The consequences are not always dull, and Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy is as enjoyable at points as the music it’s clearly drawing from.

If you put Dos on, then do something else that demands more of your attention. You’ll feel better about whatever it is that you’re doing. That’s as ringing of an endorsement as I can muster.

Many of these tracks--indeed some of the most interesting--are more snippets than fully developed destinations. But there are real skills on display here.

As a listener, you pretty much have Eskmo pegged by halfway, and it's disappointing that there aren't any sonic curveballs in the second half.

There’s nothing particular catchy. No song stands out.

A solid 64 minutes of cavernous drumming, propulsive, grating guitars and cotton-mouthed moans.

The problem is that the 11-song album is exactly 10/11ths forgettable.

Picture is an album’s worth of universal feelings spoiled by his compulsion to present them as sordid or literary, to make them clever or allusive or needlessly alliterative

["General Hospital" is] a rare mis-step on a collection of songs that's beautifully judged, possessed of an idiosyncratic melodic logic that few can equal.

The thing is, this isn’t a bad album. But it is so full of mediocre songs--as are most of the albums since the end of GBV--that one has to ask why he just didn’t save up all the great ones and make one really excellent album.

As a relic relief map of an endearing school of Canadian pop weirdness, Swan Lake's first offering is an accomplishment; still, that doesn't make teasing the occasional shining strand out of so much ugliness any less of a chore.

There are many moments here when the good times roll effectively enough, but rarely as well as past Born efforts.

As is often the case, the idea of this partnership ends up being better than the result.

Both musicians are good enough at this genre that Joy is never a total drag (if not quite a Joy either), but also both of them have been better, and Segall has been better this year, so caveat emptor.

The whole of it seems passive and incomplete.

Waves is an album filled with nice touches and sincere sentiment, not much more.

Earth Junk doesn’t sound like anything else in his discography. However, it does betray Hagerty’s encyclopedic knowledge of rock history, which yields some respectful iconic nods and a few bizarre what-ifs.

The results are pretty weird. Which is a good thing.

Jackson’s debut album is not always a success, as Smash’s panoptic detail eventually turns homogeneous.

The Jackson-White reboot casts the song as a swampy, country vamp, and while it isn't a horrible idea in theory, it does feel contrived and a bit of an unnecessary pander. Even with that misstep in mind, though, it's pretty tough not to root for Wanda Jackson and The Party Ain't Over.

TMV’s latest major-label misfire is called The Bedlam in Goliath

While the band's celebrity rose in the wake of national tragedy, Interpol will remind you that it's time to be worried again.

The end result lumps the worst banalities of "indie" music into electronic sounds that, if properly fleshed out, might have been interesting.

As a live recording, it’s severely impressive, and sounds far more like an obsessively premeditated studio creation than anything on Kinski’s last official album.

It’s hard to criticize the Wooden Birds at any length, because their music is so harmless, so unashamedly pretty and honest.

What A Pleasure drips with what so many second-outings lack: promise. If this EP is an indicator, what comes next from these dudes will merit anticipation.

It's a fairly fun album, albeit not one that sticks with you.

For all its veneer of accessible pop, I Love You, It's Cool is too often bereft of good old-fashioned melody--still too often adrift in the clouds of instrumentation,