Neither funny nor thought-provoking, the band strains for touchstones beyond the technicality of prog-metal and rarely achieves them.

The melodies and production are top-notch, even if, lyrically, the album’s motifs barely move from sullen dismay to cheery dismay.

For all the positive aspects of Creaturesque--most importantly, it really is a consistently interesting and fun listen, which is rare for a record like this--there is one real weakness: Reitherman’s lyrics.

The latest Dashboard Confessional album is extremely front-loaded, it should have been an EP, etc.

As with that last Aphex Twin full-length, The Only She Chapters plays to no one's expectations; gutted and reassembled, it will still unfurl like a disassociated string of insular oddities.

[The title track's] the only track on Disc Two, said to have been influenced by hip-hop mixtapes, and it serves as a microcosm for Working for a Nuclear Free City in general: overstuffed with ideas and ADD to a fault, but never, ever boring.

This is exactly the subjective realm that MAYA taps into: it puts its listeners in a position where opinions are formed in large part by predetermined prejudices. Of course, this is true for most music in general, but what makes MAYA tacitly brilliant is that it forces us to engage with those prejudices in a way that pop music typically does not.

The second album has the more obvious and combustible singles. But there’s nothing on the second album that comes close to the 1-2-3 punch of 'California Goth,' 'Wavves,' and 'Lover.'

It is a step forward for an artist with a wealth of potential and a tremendously moving voice. Should he cease his overzealous grab for stylistic and thematic conventions--or perhaps if he simply learns to cover more ground--there’s a good chance Handsome Furs will reach a level of maturity and sophistication at which their current offering merely hints.

While Mythomania doesn’t necessarily punch its way out of that paper bag, the album does feel more immediate, its melodies are more memorable, and the songs do occasionally allow themselves to become more ragged.

Nurses are a psychedelic freak-folk trio from Portland with ridiculous facial hair. But Apple’s Acre is also very, very good.

For all its flaws and excesses, Cruel Summer is an order of magnitude above the dreck of 808s and Heartbreak (2008), and if it doesn't outshine any of Ye's other solo works, I'd argue that it's a deeper and bolder album than last year's Watch the Throne.

Yes, there could be more new ground broken in this material, but this does not necessarily equate to artistic diffidence.

Throughout Crime Pays Cam wobbles between comfort and rote, often landing on the correct side of that division, but illuminating in the process that the gap between laziness and his brand of lazy brilliance is both a crack in the sidewalk and a yawning canyon.

They’re still far and away the best bet for impeccably produced, beach-ready power-pop, and way better than your shitty sounding power-pop band, so excuse them if they seem to harbor no interest in doing anything else.

Substance-free, without a whit of melody or lyricism or artistry but flouncing about in a post-production fantasia, the album made sounds that sounded like music for people who wanted to like music and have music playing near them but make no investment in the enjoyment of such stuff.

The songs themselves are broad, indifferent things, no relation to the Thing that is this album.

Theater of the Mind is a disappointment and more--snickering through both high-minded social consciousness and insipid cash cows, the album, so flat and fucking boring, serves absolutely no one but Ludacris himself.

For an album so brazenly loud it leaves little impression; as a record supposedly about statements, it makes very few intelligibly. Most inexcusably, it lacks imagination.

Despite somber interludes like the Shatner-only confession of his third wife’s death, “What Have You Done?” or the subtly rich “Together,” Has Been does little to rescue the Priceline spokesman from the novelty bin.

The Most Serene Republic demonstrate plenty of talent in frustratingly short bursts on their debut.

Utilitarian sensibilities typically create better, catchier results, but Little Boots’s producers can’t help flaunting their knob-twiddling abilities, justifying their paychecks while counterintuitively making Hesketh’s music sound all the more amateurish.

A fantastically pedicured amalgam of every side and thing Busdriver thinks he can effectively be.

DeLaughter needs to be more personal; already having a dozen people yelling at you distances the ideas they express, but emptying those ideas of any meaning isn’t the answer.

While not a live album at all, PB & J does indeed live with its own throbbing, messy scariness that demands that the volume be turned all the way up to 11, threatening to eat your brain if you dare leave it lower.

What it lacks is Agaetis’ singularity of purpose, as well as its understanding that atmosphere should be an aesthetic by-product of songcraft and not the other way around.

Eat Skull can be really charming when they want to be, but just as often they seem content to putter around, resulting in enough slack to overwhelm such a short record.

It’s not easy listening; it may in fact be a case in which one needs to add hundred-degree heat before there’s even a chance of excavating something.

There's no doubt that Nothing Fits is a high-pressure, unflagging, and energetic piece of work. But it's also fun, frequently lowbrow, and--to the heathenish--a bit backward.

Fans of Angles should rejoice as Comedown Machine is essentially a refined version of that album’s strengths.

Certain artists’ albums sound like they’re effortless because they’re actually lacking in effort, but Röyksopp’s albums sound effortless because these guys are just that good at turning out great downtempo tunes.

Most of the time, Lysandre as a record feels confused and stifled.

Stephin Merritt, once capable of such subtlety, such beauty in his cynicism, has produced a record that's surprisingly shallow.

It’s the most welcome of dinosaurs: a top to bottom summertime rock album that sounds equally great on a car radio or in teenage bedroom.

There are, of course, a few missteps.... More often, though, the sparse arrangements highlight a resurgent songwriting force.

G I R L is safe, universal, and unforgivably dull. It should be a huge hit.

Its problems are both wide-reaching and acute, an album full of tiny misfired rhymes and shiny-dildo drum hits that add up to what I’ll go ahead and label Jigga’s second worst record, after 2002’s abysmal The Blueprint 2.0.

It's the songs that are swollen, and Rogue Wave will likely remain a moderately successful act whose new album is slept on because its floral solidity isn’t enough to hold up the heft of its length.

On Soft Money undeniable talent finds its nemesis in homogeneity of style and absence of individuality.

Van Pelt is not designing sounds to blow us into a new paradigm, but crafting textures to drawn us in, to subsume, to mesmerize, and perhaps, through a combination of these effects, to softly awe.

Evil Urges furthers the reveal with confident and imaginative strides, now with 100% less burning kitten jokes.

It shows little of Oberst’s usual dramatic flair.

Om certainly absorb religious images from every corner of the Old World with a certain reckless abandon, but despite a wandering path that would find most lost in appropriative disrespect, it all seems to melt effortlessly together into the band's unique tapestry of the void.

If Chopped & Screwed implies that Micachu and the Shapes want to obscure their relation to the still wonderful Jewellery, then this album isn't just difficult and unsatisfying--it's unfortunate.

One of the most cluttered, awkward, and unfocused albums in recent memory.

What you do get is indie prog impeccably performed by musicians at least as talented as Mars Volta but with better taste.

Life Sux is no King of the Beach; if anything it's a minor diversion on which Williams seems to be toying with the idea of slowly toeing into maturity.

Shonen Knife can do a lot of things, but country music apparently isn't one of them. Where some may revel in how they don't fuck with the formula that's persisted over their extensive career, others will reach for fan favorite Let's Knife (1992) or save their money; that economic crisis Yamano maybe sings about is still happening, you know.

Finely wrought themes aside (replete with a careful balance between Darwin the man and the grand ideas he unlocked), it flunks the cohesiveness test, libretto or no, destined to sit forlornly on the shelves of most of the people who sent it to the top 10 of the Billboard electronic list, unplayed and unloved.

The end result is a sound that feels both modern and ancient: the glorious sequence of arpeggios that rounds out "Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor," for example, owes as much to Baroque counterpoint as to progressive rock or synth-pop. And yet, throughout the course of the album, these influences are melded seamlessly into a sound that is unmistakably Krug's own: dour, wistful, and tragic.

Perhaps there will come a moment when Repo suddenly clicks as a beautifully connected opus, but that seems doubtful; for the time being it’s just a frustrating listen, held back by its unnecessarily unconventional explorations.

Sure, they love the album and want more people to know about it: admirable. But c’mon, why not just get rip-roarin’ drunk, bring in a bunch of friends, and make a legendary album of their own.

Even the forecast backlash from fans of the trance era can't dent Barking's relentless enthusiasm, and given the sufficient exposure and time, everyone should be able to party to it. It's just that for an Underworld album it sounds distinctly un-Underworld, and more like someone's asked Smith and Hyde to ghost-write a Now! compilation.

Yes, I love Clipse and the Re-Up Gang, but tough love invariably accompanies true love, so there you have it. The relationship is just on the rocks for now; here’s hoping November is like the honeymoon all over again.

This is the real key to understanding Varshon: it can’t be a truly cynical attempt to recapture former glory because it’s too half-assed.

The songs get by on college rock atmospherics that linger for far too long and for the most part, lack the dynamism and character of even the weakest Decemberists song.

On Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics, Mondanile introduces his voice as an element into his solo music, and in turn takes one step forward and two steps back; though his songs are perfectly adequate, the reference points and production are easier than on any previous Ducktails release, and they suffer for it.

CocoRosie are clearly talented when they keep things focused; fact is, though, that Noah’s Ark is so steeped in its own random, garbled universe that it makes for a frustrating, unrewarding listen.

An entirely pleasant, listenable little soundtrack.

All in all, Push The Heart is an admirable, sometimes striking record from a band with a few of those now in their catalog.

Hard Islands is hardly a wash, just frustratingly short of the sound statement Fake wanted to make.

Björk’s biggest drawback, then, is that while “Holographic Entrypoint” is an enlightening rarity, most of Björk’s fans will find it boring. Very, very boring.

Despite being monstrously homogenous and boring, The Fallen Leaf Pages is too much of a melodic accomplishment to dismiss.

Xuca keeps the listener at a chasmic distance from anything resembling intensity or urgency.

The result is a series of boring romances and half-assed torch songs that drag their feet in a way that’s exhausting to listen to.

Every song seems like it all went through a grime factory conveyor belt, and at the expense of being cohesive, Public Warning grows a bit repetitive.

There’s nothing outstandingly terrible about Seaside Rock, but that’s what ultimately makes it kind of boring.

My problem with the rest of Memphis, then, is simple: it too often falls into retreading thoroughly explored pop without truly making it their own.

To say Yours Truly is stuck in Grandaddy territory isn’t exactly a dig; that band produced four consistently solid records, and it turns out Lytle is as competent on his own as he is with friends

This is essentially the recipe for Coming on Strong: booze, dance, white-boy rap, sleepiness, and a list of influences that spans your favorite records of the last three decades and your favorite hip-hop singles of the last three months.

[Producer] Gil Norton... [has] an enviable track record, but he’s not doing Maxïmo Park any favours with this soft soak finish.

Nightcrawler is the remedy to the collective uncertainty cast by Day I Forgot’s giant shadow of mediocrity: it’s a “solid record” that highlights Yorn’s potential as a songwriter and craftsman, underplays many of his weaknesses, and firmly situates him within the category of Rock Troubadours Who Are Still Worth Paying Attention To.

B.o.B. may be too eager to please at this stage of his career, and Adventures is perhaps too stuffed with ideas and styles to be deemed a true success, but the triumphs fucking reverberate.

It’s hard to parse the band’s ultimate intentions, but there’s no doubt that every note and lyric on this album are in fact intended, and, most importantly, sincere.

It’s refreshing to hear Herren at least trying after the wash that was Preparations (2007) but this new sprawl of a record is one that’s much easier to appreciate and respect than it is to feel.

Share the Joy represents growth for Vivian Girls, though they're not totally there yet.

Wayne's ebullience is too curdled to be all that interesting on its own –- not to mention that he can do so much better.

After the Balls Drop is less than fans-only material; it’s a mostly unlistenable document appealing only to the people who were fortunate enough to be there.

Extra Playful is fun in the worst kind of way and, at times, bad in very fun ways, but as a whole it presents rather discouragingly the attempt of an auteur marooning--perhaps on purpose, but hardly with purpose--as an amateur.

An occasionally pretty but merely competent lite-alt-country, the kind you’d hear ordering a soy latte with a shot of hazelnut.

Surfing does not serve a discussion of any of these things; it is, considering all ephemeral connotations, a side project. And an obnoxious one at that.

It is High Profile rap music. He’s buttoned up here, ready for the cameras, and on occasion, things work ecstatically.

Newcomers to Earlimart will surely be lured in by Mentor Tormentor's seductive and, yes, absolutely frickin' beautiful sound, while longtime fans, depending on their expectations, will either passively embrace the familiarity or pine for some new ideas.

Infinitely better than their last album, and proof that The Manics are now capable of writing pop music that’s neither dull nor pandering.

What makes American Goldwing so disappointing and, frankly, dull is that Blitzen Trapper seems entirely unconcerned with sounding either fresh or interesting.

[50's] rhymes are as stupid as ever.

Vivian Girls have responded in a way I never saw coming. Everything Goes Wrong is, proudly and brilliantly, a long player.

They are a handful of shit, of wan, barely extant songs and feeble musings, of worn gimmickry and careful over-production, aping Sufjan and a dozen others, flung against a cultural brick wall.

Sad that we have to talk about a member of Black Star making an album without a guiding ideal, dull production, and bad lyrics.

Funny, relevant, incisive, compassionate, and even profound-this is the stuff a Great album [is] made of.

Acher’s still a brilliant musician, and Bohm has the capacity to wreak some vicious vocal havoc. But now, fitting into a niche that they once helped epitomize, their record sounds stale.

Who Me? is another quirky entry in Wauters’s unique discography. But it’s also his most honest, delicate effort to date--two good qualities for a musician with so much natural charisma to explore.

What makes Winchester Cathedral stick out amongst their previous works, and make it their best release since Internal Wrangler, is a willingness to explore, albeit briefly, the previously malnourished middle ground between their seemingly two-speed approach.

Beast Moans works far better than anyone should have expected.

Ultimately, Vantage Point will not shock or surprise you with the same exhibitionistic ferocity as their debut but it will engage you with its emotional range and scope.

It’s music so frothy and unsubstantial that you could practically meditate to it: listen to it often enough, and it just kind of floats away, even if you’re blasting it at full volume.

It has more than enough moments to make it a solid album, had Joel Petersen stayed with instrumental electroclash. It’s just that the lyrics are god-awful strands of post-teen angst monotonously spoken with the rhythm.

This album is as fake as Kim’s physique, as vapid as the fashion she flaunts, as undeservedly praised as her entire career.