Birchard's music is euphoric and in your face--if only he could combine his staggering technique with some true grit.

Bruner has some pretty sweet, vibey chops that he deploys sporadically here. If cultivated, he could deliver that skewed-fusion, weed hazed love letter he's attempted here. In the meantime, best to let him noodle it out on his own.

This is a “nice” album, not a great one. It pleases with clean, intelligent production, thoughtful arrangements, clever, elliptical words.

In a vacuum, it’s a captivating and well-designed experiment. But in this real world where hip-hop is history, where it owns that history, wears it, references it, reflects it, bounces it around, Two Fingers’ record comes off overcooked and overflowing.

By the end of No Wig, it’s hard not to feel like it suffers from the level of simplicity inherent in much of Nosdam's production.

It's a fine album, but after each listen I find myself wishing a little more had happened, that more of the human behind it all might shine through in unexpected ways.

An hour of delicately portentous electronics that are not so much haunting as haunted, each sonic element sneaking upon another and spooking it out.

The Family Sign is mature in its way, soured by age and wisdom, but it's no fun.

Each taken singly can easily be appreciated, as they’re all gorgeous. But Mellow Waves as a whole is ultimately difficult to recall. Cornelius has certainly achieved the waves he was after, but the mellow winds up needing something more.

The wide variation in music and the uneven results (all of it, perhaps, evidence of the record’s conceptual ambitions and smarts) prevent Dose Your Dreams from being a uniformly pleasurable record. But, man, is it full of ideas and aesthetic vitality.

If the joy of the album is tracking Ranaldo through his worldly interests, his hippie mode, his indie-rocking, then the struggle is never feeling at home because the record never quite finds its sweet spot.

'Till Kingdom Come' is really the only song that stands apart from the pack, thanks to its strident guitar leads and orchestral underpinnings. The rest of the tracks, while persuasively put, come and go with an effect that’s distantly brooding at best.

The farther it strays into new territory, the older and duller and more dubious Wilderness Heart sounds.

The main problem with Tarot Sport is that it sometimes seems to be trying too hard, building drama into repetitive riffs by sheer force, urging greater and greater effort on listeners who are already a bit out of breath.

The record’s terminal mission aside, Keith’s latest exploit is one more chance to befuddle insipid rappers and flex his uncalculated argot.

It’s a shame that all of Water Weird isn’t as emotive as its second side. Most of the tracks are head nodders if you’re in the mood for that kind of thing. For anyone seeking something that digs a little deeper, let the second side soothe your inner space.

The key is minor, the tone is melancholy, the concerns are callow, but the leitmotif is redeeming.

Minus ODB, the collective's most charismatic member, and rife with in-group strife, 8 Diagrams is a long way from the hip hop revolution, "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)." It still ain't nothin’ to fuck with.

It coasts at times too comfortably its relative strengths, and it never really generates a significant excitement in its more extended jams.

At its best, you can get lost inside Garden of Delete’s rabbit hole of different directions and unexpected asides, but at other times it’s easy to feel shut-out, as if you’re looking in at someone’s intellectual ADHD, but he’s steadfastly refusing to meet your gaze.

There’s a jump in recording quality, but this isn’t always a boon to this sort music and can be a distraction here.... When they put their harmonies in unexpected setting, it works.

None of this is terrible, but none, also, is as tensely, gloriously obliterating as Coconut’s opening blow.

Here is a pretty, pleasant record; and maybe that would be enough if Teenage Fanclub had never done more, wedding angst and bliss in a way that few other bands ever did. ... Teenage Fanclub seems to have swallowed the Serenity Prayer whole, accepting a lot and changing little, and it’s hard to say whether that’s wisdom or stasis.

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.

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?

As a listening experience it’s akin to viewing a water color painting, its delicate hues no doubt appealing to anyone attuned to such subtlety. But to someone aching for a little more conviction, grit and risk, it may prove frustratingly listless.

On the mic end, MC Naledge has a comfortable flow reminiscent of a more polished Kanye, but his lyrics on The In Crowd are less than remarkable.

It's obvious that most of the songs have been meticulously worked over, and as a listener you're thankful for it, but as an album it feels like the paint has hit the canvas at random.