The songwriting is more refined and consistent yet subtly surprising, and the production is smooth yet punchy.

Venetian Snares is a veritable virtuoso when it comes to drum programming, and as was to be expected, My Love is a Bulldozer is littered with downright slick percussion.

While Wale remains fairly proficient throughout, that clever, memorable wordplay of old is what's most notably absent from this session, and that's a shame.

Ferg regresses lyrically, and pairs his bland rhymes with uninspired production that's hard to sit through. It's not all bad: Ferg still has a knack for writing catchy hooks, and it shows.

A fully realized album filled with beautiful soundscapes and dreamy vocals. It already seems permeated by a certain nostalgia, making it a perfect record to make memories to.

As it stands, it's another tiresome release studded with a few gems.

Machines That Make Civilization Fun is Bigg Jus's best, most well-rounded solo album so far, but it's still a difficult listen that will likely limit the album's appeal to advanced listeners only.

Y2K! certainly isn't a disaster, but it's decidedly inessential, providing some new material for fans of her early singles without revealing any new tricks.

It's an uneven effort by a band that specializes in doing whatever the hell feels right.

Fun and compelling as such high points can be, nothing on this album reaches the strata of the title track.

The sense that this project comes from a place of honesty and respect is clear. Unfortunately, as ever, [Jamie Stewart's] voice remains the double-edged sword that cuts the enjoyment of his work in either a "love it" or "hate it" direction.

It's apparent that Zeffira possesses a terrific balance of style and substance on The Deserters.

Recorded in just ten days, Morning World stands as Teen Daze's most effortless work to date, coming off thoughtful and patient without ever succumbing to the burden of "style."

While Raury makes no secret of his influences, that doesn't mean he lacks his own distinctive style.

As an experiment in open source sharing, j US t misses the mark; instead, Faust have left the listener with an oddly listenable LP.

This Connecticut group's latest recording, the four-song, unplugged effort It Kindly Stopped for Me, makes for a less instantly gratifying record that may take a certain kind of hurt to really understand.

At 16 tracks and a whopping 110-minute runtime, there are some songs that blend into the other, but it's a testament to Goldie's creativity and flexibility as an artist that there's never a single moment on The Journey Man that sounds compromised.

Gallery falls short of living up to what Idle Labor promised, feeling more like a case of the leftovers.

While the band clearly have a penchant for aggressive guitar, shouted choruses and thunderous drums, there are also plenty of subtler moments on S+@dium Rock.

Love & Devotion is a quality departure from solid musicians that should stand as a stark lesson to the armies of artists out there producing dreamy, '80s-inspired synth-pop of lesser quality.

Patient listening toward the end of Pagans is absolutely rewarded.

Ursprung delivers a uniquely modern and experimental album that gently reveals more with each listen.

Free Dimensional is infectiously positive, building off of similar foundations as his previous tracks while boasting a fuller, more dynamic sound.

Had the album dropped in May, it could have complemented the season beautifully. Now, it'll have to settle for cushioning the winter months with its unabashed, bubbly vibes.

Whitmore pulls off a wonderful feat with Radium Death, creating a record that reads like classic Whitmore, but sounds like something gloriously new.

Vieux Loup is an intriguing, layered record.

Generally, The Temple of I & I is another satisfying Thievery Corporation affair.

Beats are enjoyable, ranging from murky piano and trap drums on "Fish n Grits"--despite Travis Scott's painfully sung hook in stark contrast to his killer bars --to absolute winner "Fashion Week," with infectious, sexy vocals laced into the drum line.

While not a particularly daring record, old school Fratellis fans will unquestionably be satisfied with their most consistent release in well over a decade.

Like many slackers with a heart of gold, Fulvimar is full of interesting ideas on this record, but can't seem to put in the work to flesh them all out.

[Percussionist Joshua Van Tassel] and master bassist Bret Higgins give all these songs organic, unfussy rhythms that dig in like the deepest of tree roots and guide this Forest of Arms.

Overall, while it does appear as though Angelides has been bitten by the sophomore album slump, there are some significant moments here that show an artist growing into something bigger and better than ever before.

This record is less about individual musical performances and more about big, uncluttered sound.

Fans of We Are Scientists will appreciate the new direction in crafting a new upbeat dynamic sound, and for new listeners, Megaplex is the perfect introduction to one of the band's most notable releases to date.

At only eight tracks, it's the shortest Smashing Pumpkins full-length and it feels less grandiose than most of their work simply due to that brevity, which makes it harder to measure against their other LPs--although it easily blows the last album out of the water and is more immediately catchy than Zeitgeist.

Many of the tracks, all recorded since 2007, echo the questionable cacophonic splurges of 2008's Skeletal Lamping through to this year's lacklustre Paralytic Stalks. But there are some respites.

Cursive have delivered a highly stylized album with a vivid conceptual storyline that keeps old fans listening while giving new listeners a chance to experience the progression the band have experienced over the last decade.

The accumulation of these sugary notes over the course of 45 minutes can feel somewhat sticky. This a good album, and everyone loves a bit of syrup--but you have to know when to draw the line.

Much of the record plays like a series of short acoustic interludes: pretty, at times insightful, but evanescent more often than not.

The best moments are when all of these elements are working together to make songs both catchy and corrosive, like the propulsive "We've Come So Far" (one of the two tunes recorded in Norway with Serena-Maneesh bandleader Emil Nikolaisen) and the unhinged bass feature, "Straight."

Though things work best when Pierce allows enough space amidst the music for the actual songs to flourish, even the jostling of the overcrowded bits is wonderful and energetic.

It's in these moments--when he's paying attention to melody and songwriting--that Kiss Land demonstrates plenty of promise and tentative steps in the right direction.

There isn't one sound out of place and absolutely no fat; it's just that you can't help wondering whether a weekend away from Berlin drinking mushroom tea with James Holden might help to take it to the next level.

Presented as a new studio album, it only manages to recapture the band's spirit, rather than its soul.

For all these hits, there are more than a few tracks that slide by without making an impression. While Lauber's work often transcends the sum of its competent if unremarkable parts, things can sound a bit rote and unimaginative when they don't.

Forever is essentially a pop record, but while there's no denying that some of these songs in isolation fulfill the catchy promise of that genre, there's just not enough to elevate this above being a decent debut and not much else.

The songs are short and punchy, and nod to the anything-goes attitude that pervaded the jams sessions from which they were born.

While it's surprisingly early in Alt-J's careers to release what is essentially their version of an acoustic album, Relaxer provides a necessary change-up that keeps the band's iconic sound from becoming a caricature of itself.

Over the three-song run of "Alfred's Theme" (which jacks Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette," best known as the theme music to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, to delirious effect), "Tone Deaf," and "Book of Rhymes" (which climaxes with a flurry of DJ Premier scratches), Slim Shady stuffs more rewind-worthy punchlines and flow variations than most rappers will deliver in a whole career. ... Other attempts feel more forced. ... More compelling are the two tracks produced by D.A. Got That Dope.

Unfortunately, Drink More Water 6--the latest iteration of a mixtape series started in 2012--shows little evolution in Makonnen's style, and hints that he may have exhausted the esoteric sound that he pioneered.

Numbers like "Springs" and "NoWayBack," featuring the "good witch/wicked witch" vocals of Berlin Germany's Butterclock, may show that oOoOO is willing to move forward with his music, just not at the destroy-and-rebuild pace that the average ADD-afflicted hipster has grown to crave.

Emerald Forest and the Blackbird is far and away Swallow the Sun's most theatrical release.

Elements of jazz, ragtime, blues, Hawaiian and folk are audible, but there's a consistent sonic thread throughout.

Hearing these two famously unrestricted musicians distil their maximalist instrument vernaculars to primal fits of abstract brutality makes Full Bleed is a fascinatingly insightful record.

It's a release that somehow feels like it has less to prove from a duo not quite overdue for their follow-up to a huge success.

A.I.M. may not be concise, but it's focused and purposeful, a loose collection characterized by sticky-hot swagger, political awareness and, most importantly, urgency.

Because the Internet is a vast improvement over his debut effort, showcasing an artist who has confidently found a way to coalesce his love for music and films into one hybrid effort.

Scott's hedonistic lyrics about sex and drugs remain awfully vapid for what's been billed as a trap masterpiece (the utterly banal "SDP Interlude" takes the cake). ... Scott's strength, of course, continues to lie in his ear for beats, with part of his appeal being his ability to make songs with less than rewarding subject matter still sound cool.

For an indie record, the sound of We Loved Her Dearly works nicely, but Lowell's ambitions--and her songwriting chops--are at another level, and better production would make them more emphatic.

At times, the album sounds a maybe little too polished, but the energy and stereo movement in songs like "Do We All Feel It" and "Disco Night Driver" sound like they would translate better live than in studio, anyway.

The End of That has more outstanding moments than La La Land, but whether those highlights are enough to neutralize Plants and Animals' weakness for occasionally derivative kitsch depends on how much their fans are willing to overlook.

That's Why God Made the Radio is the dad-rock album of the year.

While it can be hard not to yearn for more massive and cathartic songs like "Reflection," Light We Made is still a quality effort, even if it's an adjustment.

If U2 was ever cool or exciting, that spark has been absent for a good 20 years, and with Songs of Innocence, they've never sounded so ordinary or cloying.

There's a subtle audaciousness to My God is Blue that pulls the listener in; it's almost like Sébastien Tellier is channelling a gloomy saviour.

Stephens fronts the group with aplomb, with her Joni Mitchell-esque vocals floating through the album's 11 tracks like smoke from a campfire.

Diver completes Lemonade's transformation from jerky, banger makers into wistful, all-encompassing pop sophisticates. That it was done so flawlessly makes it such a triumph on their part.

As with earlier releases, This River is a seamless mix of Southern soul, rock, funk and blues.

There are enough unexpected moments--a nice peppering of saxophone, the gospel choir on "I Like It In the Dark" and the velvety hum of closing ballad "Un Chant D'Amour--to distinguish this as the best album yet by these sunglasses-at-night-wearing rockers.

Off the Record may be dated in some respects, but it still sounds like it's aimed at the future.

Condon is at the heart of each song, so while a hopeful tone is central to both the music and lyrics, No No No is a portrait of a man putting on a brave face while piecing his life back together, and it's all the more engaging for it.

The result is a better-than-most modern pop record filtered through an indie aesthetic that nevertheless lacks the forward-thinking drive of the best of either genres.

It's really Schnauss's choice of drum sounds and patterns that prevent A Long Way to Fall from sounding like a toothless ambient piece.

By creating longer songs that echo the hypnotic nature of house, the band draw listeners into the feeling of the beats and bass that anchor Nagano's melodies. In doing so, Little Dragon succeed in giving listeners a taste of the dance world they've entered into, in all its myriad forms.

Barragán is not an album determined to grab you in one listen; it's a "grower," as they say, but once it grows, it's apparent there's no shortage of baroque delights to discover on this veteran band's ninth album.

As it stands, the album is a half-baked effort that resembles a collection of demos rather than a high-stakes sophomore album.

The result, while a bit surprising, is entirely satisfying.

Red Night (helmed by UK pop producer Richard X) is a foot-moving triumph of ennui, minor chords and warped FX.

The album is ridiculously fun and surprising, in that it sounds like much older UK electronic rooted in the present. What's quite out of place though are the distinctly lagging tracks that dawdle across the album.

[Song One is] the album's crowning achievement and yet, at under two minutes, it's gone all too soon, a bittersweet reminder of the album that Nightstand could have been had Abbott built on this blueprint instead of sticking with a well-worn sound.

On Generation RX, Good Charlotte regain their connection with the Youth they claimed to be an Authority on by speaking to them, not at them. Funnily enough, focusing on darkness and dealing with it has provided them with a light to chase and pushed the gleam at the end of their tunnel farther into the distance.

Vast and breathtaking, RIITIIR is simply stellar.

Three's high points come when some of the pop veneer is pulled back to let more raw, real feeling through. Overall, it's a solid record that should draw a wider audience to Phantogram's music.

For what it's worth, we know Eminem is an incredible lyricist. We know he has punch lines that can pierce your mind and make you laugh. But what we don't know is whether or not he has anything real to say, and to his detriment, Music to Be Murdered By puts that in the spotlight.

Fortunately, with The Battle at Garden's Gate, they've earned more ground by delivering an album that's far more confident, earning the rock schlock with larger compositions that feel more grandiose.

Sadly, today there's nothing to distinguish Lowery and co. from scores of other unfocused bands trying to combine too many disparate elements.

Portions of SPARK may be too slick for its own good, as basic lovelorn lyrics that fill songs like "BACK THEN" ("Blue skies don't feel so wrong / Those times have come and gone") and the back end's more drippy melodies ("HEART WILL BEAT") go down a bit too easily. But on SPARK, Whitney prove themselves to be in the indie rock game for the long run, even if they've outgrown the type of indie rock that birthed them.

In nearly every case, the remix version does justice to the original while taking the track to a completely different place sonically.

On Hot Hot Heat, the quartet jettison stylistic pretensions altogether in order to write their best batch of songs in a decade. There's a sense of nostalgia that permeates these ten tracks.

The Road: Part II is doubling down at its finest. The sixth studio album from UNKLE is nothing short of a musical odyssey, and takes special care to bring back the prestige of the playlist. Split into two acts, Lavelle masterfully builds a beginning, middle and end to each section, moving "from light to dark, from brute force to tenderness" in a way that documents the highs and lows of being out on the road.

"Big Bank" and "Today" are two of a handful of songs plagued by lazy flows and bars, the former rife with braggadocio duds like "I be on that Little Caesar's shit, hot and ready." Still, Black's raw pen game and unabashed authenticity show promise; he just needs to heed his own words.

The indecisive saga of Soulfly continues: sometimes their albums are quite good, sometimes quite bad and sometimes, like this one, they're just in between, not leaving much of an impression at all.

Head Carrier sounds far more restrained and lifeless than it should be.

Ab-Soul is more successful when he mines his own sorrow.

Dictator is a strong release that touches on a lot of the elements of System of A Down's final albums without too many of the quirky moments from those records. Still, it comes across as the comeback record that could have been huge but never happened.

There is not enough energy here for one to latch onto and so the EP passes uneventfully.