You won’t hate this record; you won’t be any more capable of hating this record as you would a particularly aesthetically pleasing houseplant. But the record’s greatest achievement is that it’s happy with just not being hated.

Given that the record is so nominally personal and probing, it’s telling that there is not one moment of transcendence, or relief, or acceptance, or melody, or substance.

In all, the languidness of Rules has its own odd charm—since WBA never aspire to be much beyond a wistful dance pop quartet, they don’t fall down the stairs too embarrassingly.

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

As a record standing almost entirely on nostalgia, sure, it gives schmaltzy ’70s dance music a fine, not-sacrilegious update and sets it to a pleasant neon glow, but it’s a trip through history that’s almost more educational than immersive.

Would be much better if it came with an option to turn the vocals off.

While there's nothing wrong with the production displayed on When Fish Ride Bicycles, Inglish laid down the blueprint for supporting this duo so well that the oft busier and more varied work on this outing feels like too much to digest and too much for them to wade through.

There’s other fun songs on The Sun, but nothing that sustains itself as consistently as “Charlotte” and “Numbers.”

Although they have some serviceable indie disco hits, Clor are merely the latest production line band to explore a niche in the market, though their attempt at nerdy, computerised post punk rubs one off as a flawed blend of, of all things, The Downward Spiral and Zwan.

The title Attack & Release implies the best aspects of the Black Keys’ music, all sweat and hurt and sweat and ecstasy, but the album neither gives nor takes, neither emotional nor sweaty but still clammy-handed.

Nothing Hurts ends up being its own worst enemy: it obscures its biggest strengths, choosing not to showcase them but to drown them out in a familiar and uninteresting haze.

Crow’s ego and identity have been largely removed from Living Well’s equation, and in its place are a number of undeviating, short, one-word-title indie rock songs that don’t require an explanation or setup.

Fun and fresh enough on the first couple listens, it remains to be seen whether Vampire Weekend can find long-term favour with the listeners and critics so taken with them at present.

It's a realization in retrospect that occurs too often throughout In Heaven. And in those moments one can't help but be disappointed, hearing Twin Sister such a cut below what they were doing just one short year ago.

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.

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is actually pretty good, and sometimes it’s great, but it is quiet, sounding very much like it sprung from the Internet ether to politely ask for thirty minutes of your attention.

This is the third album in a row where Snaith seems to have devoted most of his effort into submerging his own unique voice deep within the musical persona he's adopted, I just don't really get what I'm supposed to do with it. Like, should we get him some water wings to keep his head above the water?

The songs generally hold up, but the production job remains confounding. Keith Uddin’s meaty fists have ruined this album.

My frustration is simple: not only does the record’s production drag down what could have (probably) been good songs, the band deliberately downplays its two best players, and everything suffers as a consequence.

Nothing is really very exciting here, or very interesting.

As a whole, it's not consistently buoyant enough to be a good pop record, and the politics that weigh down its middle section aren't sharp enough to make it into anything more than a middle section weighed down by some obvious politics.

Unfortunately, too much of Snakes and Arrows is dominated by mid-tempo, lumbering behemoths.

There are songs on Nouns that seemingly defy you to listen, and not because they’re loud or crass or due-heavy on true-dat market-maneuvers and what I guess we can now safely call “aural assault”; and not because of the bad vocals, bunkered mix job, or the hundred and one other things that would make your parents, my professors or Celine Dion hate this album.

Grinderman isn’t angry and it isn’t raw, just a careful concoction of licentiousness and braying disdain ultimately monotonous and unexciting after the first four cuts.

Instead of wrenching free of every single confinement that’s ever been placed around his tiny waist, like he’s pretty much always done, Prince is settling into 3121, accepting the decades of his career as what he should be content in emulating.

Where † crafted sly treasures out of gaudy detritus, single-minded as it may have been, Audio, Video, Disco simply settles for canonizing the forgettable.

Another World desperately labors to keep fans satiated and ends up overburdened, somewhere nicely between all its scattered intentions.

After Drag It Up, their dismal last offering, The Believer is another sign pointing to what may be the wreck of the Old 97s.