If Whine of the Mystic was the boozy night out, Thought Rock Fish Scale feels like the groggy hangover. It doesn't hurt, but its lethargic haze makes you wish it were still last night.

American Nightmare is not convincing or consistent.

Hot Cakes contains vestiges of the brilliance that once helped make The Darkness a massive cultural force (at least in the UK). But too many of its songs feel like toss-offs and half-formed ideas.

It doesn't take long for the desire to have Auerbach dial down his magic formula just a notch to take hold.

The first record without co-founder and lead guitarist Matt Mondanile, who left last year to focus on his Ducktails project, it finds the band struggling to find their footing in his absence.

While it's a great attempt at a first album, Pick a Piper's tune could have been a bit sweeter.

The record is, unfortunately and overwhelmingly, a bland release from a band that feels like they're stuck going through the motions.

For Tweedy diehards, these intimate reworks may come off as a nice fireside chat with an old friend, but those less familiar with the singer are better off starting with the originals.

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.

On the businesslike Cozy Tapes Vol. 2: Too Cozy, Rocky and his acolytes convene for a rundown of trends worth exploiting; as such, it often sounds like a Migos album as interpreted by 16 clueless New Yorkers.

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.

It starts off deceptively strong, with standouts like "I Got the Keys," "Nas Album Done" and "For Free" all loaded near the beginning. But once the album advances past this bit of clever sequencing, it barely strikes a chord.

There are admittedly some palatable textures here, an inevitability given the roster of talent, but so much of it is obfuscated in genre confusion and poor arrangements.

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.

Asmara, Gaika, Bon, Baby Caramelle and Nunu all make contributions to the disc, as do rappers K-$ and K-Rizz. Too often, they're at cross-purposes. The album is so lacking in continuity that it fails to sustain either a groove or the listener's attention.

Apart from the uprated production, there's not a great deal to offer to listeners.

At its best, Somewhere Else produces a few tracks worthy of putting on and dancing to in the middle of the night. At its worst, it's repetitive material that should've stayed on the cutting room floor.

Evolution certainly doesn't sound like anything they've done before. At best, Evolution could add a few more bangers to their roster and slip by unnoticed. At worst, it could knock the band down to Creed levels of self-parody.

There are some truly enjoyable moments on Calexico's latest--but they're vastly overshadowed by at turns annoying or just boring tracks, bogged down in an overly long record.

The Age of Absurdity is tacky, unoriginal, occasionally annoying and altogether not good. Most of the blame falls squarely on vocalist Neil Starr, whose lyrics stumble through sleaze rock clichés that were already dated in 1988.

If the record's volume number wasn't enough to suggest that Lil Wayne's long-running Dedication mixtape series was getting a little stale, a few short verses into this repetitive and lyrically lazy affair should definitely set those thoughts in motion.

That's not to say Young Blood is bad, but mediocrity shouldn't attract attention so fast.

There are good moments here and there, and the only sin Harlow truly commits is that much of the LP is boring and forgettable, not even bad enough to be entertaining besides a few head-shaking lines.

Sadly, precious little restraint is found on the stuffy, haughty Closer Than Together.

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

The Diplo-directed record is a somewhat sloppy mish-mash of reggae cuts that rarely attain an authentic air.

Aoki initially carved a niche with this sound, but we have to wonder when a progression from the safety of this oversaturated market will eventually occur.

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.