Time to Die doesn’t seem to strive for anything, so it settles into being a pleasant little pop record, boring and bereft of character.

The problem this time out isn’t a lack of interesting material, it’s that these aren’t lyrics, these aren’t songs, these are for the most part spoken word stories backed by some of the most horrific and baroque music ever recorded.

Where Live From Rome really falls off, though, is the production.

MPLSound appeals to nostalgia both implicitly (a reminder of the reasons for our adoration) and explicitly (the album sounds good because it sounds like Sign O’ The Times).

When the Deer Wore Blue feels like a safe record. As they play this record too close to the chest songs blend together, needless repetition pervades, and most of the record's latter half is undistinguished.

One could dwell on the poetics of Vermont’s lyrics if they were more understandable; despite a high-flying voice, she enunciates with a marble-mouth worthy of Michael Stipe. Even Bejar isn’t invulnerable here, tacking on guitar solos to cover holes in the songwriting walls.

I am...amused. But it's sort of like the horrific fascination of seeing a train wreck.

Jet Lag is a confident, mature, fully-realized record, and much denser than it lets on.

Granted, thanks to the kind of company Mr. Combs’ platinum chain reels in, almost half of these tracks have some modest amount of entertainment value to them, but all the Just Blazes and Rich Harrisons and Big Bois and Pharoahes and Kanyes and Nasirs in the world can’t cover the Proactiv-shiny mug up front, the shifty but proudly brand-name-not-person-name emblazoned on the border, the voice that bumbles through every song.

Tasteless Rolling Stones apers rip off an entire decade of rock music.

Dent May has a firm grasp on his ukulele, debuting his skill through an adept, kitschy, brief, and rarely but sometimes resplendent album, but he’s still forevermore a novelty.

Though the thesis of this remix album restricts remixers to only one album, the remixers limit themselves further, and seem afraid to do too much more than reaffirm certain dance touchstones already done away with by Weber himself. They've missed the sanctity for the structure.

Maddeningly diffuse at best, and an engorged sonic clusterfuck at worst.

Mostly, though, Flowers just feels like a breather album after the last two, a typical Joan of Arc album wholly trapped in the moment of creation.

It regresses to the essence of an increasingly stale sound with a series of second-rate tracks and bored performances. This is co-option at its base; you were a few years too early, Nick.

Problem is, In Space isn’t a Big Star album. Or particularly good, for that matter.

As a summer stopgap for their new full-length this fall, Friends. works fine. The title track is quality, plus their fanbase eats this shit up.

LotusFlow3r achieves nothing so much as reliving the glory and joy of emulation, which is saddened by the image of Prince nudging our shoulders, urging us to relive with him.

The point being that this album isn’t “terrible,” just sort of dull and boring.

It wants to be danceable, sexy, and a defiant response to the media shitstorm. It's not even that danceable.

Minor quibbles are easy to overlook on a record that is, the majority of the time, flawlessly executed.

This is as fully realized an example of the Friedberger vision that exists, which is why it’s so frustrating that Winter Women never really gets off the ground, or that Holy Ghost wallows in its creator’s own pique.

You wanna hear a mediocre hip hop album with a few decent songs? That’s the T.I. I’ve come to know and love.

Every track on this record grows into some such perfectly orchestrated climax, surging as a function of the production alone and with nary a hook or clever turn of phrase or structural complication in sight.

Sadly, the only true victories on Dumb Luck are Tamborello's own title track and Oberst's "Breakfast in Bed."

I have the distinct feeling I’ve heard most of the songs on this album before. Nothing here is particularly original, and nothing moves me in the way that Gough’s earlier work so did.

Earnestness is so damningly difficult to nail down, but Fink and his cohorts come as close as anything this year, displaying an aptness for cloying love songs minus the puppy dog eyes.

The record's understandable missteps are minor in comparison to its joyful evocations, and though Lindstrøm seems to be attempting to approach new territory, he does it in considerate measures and comes away with something that still makes perfect sense.