Sundown is still considerably boring when compared to the likes of the Kings' first three albums. It's also too long, the back end sacked with faceless mid-tempo songs devoid of hooks that can't compare to the mini-epics up front.

Circus is a saddening step back to her glossy yet unengaging "In the Zone" era, which is a shame.

Lerner’s honesty lasts forty-three minutes, and supplies the predictable yet scrumptious party-time melodies that chase away clouds like a sidekick.

My Everything is so concerned with making a palatable pop singer, it has watered down its subject to the point of tastelessness. It is pop music Bud Light.

Somehow Portamento is snuggled amidst St. Vincent and Braids and Tim Hecker and Colin Stetson on my year-end list.

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

Yttling and Epworth have succeeded in making the Scream enjoyable and vital again, hardly a sure thing after the embarrassment of "Riot City Blues."

Don’t Believe the Truth... probably isn’t Oasis’ nadir (that distinction arguably being due to 2002’s atrocious Heathen Chemistry), but one could be fooled for thinking so.

As such, it is both a strong refutation of every album Weezer has made since "Green" (as it, in its time, seemed to balk at "Pinkerton") and a numbing confirmation of the only available place this band has left: comic shearing, loose plagiarism, three separate solo projects (all of which are balls).

Enough Thunder certainly offers up enough for any Blake fan to both love and hate--and at the end of the day still be entirely unsure of exactly what to hope for.

Apollo is too much, too confusing, and too forgettable.

While the best of it is good enough to promise a fruitful and substantive future, the worst of it suggests that in a few years time, Mr. Mathers may be little beyond a slightly intimidating class clown.

It's an accomplished, knowing work that only seems to have its head in the corner.

If Soul Position intended to craft a wholly direct, musically and lyrically and conceptually simplistic piece of positive rap, like a modern day Arrested Development album, then I think they did that well enough, and I guess I don’t fully appreciate because I’m too caught up in my own gangly mental schematic of what it is that makes good hip-hop good.

What they have done on its proper follow-up is neither lazy nor hollow, merely undefined, making no clear promises on future plans.

"My December" ends up, curiously enough, a pretty freaking fun summer album.

Each time the album so overtly flips over, the same brief blushes of goosebumps, the same visceral highs, the same infectious, clapping percussion: I straight up have a crush on this album.

At their best they write strong, clean, melodic rip-offs of classic British indie rock and at their worst they write weak, clean, melodic rip-offs of classic British indie rock.

Some Loud Thunder is a mixed bag of spectacular material and hodge-podge studio doodles.

Unsurprisingly, the formula still works just fine, and in more than a couple spots, it’s revitalized and intensified to great effect.

We Are Young Money is like a microcosm of Wayne’s career: often frustrating, frequently brilliant, and thoroughly, lovably weird.

I have enough faith in this band to presume they’ll eventually see Only By the Night for what it is, as a fourth album hiccup that fails to play to their strengths.

I think All Delighted People is more fun to talk about than listen to even though I have trouble discerning what it is I'm trying to say.

New axe-slinger or not, I'm With You is a given for this band--at least four songs too long and Rick Rubin's nonchalance leaves everything sounding precisely and consistently the same.

The monolithic nature of the album feels necessary, but like any sustained chord, every other song tends to have less interesting undertones.

An incredibly pretty album with depth and scope.

There’s a brilliant EP lurking somewhere in this record, but Mike Skinner is either too ambitious or too fatigued to rescue it.