog semen, and masturbation.

[It is] over-produced to within an inch of its artistic life, and lacks the quality songs and exquisite productions that the group had made a hallmark.

These brittle, next-wave-of-new-wave productions plow no new ground and barely serve the lyrics to which they're chained.

This sounds like a lost Coral album down to every last detail, which means that it seems silly to venture here unless you've at least bought one Coral album already.

It's evident the Waxwings wanted a heavier, darker sound this time out, and even though several tracks are embellished with cello, violin, and horns, most of Shadows fails due to a murky, muddled production and mix, not to mention an uninspired track sequencing.

Envision a penny dreadful being sung aloud inside a pub while Roni Size tries to squeeze drunken gospeltronica out of his sequencer banks.

Many of these samples have been heard before, and the influences (ranging from easy listening to soundtracks to hip-hop) aren't very original either.

Besides the limitless charisma that seeps out of Mystikal's loud, rude rapping-meets-shouting-style of vocal delivery, the album also benefits from the production and songwriting variety that No Limit was never able to accomplish...

Except for these stylistic detours (two tracks from Blade Runner, with one each from Dead Can Dance and the group's vocalist Lisa Gerrard), Another World is the same old trance album. There are a few intriguing anthems that manage to wear out their welcome over the course of seven minutes and up, plenty of breakdowns to maintain attention on the dancefloor, and an overall pleasant sound that simply floats by without making much of a positive impact.

The Secret Migration is oddly too conventional and too quirky; it's another paradox that this album, which in its own way is Mercury Rev's happiest album, is also, sadly, the weakest of their career.

Evenly divided between strong and weak tracks.

Unfortunately, too much of Tourist seems like an amalgam of other things, whether it's the Coldplay-ness of their ballads or the distinct Super Furry Animals influence that's been with Athlete all along.

The negativity removes the focus from Busdriver's sizable musical talents and rests it squarely on his lyricism and themes (not a good idea).

Ultimately, it's a flimsy album; though it's pleasant enough as background music, upon closer listening it falls apart.

Ultimately Mudvayne gets lost between thrash and diluted Slipknot devotion.

While perhaps not on par with De La Soul falling from 3 Feet High and Rising to De La Soul Is Dead, this is almost as disappointing a plummet from Day-Glo genius to drab everyday product.

What the group made sound effortless in the past sounds strained and canned here.

If lightweight, it is often pleasant and amusing, if not utterly engaging.

It all glides by easily enough on its surface, but dig a little deeper and The Magic Numbers reveals itself to be not just a crashing bore, but an irritating one.

He really is pouring everything he has into the whole thing, but there's so much overly earnest, reverential, "let's get back to making real music" energy floating around that you can sense it nibbling away at the desire to make something that sounds like today.

Wikked Lil' Grrrls occasionally gets lost between songwriting, thematics, and stylistic flow.

With one or two exceptions, all of these songs are second and third rate by his standard.

For those who enjoyed the wise-ass undercurrent of his debut, this will be a delight. For those who enjoyed "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)," there will be too much narcissistic tomfoolery here to make this enjoyable. For those who never understood the appeal of Jason Mraz in the first place, Mr. A-Z will make them realize that they've really been taking John Mayer for granted.

Past Presents the Future falters between a coalesced pop sound and its pristine fragments.

Maybe it is too much to ask for Trinity to be as good and surprising and full of life as Dutty Rock; maybe it is unfair to ask Paul to catch lightning in a bottle twice. Probably so, but it's still disappointing for Trinity to be as empty and unenjoyable as it is.

Hefty Fine finds the Bloodhound Gang in a Catch-22 -- they've never wanted to be anything other than a dumb, silly hard rock band, but their shtick is getting tired, yet they're trapped by the confines of what they want to be.

Even within the album's murkiness, however, hints of the promise and intermittent brilliance Doherty had in the Libertines can still be heard.

Morningwood still feels like calculated fluff, even if it's calculated fluff that's mildly fun.

Generation's toughness rings hollow like a rerun.

This is endearing -- Hot Chip's sense of humor is as contagious as their knack for reinvention is obvious. But those traits can't make Coming on Strong sound any less unfinished or even tossed off at times.

They are trying very hard to be a specific thing, realize that they can't quite take it all the way, and add the occasional coating of camp in order to look less silly.

Secret Machines now sound uncannily like a fusion of U2 and INXS.

The flashes of brilliance that were once routinely delivered by Havoc and Prodigy are few and fleeting here.

Nearly every single thing about this album is a shout-out to the Clash or Gang of Four, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but why not just listen to the originals instead?

We Don't Have to Whisper is too doggedly dour and amorphous to be more than a curiosity.

Some serene, wide-angle numbers toward the end help a lot, making this safe album easier to recommend to the longtime trance addict.

Idlewild is certainly a spectacle, and an occasionally entertaining and enlightening one at that, but it translates into an elaborate diversion when compared to what this duo has done in the past.

It's more of the same old, same old.

Most of the musical content is diaphanous and fleeting.

Talk to La Bomb revisits nearly all the elements that made their 2005 self-titled debut such a thrill, but the songwriting has slipped a bit, welcoming the beloved act to the sophomore slump.

Friendly Fire has the same feel as Into the Sun: namely, it's a pleasant but forgettable arty pop record made by a guy who has some promise but little discipline.

Enigk sounds like a mixture of Peter Gabriel, U2, Sarah McLachlan, and a little bit of Elf Power, and tries too hard to be profound and meaningful.

The highlights are way high, but the album as a whole is "fans-only."

Super Extra Gravity matches their previous record, Long Gone Before Daylight, for its dour mood and sour attitude, its lack of discernible hooks, and the unappetizing flavor of the Cardigans' performances.

A display of complacency and retreads.

Throbbing Gristle... no longer sound frightening, disturbing, or, for the most part, even interesting?

There's an air of sloppy experimentation, of demos and B-sides and other things that probably won't interest more than the heartiest fan.

[It] would be more accurately titled Timbaland Presents Slight Confusion or Timbaland Presents an Uneven Mess.

The Bravery are an easy target -- after all, they were often seen as also-rans even when their kind of music was the hot new thing -- but, unfortunately, The Sun and the Moon's hesitant, unfocused feel doesn't do much to dissuade that notion.

There are a couple of standouts here--'Like It or Not' could be a cross between 'It'5!' and the Cure's bizarrely cheerful moments, while 'Nothing's Wrong' shows what the rest of the album should've sounded like--but most of Places Like This is a mystifying misfire.

An uneven sophomore album.

Asleep at Heaven's Gate isn't a bad record, it's an unnecessary one and there's really no excuse for that.

These songs all feel like a score, and that's not necessarily a good thing. They all seem to be of a piece, but musically there isn't enough imagination to distinguish them, to set the tension of dynamic in motion.

There are interesting moments here, but they're fleeting, crying out for a bit of the deliberate craft of Blondie's comeback albums, which may be predictable but at least they're focused, which makes for easier listening than this long 17-track slog of sound.

The music isn't as serious: splashy and silly though it may be, at least it gets the basic sound right, even if it's way too polished and precise.

ADD is certainly one of the more interesting AmIdol-related records, but so much commotion without construction is ultimately as forgettable as Jordin's pageant-winner trifle, and perhaps a little more tiring to get through, too.

The moments of rocked-out swagger are fleeting and ultimately drowned out by a musical and lyrical heaviness that turns the album into a real downer.

There are still some moments that show what Doughty is capable of, where he holds back on the production and instrumentation and lets his acoustic guitar chords and voice take over, like in the darker 'I Got the Drop on You,' which references his Soul Coughing days while still coming across as an original, but this is a rarity among the slick and silly tracks that make up the rest of Golden Delicious.

It is hard not to listen to Kula Shaker and their banal, blissfully insulated retro-rock and not be a little amazed that a band can get so many right elements so wrong.

Here, he doesn't offer much more than a couple worthy singles and a handful of decent album cuts, and those highlights, such as the Timbaland-produced (and hogged) "Elevator," tend to be memorable more for the beats and the hooks than the rhymes.

It's meant to be taken as surface, perhaps skimmed for samples, but generally to be used as mildly unsettling mood music--a specialty of Reznor's, to be sure, but he's better and scarier when his ideas are more finely honed than they are here.

Everywhere at Once is reminiscent of what's already been done, either by the rapper himself or by another artist, almost derivative of itself, and as a whole, altogether disappointing.

While this is a forward-thinking and cerebral affair, as Yoav has a love of dance music, he often works with funky grooves and rhyming lyrics that should appeal to fans with a club-oriented aesthetic.

Red is at its best when it mines the new wave/Europop of Level 42 and Ultravox, especially on the infectious 'Clarion,' but those moments are few and far between.

If you still hold Lanois' earlier recordings to a high ideal, this may indeed frustrate you because it offers considerably more evidence that Lanois has lost his way as a musician.

Gavin DeGraw won't change things, either, as it pretty much offers more of the same as "Chariot," polishing up the sound, turning it into something bigger and slicker, but not changing his vaguely rootsy, vaguely soulful pop a whit.

Anywhere I Lay My Head doesn't quite work, but it can't quite be dismissed, either.

A couple tracks and a few stray lines aside, these verses could have been dashed off by the MC at just about any earlier point in her career.

In-fashion vocal effects, which Summer certainly does not need, detract from a handful of these tracks, but as a whole, the album won't have trouble pleasing fans who just want to hear their queen have a blast and tear it up.

They're a singles band at heart, though, and they wear out their welcome all too quickly on We Started Nothing.

That's the ultimate irony of 3 Doors Down as they mature: try as they may to pour out their angst-ridden hearts, by riding out their success and smoothing out their music they've turned into mildly aggro background music at malls and movie theaters across the nation.

He's a better vocalist and more charismatic than most of the dullards who followed in his wake--but this is still deliberately tepid music, more concerned about appearances than hooks or drama.

The songs themselves are hit or miss, with the emphasis falling on the latter, due mostly to an over-reliance on three-chord, midtempo filler, but as is the case with nearly every Priest offering, when they're on they're dead on.

Jayne and company do manage to pull off a few tracks that capture the old fire and brimstone of classic LAL, but the shiny textures and generic songwriting are too much to overcome, rendering Holy a disappointing addition to the band's previously strong catalog.

This is a solid if flawed first try.

Morning Tide, though pleasant and by no means bad, is also far from original and too "of the moment" to make much of an impact beyond appearing in the occasional TV show or film soundtrack--basically anywhere that pleasant, generic modern rock is needed.

These are not songs for the parents, nor are these tunes meant to educate or even entertain: these are the kinds of songs that kids chant in the backseat when they mean to annoy their parents.

As a debut album, however, Wrecking Ball is a hit-or-miss effort that only hints at the band's potential.

You can appreciate the emotion put into The Lord Dog Bird and feel the soul being poured out--but without any variety in the album's sound or any songs that jump out and demand repeat spins, ultimately you're left with a less than satisfying listening experience.

Few vocalists as young as Hudson have a voice that is as versatile and expressive, proficient enough to pull off a multi-dimensional set of R&B songs, yet her debut is as tricked out as that of an artist with a small fraction of the talent.

This is a love-it-or-lump-it album, a polarizing effort that--depending on personal preference--is either irresistibly attractive or laughably, overzealously pretentious.

Enjoying Slipway Fires requires a suspension of disbelief, a conscious separation between the band's past and the somewhat ludicrous present.

So, it delivers exactly what Archuleta promised on the show: something sweet and safe, utterly old-fashioned and forgettable.

Beyonce's third solo studio album is as concise as 2006's B'day, but it is divided into two discs as a way to emphasize the singer's distinct personalities. It's a gimmick, of course--a flimsy one.

With a winning opener (the familiar but nonetheless brutal "Fish Out of Water") and a handful of other keepers (including "A New Game" and the surprisingly subtle "Never Enough"), fans looking for a repeat of L.D. 50, Beginning of All Things to End, End of All Things to Come, and Lost and Found will be more than pleased, but those looking for actual growth would be better off cleaning out their refrigerators.

The obsession Cradle of Filth have with post-production is the very thing that removes the power from this set and makes it more of a wry--and unintentionally comedic--piece and impossible to take seriously.

Common's here to have a good time, no strings attached, with uneven results.

This wide net says more about Maroon 5's fashion than it does their music--they're sharp and smart enough to know what will get them club play and blog mentions--but it's nice to have a band so big try to tie together these two niches, even if neither the R&B nor the indie rock winds up relating to the happy mainstream hooks of the group's hits.

Discerning fans may demand something new from the band's next effort, however, since this is essentially "Move Along" with a revised track list.

Most of these songs feel like quickly dashed off poems; it's all "tell" with no "show," because there isn't anything in the music to effectively offer them to the listener as conversation; instead they are on display as mixed-message sermons.

Short on new ideas and lacking in cohesion, Soulja Boy Tell Em's second official full-length finds the young upstart trying way too hard to re-create the bazillion selling 'Crank That' and repeatedly coming up short.

This is the problem that bands face when they go from the thrill of making the first record to the grind of having to produce something equal or better than their debut. Not too many groups can pull it off; add the 1990s to the long list of bands who have failed.