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.