Though Milian often comes off as a third-rate Beyoncé, her feathery soprano captivates when her lyrics do not.

"Word of Mouf" never quite meets the standard 'Cris set for himself with his debut.

The set is somewhat of a shambolic affair, wherein kernels of good ideas get blown out, jumbled up or lost in execution.

It's still a mess, though an ambitious and grandiose one.

"Run the Road 2" does not live up to its crack predecessor, but that observation is neither a surprise nor a slam. [18 Feb 2006]

Finds the duo, well, pushing too many of the same buttons.

Here, T.I. shows he can still dominate a song given quality production (Just Blaze, DJ Toomp), but the album does little to build on what we have heard before. [1 Apr 2006]

Think of a visit to Nana's house reimagined as alt-Broadway musical theater. [29 Oct 2005]

while the first single, 'All You Did Was Save My Life,' provides some much-needed bite, "Burn Burn" is ultimately ballad-heavy and one-dimensional.

It's about average for albums from Prince proteges.

Power ballad 'What If' reveals that Tisdale can deliver the radio-ready goods, and 'Tell Me Lies' is convincingly spunky. But the rest of the material, as racy as it sometimes is, doesn't give the singer room to comfortably let loose.

Familiar, yes, but not unwelcome. [1 Oct 2005]

Try as the trio might to inform its '80s pastiche with an extra degree of menace, the disc ends up sounding like the same old Trans Am: part Rush, part "Miami Vice" soundtrack and part pranksters just taking the piss.

It often feels sluggish despite itself, and his lyrics show him riding against the same old Michigan wind with a voice that's grown haggard and curmudgeonly with time.

One can't help but think that by scaling back their ambitions, the Foos could have made one great album instead of two average ones.

Has its moments, but it comes across as a baby step forward.

The group seems incapable of integrating these traits into something new. It's either Morello re-writing his old licks for bash-and-thud Rage-style rawk or Cornell's more straightforward tension/release confessionals.

"Lucky" kicks off the proceedings; it's a buoyant, blistering winner of a song. Unfortunately, the track is also one of the disc's few high points.

Here, there are moments when he entertains us and other times when he doesn't.

Free Somehow, which marks the debut of new-ish guitarist Jimmy Herring, is no less of a tease, boasting three or four memorable songs (none mightier than 'Airplane') and the rest serviceable filler.

The band's writing stagnates, rendering the majority of the album in a rote midtempo formula that Stipe's increasingly trite lyrics can't always save.

Party Intellectuals contains enough noise and/or dead space to ruin the flow of many an iPod shuffle, but experimental jazz or avant-garde fans should find enough here to sink their teeth into.

Linkin Park's ambitions are nearly palpable, but songs likely conceived as homages end up sounding too close to their sources. [26 May 2007]

Unfortunately, for all the hype surrounding "Restless," Xzibit has lost some of the lyrical ferociousness that made his previous releases underground favorites.

There's an odd allegiance to the overblown prog-rock theatrics of Rush... and Yes... that seems incongruous alongside earnest Beatles homages... and straight-up, gloom-rock confessionals.

All the elements for a smart, catchy dance-rock album seem to be in place, but the final product still remains slightly unstructured and rehashed.

While Dulli's bitter, drunken voice remains front and center, the backup vocals and orchestras nearly make the songs sound like a parody, marrying a beast to a beauty.

What this channel lacks is true feeling and originality.

Songs such as the Rodney Jerkins-produced "Make It Last Forever" and "Get Up"... are surefire club hits, although such ballads as "It's Over" tend to fall flat. [9 Dec 2006]

The deafening dialectics often feel contrived, making Test Icicles sound like a fun "project," not a real band. [28 Jan 2006]

Many of Angel's midtempo tracks, while well-intentioned, fail to reach the lofty heights to which they aspire.

The band seems oddly restrained and processed through much of the album's 12 numbers.

The album doesn't really push the creative envelope and relies too heavily on guests at the expense of the principal artist. [15 Apr 2006]

Nostradamus isn't likely to surprise you--this is softcore for the hardcore.

This album is calm and relaxing almost to a fault. [26 Nov 2005]

"Revolverlution" may be little more than a curious career capper, but at least the never risk-averse Public Enemy seems to understand that even failure can be your friend if it ultimately helps you move forward and stay fresh.

Now in his 30s, he doesn't surf the beat so much as box with it, with both brutality and no small degree of grace. That a rapper of this much verbal gymnastic ability is still making Perez Hilton cracks is too bad, but the bigger problem is that Eminem's recipe of gore and gay jokes sounds like the past.

Aside from a few unique moments ("The Return," "Take Me Away"), there's not much new to report here.

Film-specific songs like "Make No Sense at All" and "Call the Law" fall flat out of context.

Though the album grows stronger as it lurches on, the trio's pursuit of bombast leaves the killer melodies lost in outer space.

Once again, the results feel too spotty.

[An] uneven set.

"Born" loses its focus amid unabashed nods to Burt Bacharach and songs that are just not done yet, despite smart tempo changes and pretty melodies.

Primarily lackluster.

Though a floundering economy, bombed-out GOP and a season or two of corporate bailouts have provided them with a fat barrel of fish to shoot, this rap-rock hybrid simmers instead of seethes, never quite mustering the blood-boiling rage of its principals' previous material.

"Per Second..." finds Wheat in the midst of an identity crisis, attempting to balance largely superb songs with an exasperating presentation.

Sometimes it's good bizarre. Other times it's bad bizarre.

Missteps more than it hits.

Seem[s] like a missed opportunity.

What has become increasingly clear is that Devendra Banhart needs an editor.

Most of The Block is a reasonable enough approximation of faceless club pop, complete with standard-issue guest stars (the Pussycat Dolls, Timbaland) and out-of-left-field rap bridges.

This new set fills in the spaces with sweeter, fuller arrangements, but the songs are hit and miss.

There are only a couple of songs with enough impact to avoid boring people who catch the band on tour this summer. [9 Jun 2007]

It's defiant like a bad drunk, uncomfortably oversexed and more at home in a seedy after-hours club than a celebrity ultra-lounge.

Songs like "Do You Remember" and "Wasting My Time" are tolerable but don't require repeated listening.

Too often Santana sounds like a guest on his own show.

While by no means disastrous musically, it's a pale imitation of much better Stereolab albums, and in the end altogether dispensable.

Despite having nowhere to go lyrically, he remains a remarkably potent presence.

It's still hard to tell if he's a bluesman in a soft-rocker's body or vice versa, and "Continuum" is the sound of him trying to figure it out too.

An erratic mix of messy ambition and indifferent sloppiness that sounds like it's falling apart even before it really has a chance to get it together. [11 Feb 2006]

It's a shame that the end result, the first under the Queen name in 13 years, is not very memorable.

The constant talk of expensive cars, gyrating women and endless parties quickly becomes redundant--and boring.

Volume and snappy nods to '70s arena rock cannot obscure empty angst and lazy rhymes.

A largely frustrating set of Saturday morning cartoon electronics.

An uneven and ultimately unsatisfying return.

The album is, while not terrible, not very memorable, either.

Yet for all the headphone-worthy sounds, the pace seldom rises above a back-porch feel and, at times, the stickers meant for customizing the cover seem like more fun than the music.

Aside from grand moments like "All Hands on Deck - Part 1: Raise the Sail" and the orchestral wall that builds on "The Sweetest Wave," you don't get the feeling that a continuous story binds the album together.

These songs simply don't stack up to their predecessors.

The group has abruptly cashed in a good deal of its personality for an unflattering, generic modern-rock sound.

The band tries to stretch but trips over its own convictions.

"The Good, the Bad and the Queen" seems to be waiting for a payoff that never materializes.

Things start out strong... [But] the rest of the material is basically an easy-listening version of the band, with vocals weak enough to be distracting and an over-reliance on multilayered, kitchen sink production. [20 Aug 2005]

It is hard to hear much difference between each cut. [24 Sep 2005]

It simply isn't his best work.

The music fails to gain any momentum until track seven, and by then, Train's lucky the listener's still spinning the CD.

Despite hitmaker Linda Perry co-writing half of the album's original tracks, something is missing.

Aside from a few catchy club tracks, there is nothing all that exciting about Chingy's third album.

If crude tales of incest, child abuse, drug abuse and just about every other type of abuse are your thing, then... "Hannicap Circus" is for you.

Taking no risks, "Nightcrawler" shows little growth and makes one wish for the morning after.

Beyond a few faster songs ("Paper Jesus," "Falling"), the album gets lost in its own blandness. [13 Aug 2005]

Overall, worth a spin or two, but one hopes there's a better stash left to sample. [16 Dec 2006]

Snow Patrol suddenly sounds like a cross between Goo Goo Dolls and Train.

He talks about the fire he used to possess without rekindling those flames.

Barenaked Ladies play it straight with mixed results...

Paint-by-number grooves, coupled with nonexistent hooks and forgettable melodies, do not result in an album that requires repeated plays; that is unfortunate, since a few Timbaland-produced tracks demand just that.

16 songs of stalwart Stones riffs that almost compensate for generally embarrassing lyrics. [10 Sep 2005]

This song-by-song re-creation of Judy Garland's iconic 1961 Carnegie Hall performance, staged there by Rufus Wainwright in 2006, seems better-suited to a cabaret act.

An uneven collection of synthesized experimentation that relies too heavily on familiar and cliched electronic tricks to sound original.

A gigantic step backward.

While there's not necessarily a bad song to be found, Gough is capable of much more than the pretty yet bland compositions that dominate "One Plus One."

Too often his songs fail to captivate beyond a curiosity factor.

Live has settled too comfortably into the skin of a middle-of-the-road rock act. [17 Jun 2006]

"The Return of Dr. Octagon" suffers from the classic case of "too little, too late."

Things hover uneasily somewhere between wholesale reinvention and mere superstar vanity project. [28 Oct 2006]

Appears and sounds more like a work-in-progress than a finished disc.

In a live setting, Oasis are too often just another band churning out big, bad anthems for the masses.... it remains troubling that a band with so much quality material buried as b-sides or minor album cuts needs to resort to pointless, set-padding covers of Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My," and the Beatles' "Helter Skelter."

Even the few noteworthy moments are lost in the banality of the music. [15 Oct 2005]