While nothing on TNT or Standards was as influential as Tortoise's earlier work, those records succeeded largely because they marked new stylistic departures for a group that sounded genuinely excited by that prospect. Too many moments on It's All Around You lack that excitement.

For now, the experience of listening to Magic Chairs is a frustrating one: the sound of a group with one foot remaining in art-pop territory and the other pointed toward an arena-sized sound. Efterklang might pull off either mode, but their occupation of the same space is a source of unwanted friction.

Daughters of Everything is a fine, fun rock ‘n’ roll record that struggles with a gimmick it didn’t really need.

Wild Peace is a work in progress, a document of a band on a very fast track, but still figuring out exactly who and what it is.

El Khatib's voice is good and scrawny, and yelps out Tennessee hiccups just right. But he works too hard at selling the whole show.

There's enough to enjoy here in the murky atmospherics and occasional surges of melody, but Shots can’t be the Ladyhawk album fans were hoping for.

They seem more interested in perfecting what they've already shown they can do better than anyone else.

Mister Pop doesn’t quite measure up even to the first few Clean records from their third return (Modern Rock is an overlooked gem); it feels a bit haphazard at times, the instrumentals don’t need to be there, and Robert Scott’s song isn’t as potent as usual.

While Carlson and company continue to explore new influences (much has been made over the band's recent declaration of affection for Pentangle and Fairport Convention), Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1 sounds to me like a different manifestation of the same sound they've been exploring for some time now.

During these 18 minutes, you can sense a tension between the darker atmosphere and the pop inclinations. That's a combination that's yielded its share of greatness, but the two don't fully merge here.

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.

The result is a lot of chaff and wheat that still need to be separated.

Ultimately Beware’s designation as a "big" record feels arbitrary--it is polished and competent, but at the same time disappointingly bland.

It's not as interesting as it could and probably should be.

As these descriptions should suggest, none of the songs on No Witch grabs you on its own as a standout piece of songwriting. It's less that the instrumentation and tones are structural veneers concealing merely passable songs and more that the record is just one extended riff on a host of roots music styles.

It's just a bit too nice.

There’s charm here, but it’s mostly second-hand, photos from a party you didn’t go to.

It is crowded with guest artists and jostling with stylistic adventures, but its eccentricities have been mostly sanded down to a glossy finish.

It's a record with 20-20 hindsight vision. It perfects the past's mistakes, but misses the fun in making them.

In the format of the double album LP, with over half the songs heading into 10-minute runtimes, he's going to take you on the scenic route through all the pain he's experienced. If only Pearson was as compelling a lyricist as any of the abovementioned figures [Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, and Townes Van Zandt], Last of the Country Gentlemen might have matched the power of his earlier work.

The token swell to storm that has come to characterize the post-rock set seems mailed in here; the build-ups are never ominous, the explosion of guitars never reach the near cacophonous bliss that their heroes so effortlessly visit.

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

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.

Despite their courage for bending genres to the breaking point, this self-titled debut of live hip hop could use a little more reigning in and little less rocking out.

While there are some real successes here, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is extremely inconsistent.

The songs are fun in a fizzy, party-in-a-box, ephemeral way, but nowhere near as interesting as those of similarly structured (part-female, double-guitared, 1960s-inspired) Fresh & Onlys.

He never quite sells us on the necessity of getting into Bobby D.’s head, and only rarely evinces that he’s done so himself. The good news is that the album is strong anyway, more so when unyoked from the underlying concept.

Marred by indie-rock clichés and occasional over-effort, it remains frustrating.