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.