The album has a Side A and Side B feel to it with the first half comprised of layered, dense tunes as is mixer Blake’s penchant. Side B (if you will) lightens the sonics a bit, giving the band more room to breathe and, for these ears, an easier listening experience.

He’s much happier sitting in a groove and sustaining it while listening to the singer and the band.

End of the Day is a bit of an enigma. Fans of Anonymous Club may enjoy the atmospheric score and recall some of their favorite accompanying scenes from the documentary. For everyone else, there’s not much to get out of it.

At times the album succumbs to bloated overload, the occasional instrumental placeholders like “Sultry Air” and “Movements of Time“ are not necessary on an already long-running album while the AOR pop of “Slow Days” feels a bit like running in place with fine, yet dull, overall results. However, the band’s chilling-on-a-space-age-beach attitude also results in some grand successes.

Either way you slice it, Sleigh Bells’s latest outing is fun-loving pop music that captures a change in the veteran musician’s craft and attitude towards the genre they call home.

The resulting unwieldy quadruple album manages to be overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time.

Thematically, it sounds fairly cohesive, but the songs themselves, lyrically, vary from solid to great, to moments of cloying sentimentality. That’s not to say that Heavy Glory is a bad record, just one that’s a bit more challenging than Iceage fans may have come to expect.

Sound Wheel is an experimental chronicling of the vagabond road trip lifestyle of an artist who is constantly observing the open highways and the American culture driving them. Mosshart keeps her eyes sharp, her voice fluid and her thoughts rolling as she follows her muse.

The end result is a mixed bag of tunes as the island vibe and broken-hearted blues don’t always synch, however when they do, the results are rollicking.

More than anything, the album is simply boring. None of Morello’s solos feel particularly inspired. None of his grooves get enough room to breathe. None of his jams particularly rock.

It is adventurous and (importantly) without sacrificing the strength of the tracks themselves. Even more impressive, is that with all the risks the band takes here, the album is undeniably a Whitney record.

While Part 2 might not be quite as excellent as Part 1, the album as a whole contains some of Lavelle’s best work.

The lyrics of Deadbeat scream essential Tame Impala. Still, there is a simplicity to Deadbeat that has never been a part of the band’s repertoire, allowing Parker’s songwriting to feel new and fresh. .... These twelve songs do more than satisfy Parker’s hunger for something fresh; they establish Tame Impala as an amorphic sonic giant ready to implement their singularity into whichever genre they please.

Cudi’s ninth outing features the crooning of his first few releases while harkening back even further to his mixtape days with razor-sharp flows. INSANO is effortlessly fun and enticing while still showing Cudi’s artistic progression.

At their best, The Avett Brothers are transcendent songwriters with the ability to cut right to the soul while delivering perfect musical harmony. The majority of The Third Gleam serves as a reminder of the best qualities that The Avett Brothers can bring.

This is a highly creative album that only Robertson could deliver. It’s not perfect but it’s highly memorable and well-conceived.

HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES, while not up to the band’s overall best (Psalm 69, Rio Grande Blood), is a very solid Ministry album during these insane times.

Though Erotic Reruns doesn’t have any of the awe-inspiring moments of some of Yeasayer’s early work, it’s a solid album from start to finish, trimmed of all fat and without a bad note. A few more compositional risks would’ve served the band well, but as a whole the album finds the Brooklyn band in top form, packing its nine songs with dance-hall energy, commanding grooves, and song compositions that stretch the limits of pop music while remaining easy to digest.

While Purple Noon seems to stay fairly level in a dynamic sense, especially compared with Mister Mellow where upbeat and downbeat tracks were fairly distributed, the lyrics take the listener on a journey. ... While not exactly “driving music,” Purple Noon is perfect for lounging around during quarantine.

Arguably the band’s most ambitious and melodic record in their two decades of existence.

The fact that the increasingly complex playing compares so favorably to the antecedents of the Allman Betts Band (including the latter-day lineup circa 2003’s Hittin’ The Note) speaks as much to the intrinsic skill of this unit as to its future potency in a more mature state.

New Age Norms 1 is a bit formulaic compared to the band’s off-kilter early work, relying too much of the blueprint of piano chords coupled with bouncing bass and danceable beats, but it is a solid blues-inflected indie album as a whole.

Corgan’s attempt at making a contemporary album was mostly successful, though, with the band delivering hook-laden music that is full of great pop moments with enough experimentalism and gritty moments to keep it interesting.

Mustaine and Mäntysaari tear through complex, heavy riffs and blistering solos with speed and precision. .... While the album may not reach the level of the band’s first six albums, it’s a fitting farewell for Mustaine, with enough heavy riffing and histrionic shredding to make those last notes memorable.

He puts his own spin on tracks with minimal brooding instrumentation, but he delivers for his idol in conventional fashion even adjusting his vocals to mimic Presley more than he normally would.

The lifelessness of the covers ensures that it has a shelf life that isn’t much longer than your average meme.

While there are some great tracks on Why You So Crazy, the album as a whole feels disconnected. The mix of so many different styles makes it seem as though this is almost an album full of B-sides and scrapped material from the past two decades. However, standout tracks like, “Terraform”, “Be Alright” and “Forever” are bound to make great additions to the band’s already stellar live shows and are destined to become fan favorites.

Ghostface Killah’s Set The Tone is a sprawling album with risks that give some rewards and moments that uplift the whole album. While the LP dips into songs that sound forced, the authentic tracks make up for the lost time. He shows that he can keep up with any of the modern rulers of the genre. His rapping abilities and booming delivery have matured like fine wine.