For an album with such a grandiose title, Big Thief’s Double Infinity is bafflingly mediocre — especially since it arrives on the back of a string of good-to-great albums.

Despite a few good moments, this isn’t a record where you feel rewarded by sitting down and sitting through the whole thing. Let’s hope that next time they exercise a little more discipline in putting together a finished record.

There’s not a lot of sand or struggle in these tracks. The vocals never crack. The orchestra never misses a note. .... Only the late album cut “Rust and Steel” has much of a growl in it, and, no coincidence, it’s the track that hits hardest and stays longest. .... It reminds you that even the slickest quiet storm soul needs some fire in it. How about some more of that next time?

The album’s consistent tempo and tone end up making Jellywish feel strangely longer than its concise 34-minute runtime. But, when the band cuts loose a little, such as the lead guitar breaks on “This Was A Gift” and “All the Same Light,” it’s tantalizing to imagine where Jellywish may have ventured given more of a loose rein and a sense of adventure.

Not groundbreaking, but it sounds great. And yet, these time-tested, still electrifying punk rock torch songs have been neutered somewhat here. The performances are professional, perfectly calibrated, even virtuosic.

The second half of Marciology especially drags on. It’s not songs but huge chunks of poetry piled up, heavy on wordplay, with rhyming done nicely, almost perfectly. But not many of the tracks work as songs at all. Mediocre verses from guests only makes the material more sluggish.

Y’Y has its lovely moments, but it wallows sometimes in woo-woo-y mysticism. It’s a bit soft and cushiony, hard edges sanded down to harmless auras.

Compared to its predecessor, Wall of Eyes can’t help but come across as transitional. While there are some undeniably great moments, the overall experience feels a little low-stakes and disappointing.

The album as a whole is more often prone to meander, as if the band gets a little lost in their new terrain, unable, at times, to bring their thought full circle.

It amounts to a frustrating end to a frustrating record, one where some great sounds and ideas aren’t fully worked through into wholly successful songs.

Musically it feels like business as usual, but there’s a spark missing, as if the events of the last few years have pummelled the life out of the band, resulting in a frustratingly uneven record.

Nothing quite so interesting develops; instead, heavy generic riffs create the impression that Dave Grohl may be waiting in the wings to launch into an anthemic chorus. ... This is music that would sound best after the third beer. I hope, though, that Tyler is preparing to offer up some fresh, forward-looking music soon.

Right from the start, it’s the attention to detail in the arrangements — what Frank Zappa used to describe as “eyebrows” — that brings Norm to vivid, radiant life. ... Regardless of how gorgeous it all sounds, sometimes the songwriting does feel a little wanting, as if Shauf has penned a decent verse and chorus, then run out of ideas about how to add another section to take the song to the next level. ... By keeping all the songs to a succinct few minutes, Shauf stymies their potential to evolve into longer, more complex pieces.

It’s not that these songs are bad, just that they sound a lot alike: elegant, chilled, full of foreboding.

The studio can be the bane of a musician’s existence, offering a plethora of ways to work, often to the point of stultifying any interesting end results. This is not necessarily the case with Nace, but it begs the question of what stood between the more interesting work on this album and the pieces which seem to be caught under the inertia of their own weight.

Unfortunately, The Elephant Man’s Bones is a step back for both the artist and the producer. ... A generic Alchemist production makes for a generic Marciano verse. In short, there is no chemistry between The Alchemist and Marciano. ... The Elephant Man’s Bones sparks hope in the middle with “Quantum Leap” and “Bubble Bath” but after that it regresses again into a second rate lounge-y Marciano.

The majority of the first half finds Ejstes at his most melodically direct — including singles “Nattens Sista Strimma Ljus” and “Skövde” — while the second half indulges some questionable studio experimentation.

Given DePlume’s voice is such a strong flavor, Gold’s appeal will no doubt hinge on whether it’s to your taste. I find it fine in small doses, but domineering over the course of a double album. There’s some great music here if you have the patience to cherry-pick the best bits.

With his debut album on Shady Records, Conway the Machine shows that he remains a gifted lyricist and a good storyteller, yet hardly offers anything original.

Overall, its more up-tempo songs aside, Lucifer on the Sofa is a disappointment, offering regrettable evidence that Britt Daniel’s laudable song writing mojo may have gone off the boil.

The Witness is definitely a grower, an elusive listen whose understated charms define its mystique — and also its flaws.

Frustratingly uneven album: hang in there, ride out the bumpy passages, and something lovely is likely to happen; until those moments pop up, expect to have your patience tested.

Despite the intricacy, the provocative joining of primitive and futuristic, you’re left with both too much and too little. The tracks run on for over an hour in their skeletal, restrained way. There’s not so much to think about, and a long time to do it in.

Jónsi plays with orchestral beauty and flirts with pop, and ends up somewhere in between, fascinating and inscrutable.

Sleep on the Wing is quite pleasant, but so soothing and gentle that it’s hard to focus on.

The Mother Stone sounds like a flowering of long gestated creativity but the over gilded lily looms heavy over the bed and smothers the delicacy of his songs. For all the admirable experimentation, the breadth of his vision and the pristine production, Jones takes his leave before an audience overawed and enervated by sensory overload.

When RVG get it right, the results are deeply affecting. ... The weaker moments — “Little Sharky & The White Pointer,” “Prima Donna” and “The Baby & The Bottle” — could easily have been excised for a sharper listen. It’s not that anything here is cringe-inducing, it’s just that because the band’s sound is so straightforward, the songs need a little spark to make them stand out.

While there are plenty of thrilling moments, Dungen Live feels less like a coherent journey and more like channel-surfing between chase sequences and zoned-out psychedelic visuals, steam corkscrewing out of the top of the TV. Each of these flights of fancy probably made perfect sense at the time, as instrumental interludes between the songs, but recontextualizing them in this way has made the playing feel somewhat aimless at times.