Copper Gone is definitely a high point in Sage Francis's already significant career.

Weezer have had their share of ups and downs over the years, but Pacific Daydream finds them at their most clunky yet.

C,XOXO isn't a bad album, particularly when stacked against the imagined disaster it could've been. The problem is that it sounds like it's been purchased from other talents rather than being curated and homegrown by Cabello and her team. You gotta hand it to her for trying though, even more so for the fact that it nearly, just nearly, works.

Caveman have followed-up CoCo Beware with a solid effort that retains some of the looseness of their debut. However, with the added label pressure, that looseness sometimes feels forced.

As a standalone product, Vroom Vroom only offers a scattershot glimpse at what these two might be able to accomplish.

This LP is pure Dandy Warhols, saturated with Courtney Taylor-Taylor's moody, drawled vocals, wailing guitars and introspective, oddball lyricism.

While mere scribblings from a musical genius can often still trump the best efforts of many, this is not the case here.

He sets ideas down, leaves them to move about, interact and then finally imposes his considerable intuition for the dance floor to form a convincing sonic drama.

Granted, many of these songs were written while members of the band were between the ages of 16 and 18, but it might have been a better idea to hold off on the release of Be Slowly to hone their songwriting skills and define their sound a little more.

Overall, the album doesn't have a lot of replay value besides a few stand-out songs like the Drake-featuring "Oh U Went" and "Went Thru It," which is led mainly by the strength of Metro Boomin's production.

Al Jourgensen's signature vocal bark remains unchanged, but things have slowed down musically. Fans of Ministry's lightning-fast thrash moments will be disappointed by the record's grinding pace.

The production is competent, yet very derivative for 2014, appearing stuck between ornately symphonic leftfield pop and Timberlake-brand R&B.

Lift Your Spirit is rather formulaic from that standpoint--not as spicy or daring as past efforts--but it's folksy, soulful, and groovy enough to catch your attention.

Team Ghost and Fromageau have a number of good ideas, but the band's biggest downfall stems from the fact that they sometimes condense too many of these ideas into too small a space.

As a whole, Yours To Discover lives up to its name; it's an opportunity for fans to hear a different side of Sebastien Grainger, one more relaxed than frantic, more interested in forging a new path than rehashing old memories.

The instrumentals on ye capture the essence of its marquee artist--the contradictions, the abrasive sudden shifts in tone, the blistering flaws and the bounty of positive potential. If West had better delved into his emotional and psychological turmoil in ye's lyrics, instead of getting bogged down with click-baity asides, then this LP would've been a classic.

The tightly coiled rhythms and ominous moods show influences from trap to dubstep, but with around 10 years of mixtapes, remixes and other projects under his belt, the individual influences have long-simmered for a fine blend.

Experience neither recaptures past glories nor forges a new way forward, and while it's better than its predecessor, it nevertheless captures the sound of a legacy rock band stuck in neutral.

Krivchenia has absconded with sounds traditionally associated with beauty, applied his twisted genius, and the result is A New Found Relaxation.

The Calgary-born singer and songwriter showcases an even wider palette on her debut full-length, Sound Of A Woman.

Golden is bereft of relative stinkers, but there's little to bring listeners back.

The best of this record comes early, with opening tracks "Burn Baby," "Fighting the Crave" and "Proto Prototype." ... Scatter the Rats falters as it gets closer to its middle. ... The record picks back up in earnest with some of the final tracks.

At over an hour in length, Teenage Emotions is more quantity than quality.

The mixtape format may excuse the lack of sonic cohesion for the project, but it does not explain the faltering artistic direction that is more than likely to leave Yachty's fans disoriented and disenchanted.

While most of these tunes have been floating around the Internet for the past few years, it's still nice to hear them on an LP that functions as a cohesive record, even if it wasn't designed that way.

Macy Gray is back, easily delivering on expectations.

In adding back into the mix that layer of unpredictability that's served him so well, the EP adds yet enough layer of complexity to an already diverse discography--while placing a few more musical bullets in the chamber for the next world tour.

It makes in confident swagger what it lacks in memorable hooks, but at 19 tracks, it's too imbalanced and stuffed to be considered a classic.

With so many loose threads, JACKBOYS isn't the compilation album one would hope for — instead, it seems rushed and put together to make a year-end release.

California plays out less like an album and more like a collection of songs; uneven and disjointed, it's hard to take in as one larger whole.

At their best, the Men imbued borrowed styles with urgency and fervor. Drift attempts to conjure the same spirit, but it's too divided and derivative to be vital.

Spring certainly isn't the worst Weezer album (don't worry, Pacific Daydream, that title still belongs to you!), but it's frustrating to hear them sabotaging their own songs in a futile attempt to pin down the sound of a season. So far, SZNZ feels less like a lofty concept and more like silly gimmick.

Dahlia's a talented artist, but though the album aims high, it runs out of steam landing in the realm of just okay.

Strait is doing what most contemporary country artists shy away from, which is successfully bring back the real deal. He is effectively and triumphantly making traditional country music cool again.

Sometimes the way Nash has structured the songs becomes hard to follow, or downright abrasive, as heard in the vocal changes in "California Poppies." Yet there is always a feeling of purpose dictating the clear vision behind "ugly" moments.

Given that the chillwave craze only lasted a year or two, this is another solid outing from an artist who has turned a flash-in-the-pan trend into a deep discography.

While fans of the show will certainly get extra layers of inference out of Dethalbum III, the most amazing thing about it is, all on its own, it stands as a hilarious and skilful example of the genre.

While continuing to work in the box they've created for themselves, Yuck come across as far more amorphous than many first thought while still making an album that delivers on the promise of their shambolic debut.

While Bell boasted that The Industrialist is "Demanufacture-plus," it's not quite. However, at certain times, it does come pretty close.

The songs on Empire are still short, and while they retain the sunny aesthetic of Explore, they reveal a more motivated and confident Park.

The words only hint at the true meaning of the piece; it is an experience that needs to play out in a linear fashion, felt and absorbed through multiple senses.

It's a disorienting, manic, ambitious psychedelic statement filled with constant twists and turns, and this is both its biggest strength and most notable weakness.

Throughout the record, Marley demonstrates that reggae can grow and adapt without losing sight of its roots.

Despite her great pipes however, the band's arrangements make much of Born of the Sun feel like amateur hour at Medieval Times. A talented producer would be able to focus on McCarthy's strong voice and balance some of the band's more freewheeling tendencies.

There's a thin line between owning up to the voracious hunger needed to reach a new level of fulfillment and being trapped by the desperation to regain a title that is no longer his. Ludaversal finds itself somewhere in between.

Wiesenfeld's hazy side project is nice, but it would fare better if he punched it up slightly-- for active listening

On Pentagram, Gui Boratto seems uninspired, but worse, unsure of what made his music so inventive in the first place.

Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites comes off as if it was created to serve Kozelek more than to stimulate the listener, making the no-frills, stripped-down set easy to fall for to but tough to return to.

Rubberband has been executed with genuine respect for the artist. There's enough greatness here to justify the effort. Even if we hope this doesn't launch a new kind of re-bop craze, it's still great to press play on another Miles Davis album.

Aforementioned moments of experimentation show a continued development of Future's "Hendrix" alter ego, but there's something to be said for getting to know him over a longer runtime.

It's executed incredibly well for what it is, but what we're left with is ugly, soulless and emotionally bankrupt.

Beneath the Skin is too humdrum to garner any new acolytes.

While the album is far from his best work (the disjointed opening track is a strong first clue), it still merits a listen.

Lovers Rock reflects the Dears' identity as a band, illustrating their development, both lyrically and musically, by intertwining a sense of being down in the dumps with intricate, euphonious melodies.

Beaus$Eros yields some positive results while laying the foundation for some interesting future projects.

This one is cohesive and feels like a band affair, feels like an album, feels like it has the chemistry Velvet Revolver frustratingly didn't quite have but a certain other band had once upon a time when Slash was in that crew.

Living Fields is rich in its intimacy, enrobed in an ambiance that feels like a continuous pull towards a soundscape designed for dreams.

Though the fanfare surrounding the band may have dwindled slightly, the heartfelt emotion they deliver has not.

The band has framed Get Hurt as a shift in its Springsteen-meets-Replacements sound, but they're overselling things a tad: only a couple of songs, like the title track, truly feel all that different from their last couple of records.

All Visible Objects is a welcome addition and one that offers a little bit of everything to everyone.

Khaled goes through his hip-hop Rolodex yet again and compiles a strong collection of MCs and producers to add some shine to his latest musical collage.

Green's harder edge and presence as a musician can be heard lyrically, although her soft vocals fall flat, shrouded by a sea of synthesized blips and bleeps from the ubiquitous drum sounds.

Though his skill is absolutely unmatched, homophobic references and overly misogynistic bars in 2018 do feel excessively out of touch. It's not his best or his worst--but, it's definitely what fans deserved eight months ago.

WALLS sounds safe and comfortable. The songs coast along with a mellow fluidity that serves to establish a decidedly mature, if complacent, sound.

Though it features no straightforward pop songs, MGMT finds VanWyngarden and Goldwasser having a great deal of fun creating exactly the kind of eclectic, weird music they want to.

While there's room to reflect on things like dynamics and vocal mixing (Perry's ancient cackle sometimes gets blurred, patios aside), and while Perry is one of the best mixologists in history, Must Be Free is not his best.

Spread over 12 songs, Del Rey becomes so ordinary, even bland, that no amount of little girl vocals or pouting can save her.

The entire premise of the album is entirely playful, defined by its because-I-can nature, and while this might not result in a unified feel, it's nonetheless an enjoyable and eclectic experience.

All is Illusory sounds like the band are finally settling down.

This new record still finds them wavering. By not taking a side, they fall flat in the middle.

While this album isn't likely to draw in a lot of new listeners, it's a well-crafted record that provides a fresh soundtrack of ultra heavy, doom-based brutality.

Versing have an aptitude for taking the familiar sounds of earlier genres and developing them into something fresh. 10000 is bold and jarring when it needs to be, filling space with ubiquitous noise and melody.

There's an overemphasis on influences here that makes Stranger Things more recognizably likeable than imaginative.

Although Bieber created a decent body of work, it's hard to get past that the sentiments of the overall message is skewed by the lack of effort towards creating music that addresses any sort of justice or lack thereof.

Haiku From Zero is another strong effort by a band that continue to celebrate the power of dance music, but as closer "Tied to the Weather" demonstrates, they aren't opposed to feeling the comedown effects, either.

While Funeral isn't necessarily a flop, the album would have ranked higher in Lil Wayne's discography had he cut the tracklist in half and opted for quality over quantity. Overall, Funeral lacks replay value compared to the multiple "best of the year" albums that Wayne has proven capable of creating.

Too many bearded men in isolation have sapped such joy from the genre, but Here brings it back in full.

There are moments here where he manages both [his popstar ambitions and his affinity for paving his own sonic path] in one fell swoop, but on his third time out, he can't sustain the momentum for an entire album.

In the Lonely Hour is a mostly fantastic debut that is more than deserving of a double dip.

Although it may not be essential listening for Mogwai fans, A Wrenched Virile Lore's recontextualized tracks certainly allow for greater appreciation of one of the band's best albums in years.

While Her Loss houses no immediate street bangers or Billboard hits, it's the sum of it all that makes it Drake's best record this decade. From the comical fake promos during its rollout to the memorable one-liners and aggressive diss verses or the TikTok memes it will generate for months to come, Her Loss has a lot of meat on its bones.

It may have taken a few years, a couple of misfires and a different stylistic approach, but Joss Stone has re-asserted herself with this fine effort.

It's a sound we've come to know DaBaby handle on his own, but he invites industry peers like Quavo ("Pick Up"), Future ("Lightskin Shit"), YoungBoy Never Broke Again ("Jump") for the ride.

With its jarring synthetic brass--which is neither as charming or amusingly ironic as its creators seem to think it is--Someday World starts off on the wrong foot from the very first bars.

Most of the material just hovers around the same tempo, tone, lyrical style and sound dynamics, robbing the listener of any sort of emotional peaks or valleys that are so important when floating a double album. It's simply a shame that the execution of Cyr fails to match the naked ambition Corgan's concepts promised.

In his quest for comedic and artistic transcendence, Kaufman's intense pursuit of the "real" was, at the very least, unwittingly timeless.

Lysandre, while far from being reviled, received only a moderately positive response, one that was tainted with apprehension and frustration at its lack of ambition. A New Testament is even less ambitious, yet still enjoyable.

Encyclopedia finds the Drums throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks, and then releasing the results as an album.

The band are more interesting when they expand their sound.

Den is a great complement to Tank and like its predecessor, its main fault is that it's far too short.

Northern Shore explores terrain that's simultaneously familiar and bracingly fresh; it's a gem.

The ten raw and carelessly endearing tracks feel oddly cathartic and refreshing, in an often pitilessly, anxious world more concerned with who tripped up the stairs at the Oscars.

Rainbow Arabia attempt to pay tribute to the heyday of synth pop, but overlook the small details that could have made FM Sushi a pleasurable, Technicolor retelling. Instead, the listener is left with black-and-white new wave Cliff Notes.

For the Shady diehard fans, Shady XV is enough. But for those searching for that nostalgic surge of adrenaline-inducing passion and innovative content reminiscent of the Shady reign, it's better to skip the new material and head straight to the classics.

Resistance is evidence not only of the Souljazz Orchestra's abilities, but also of their audacity.

With all the memories, both good and bad, unearthed on this album, Best Blues finds Small Black holding their composure, even when it seems like it'll be a total bummer.

Brandt Brauer Frick are still immensely talented, and you can hear glimmers of greatness crop up in the background here, but they've sadly jumped the shark on this one.

As a standalone release, devoid of the visual context it's designed to pair with, Rat Film doesn't always find lasting purchase, but it does in parts. ... Still, Rat Film shows off increasing nuance and range in Deacon's abilities as a composer.