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

While there are some faint echoes of that personality and complexity on UY SCUTI, the essence of what made him so special is largely lost in a clutter of disconnected or only partially realized ideas.

As it stands, its mix of tiny triumphs and incomplete ramblings will make all but Friedberger's most die-hard fans long for a Fiery Furnaces reunion.

There's an abundance of low-wattage boasts about financial and libidinal surpluses, most of which could have been composed by a generator. Softer and more melodic cuts are indicated with all-lowercase track titles. ... If Yachty can find a way to be his goofy self and elevate his writing, he can rebound.

While this makes for an album that's substantially more interesting and cohesive than the gaudy Speak, it doesn't necessarily mean that A Little More Personal (Raw) is a successful record, either.

Some of the playful songs are as joyously boisterous and willfully corny as anything in Smith's past, making Lost and Found an entertaining and thoughtful album for young kids and their parents to listen to and talk about.

Lil Wayne exhibits glimpses of the brazen genius of his earlier self intermittently on Tha Carter VI, but the album feels like a battle between those moments of greatness and the rest of his weird swings and inadvisable choices.

Provocative and muddled, Revival percolates with ambition but doesn't lack in laziness either.

The songs lack hooks, as if melody would be too commercial, while the production has its sights on the radio, resulting in tuneless songs that are polished for mainstream consumption.

Because Light After Dark tries so hard to keep up with the tricks of the trade in 2011, it loses any sense of originality that Maguire brings to the table, which, especially in the pop music scene, is the only way to stand out.

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.

A poor release.

It's the sound of the band maturing, and while it's certainly more laid-back than any of Live's previous records, that low-key approach feels right for the music on Songs from Black Mountain and helps make it one of their most consistent and successful records.

WZRD, the album, is sort of emo, sort of dream pop, and surely an indulgent effort that surprises with its chemistry and willingness to follow the music.

It's the closest the band has come yet to something genuinely uplifting and irony-free -- no small feat for these tongue-in-cheek provocateurs, but This Machine suggests that the Dandy Warhols are actually improving with age, which is an even bigger accomplishment.

Maturity doesn't necessarily suit the band--there's a natural, flat whine to Joel Madden's voice that dooms him to eternal adolescence--but every step Good Charlotte makes toward a comfortable middle age on Cardiology is a step that succeeds, producing music that resonates louder and longer than the flashy twaddle of Good Morning Revival.

Faceless... grooves more fluidly than Awake, but the band still hasn't managed to locate the pop hooks that made their debut a success.

Far from being the soundtrack to a raging party, Black Butterfly is the flipside of indulgence: Buckcherry is now the sound of a slow slide into the monotony of addiction.

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.

Fiction Family is slightly sprawling as a result, having been compiled over a number of years, but the track list takes strength in diversity as it alternates between sprightly duets and slow, Elliott Smith-styled melancholia.

As the album opener, [Alien is] hard to ignore but it inadvertently sets the tone for the rest of Britney Jean: she's not one of us and doesn't feel comfortable where she's at, and that uneasiness underpins the rest of this vaguely dispiriting album.

On the proper What About Now, the group is striving to sound big and important yet winds up sounding small.

While there are still some bright pop moments and interestingly demented freakouts like "Who's Running My Ranch," the album as a whole feels more hollow than even Pollard's sometimes tossed-off song fragments.

Less experimental, less distinctive, and definitely missing the production finesse of Nellee Hooper, Bloodsport suffers musically from a lack of imagination and vocally from Chris Corner's surprisingly post-grunge style of delivery.

The biggest problem with the record is that the eye is on the big picture - from how the songs fit together, to how the overall sound fits a song - that the individual moments aren't all that memorable, clearly lacking singles as forceful as those that fueled Throwing Copper and not quite as compelling as a whole as its predecessor, V.

When he isn't heating up the dance floor with unlikely guests, Bracegirdle constructs spacy ambient tracks that cool things down.

The Re-Up has plenty of that serious heat that influenced Eminem to go aboveground with the release.

Love Is Like is a return to the core soul and R&B influences that marked the band's early albums, a change that finds singer Adam Levine and bassist Sam Farrar largely taking the productions reins, along with contributions by JKash, Federico Vindver, Elof Loelv, Bobby Love, and Rio Root. The group also wrote a handful of the songs together for the first time in many album cycles. All of this lends the record a unified vibe.

The whole thing sounds like it was made fairly quickly, as if Tim came up with a clever idea and proceeded to fill out the track with whatever came to mind first, rather than truly enhance it.

Hotel California refuses to sort his over-the-top bangers into anything sensible, and without a "Rack City" to make it crossover worthy, this is a full-length to leave for the fans.

Chelsea Grin aren't pushing the boundaries of the genre into any bold new territories, but what they do deliver is a very solid collection of face-smashing songs that will provide plenty of fuel for the mosh pit carnage that's sure to arise after repeated listenings of My Damnation.

Underclass Hero is ingratiating enough as background music—it's hooky enough to have momentum but not enough to linger in the memory—but they've never sounded quite so toothless and it's all down to this increased ambition.

If the band supported his sheets of noise, terrifying guitars, monstrous rhythms, or even a hook every now and then, Durst's narcissism may have been palatable, but the group pretty much churns out the same colorless heavy plod for each song.

Lacking real excitement, verve, or even the stupid type of fun we're used to from him, will.i.am sounds remarkably like his heart isn't in it throughout the record, bored on the job even though it's his job to get the party started.

A Mary Christmas won't likely reach the high status of, say, Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas, but it's a full-effort holiday release that many of her fans should be able to enjoy for several years.

Dark Horse was constructed entirely from the group's standard templates of bleating power ballads and dulled hard rock.

The bedroom numbers like “Make U Feel Alright” with Kango Slim work just as well, balancing polish and pimp attitude with skill, and while the social commentary found on Reality Check is missed, there’s the overall feeling that Juvy isn’t ready or willing to deal with heavy topics at this point.

Unfortunately, the lack of powerful hooks, either in the melodies or riffs, means that all that coloring is on a grayscale, keeping Time of My Life a muted black-and-white exercise in half-hearted soul-searching.

The resulting Curve more or less lives up to its ballpark idiom, and while it may not signal a complete reinvention, it definitely distances itself from the calculated guitar-driven alt-rock that dominated 2009's Burn Burn.

This is the kind of album that appeals primarily to hardcore fans looking for a new spin on the familiar; in other words, this is unlikely to convert EDM listeners to the pleasures of Linkin Park.

Perhaps Derulo has grown as a person since his previous album, but it's hard to call this one a step forward.

The music sometimes coheres on an individual track level, but Screamer pushes buttons too hard. All of its strident hooks and big beat confrontation wind up being exhausting: it sounds like a band screaming at you to pay attention for the better part of a half hour.

Custom Built is odds-and-ends masquerading as a new album, rounding up brand-new cuts and leftovers from Michaels' unheralded pre-Rock of Love 2000s.

The 12 songs on All Things Bright and Beautiful, Owl City's third album, certainly demand the audience's imagination -- or at least their willingness to go along with the world Adam Young dreams up, a cartoonish place where the skies look like alligators, the rivers taste like fruit, and emeralds poke their heads out of every rock.

The repetition hammers home Hinder's stultifying lack of imagination and even that would be excusable if the group had a scintilla of sleaze but like anybody too beholden to their idols, they tread the familiar ground too carefully, winding up as bland by-the-book bad boys.

On the whole, L.A. Divine is a little less consistent than Hold My Home; the band's relentless intensity can get a bit exhausting, while the interludes sprinkled throughout the album feel more distracting than transporting.

No End will not appeal to everyone--especially not all Jarrett fans. But those who've closely observed his processes and evolution will likely embrace it, as will fans of experimental guitar-based rock.

Overall, Black and White Rainbows is an interesting piece of the Bush discography, hinting at a late-era trajectory shift and a reinvigorated spirit for Rossdale and company. While he nurses fresh wounds that have stripped his world of color, at the very least he can still see beauty and hope through the gloom.

The hardcore fans might notice the difference but, apart from those three songs, there's not much reason for them to pick this up because Forever consists of songs they've purchased many times over.

His lyrics and performances are lacking in original thought (sometimes clear thought) and charisma. The power and range of his singing voice are limited to the point where the musicians often sound constricted, and the mix is just as sympathetic, rendering Stéphane Clément's trumpet -- presumably the answer to "We need a Roy Hargrove type" -- close to inaudible.

Along with empty flash like "Something Bad" and "Time of Your Life," they're all part of Thicke's least appealing album.

Messier Objects is a lot of fun for those wanting to explore the Notwist's more experimental side.

Because of the emphasis on brevity and variety (and especially quality), the album's over before you know it and you're left feeling hungry for more Korn.

Shaggy and Sting might not first appear to be an ideal match, but they're both rooted in reggae and are both international stars, so they share a vernacular that helps turn 44/876 into a surprisingly enjoyable pan-international pop album.

This attempt at old-fashioned star-making might have worked if Bria Valente had a smidgeon of star charisma but she's merely a pleasantly breathy crooner, slipping easily into Prince's shimmering quiet storm production.

Har Mar Superstar's never been known for solid full-lengths. He's a song-based artist, and Dark Touches features some of his best singles.

Guilt may be a bad title for a pop-rap album so slick and shallow, the completely ludicrous I Am Hip Hop's Savior was the original plan, suggesting that this project was misguided since early development.

By showcasing the two sides of DeLonge's musical personality, To the Stars does feel like a solo album but it also does feel a bit like a warehouse--a way to clear the decks as he preps for the next great project.

By many measures, Blunt's richest and best collection to date.

Forget the World plays more like a collection of 12"s than a well-tempered album.

The joy and silliness are enough to keep the record out of sleazy Har Mar Superstar territory, but it also means that there is a serious lack of substance on the record.

At times Can't Be Tamed feels perfunctory, getting the job of showing Cyrus is growing up without making her too mature for her still-young fan base and little else.

If the production had been a little more restrained and the band had written a few songs that didn't sound like they were meant to be played by U2 after a couple days spent listening to Top 40 radio, the album might not have been quite the heavy and ponderous thing it is.

Sirens is a step up from their debut.

Stealing of a Nation is a slick, calculated record that misses its target on all accounts.

The constant recycling, along with the quantity and variety of other voices, detract from some of Evans' best, most impassioned performances, which are matched with some solid work from a roster of co-producers that includes Salaam Remi, James Poyser, and DJ Premier.

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

Shame that one-joke ideas like "House Party" get blown out of proportion, and even worse, the healthy helping of filler is obstinate, refusing to fade into the background because of over-the-top performances. 3oh!3 are nothing if not loud and shameless, so if you expect end-to-end excellence from their albums, you've got a lot to learn about cheap thrills.

Uffie’s long-delayed debut looks to be filled with excitement, but rarely has an album sounded so unconcerned.

While the songs are sturdy enough to withstand such gentle rocking, this is a vibe record, the sound of an old pro playing not because it's necessary but because it's fun.

With JACKBOYS 2 delivering nothing to really bite into, all there is to do is chew on it awhile and spit it back out.

The musicians still churn out standard-issue heavy metal thrash à la Metallica to support Chüd's nihilistic pronouncements, usually sung in an enraged howl.

It is stronger all-around than "Supernova," the poor 2001 album that never came out in the States, with the stitches less audible than the average post-humous album. And yet, nothing here comes close to rivaling the best TLC material.

This album ultimately emerges as an erratic project, its highlights spread too thinly to do much good.

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.

For Star Wars freaks, identifying the sources can be amusing, though not many of the cuts are comparable to the artists' best work.

It's painful to hear such floundering work by a performer who listeners know can do better.

Not everything works--Tisdale isn't convincing when she tries to deal in either pain or carnality, but when she sticks to the surface, she makes sure that Guilty Pleasure lives up to its title.

These Thieves do often come off as just another trendy outfit hawking tawdry 20-year time warps, albeit with more streamlined sonics than many.

Some of these songs are familiar, but these arrangements are distinctly Weller's own, and it makes for an effective listen -- maybe not a major effort from the Modfather, but an enjoyable one all the same.

The album is mostly about emotion and expressing emotion, and finding the right driving piano hooks and reverbing guitar chords to enhance such feelings. All of which means that Beyond the Neighbourhood is not particularly extraordinary.

The end result is an album on a shaded, comfortable grayscale, music that's suitably mature yet sidesteps stultifying notions of middlebrow class.

Straying far from home, Tomahawk Technique isn't an awful Sean Paul album, but it is an odd one.

The mostly mid-tempo songs plod along, usually turning to a screeching lead guitar over chunky chording to differentiate the choruses.

Coming from an artist whose personality was at times their entire appeal, Eternal Atake 2's lack of compelling identity makes it even more of a letdown.

The album consists entirely of songs begging for a singer that could give them their own personality, to which Michele and company respond by making every song louder than the last.

Yours Truly doesn't quite match the caliber of the albums in the Sublime discography, but it's a fairly enjoyable spin-off just the same.

Levine and company aren't the focus here, they're the connective tissue on a softly amorphous album that sounds entirely like latter-day Maroon 5 without ever quite seeming to belong to them.

It's a partially successful successor to "Yeah!," following through on some of the overall feel and punch but lacking enough songs to truly bring it across the goal line.

EVOLVE feels very much like the digital zeitgeist of 2017: good intentions aside, its bold, colorful textures elbow aside any notions of introspection or reflection.

Tonally, Beck and Depp don't quite mesh -- Beck's guitar wants to soar, Depp stays earthbound -- and instead of generating something rife with tension or an outright failure, the results are just leaden and dull.

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.

As on their last two LPs, it's heavily reliant on nightclub anthems and will.i.am's throwback rapping, alongside Auto-Tune harmonies and waves of synth

America succeeds in representing its namesake: it's confused, inspirational, and, like Thirty Seconds To Mars circa 2018, at a serious crossroads where the future is uncertain but oddly hopeful.

All in all, it's clear that chart-driven pop circa the second decade of the millennium rarely gets much better than LMFAO on this stand-out album.

Overall, American Heart is pleasant, but lacks some of the rock'n'roll kick and glitz that Boone's stage flipping antics imply; a momentary rush of moonbeam ice cream that leaves a sweet aftertaste, but not much else.

Like many other tracks here, it seems ideally suited for heavy rotation on Radio Disney. The songs tend to have sledgehammer hooks as simple as schoolyard chants, all the better to be bellowed from the backseats of mini-vans across America. There are a few oddities, however.

They seem like a garden-variety hard rock band, one that would have been generic and forgettable in 1974, and one that is generic and forgettable in 2004.