Where Volume One was strongest was simply the quality of the songs (try getting Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? out of your head in a hurry), yet there’s something sadly lacking about Volume Two, and what previously sounded like finely-crafted homage is now often more like impotent pastiche.

The duo's closeness shows in their competent performances, and "Let's Rock" is faithful in intent and execution. But it can also come across as a cheat—it's easy to fool anyone that you've done something worthy when you undersell it.

Bell X1 has found an absorbing but unshaven sound, set apart by ease and experimentation and yet inevitably spoiled by them.

Rolling Blackouts is a Technicolor, kaleidoscopic riot of a record but, put in context, it can't fail to be tinged with a hint of disappointment. There's a real risk that The Go! Team may have painted themselves into a corner (albeit with various shades of eye-wateringly luminous paint); it will be intriguing to see where they go from here.

If you're looking for a catchy voice amidst the sea of bedroom outfits, Cloud Nothings is a strong contender for someone to continually keep an ear open for.

While there are highlights, the album often feels very safe.

On Offers, NE-HI never really commit to a major departure. So while there are glimmers of a new, more refined sound, it’s the carefree, guitar pop that still stands out.

Like wheedling out the spare remnants of a bygone era, UMO stands as a rather unique endeavor that packs plentiful guitar riffs and sample-based techniques befitting of the funk tag.

There’s lots to love but WE can’t match the power of the band’s first four records. Still, Arcade Fire’s returned rejuvenated after time in a cynical wilderness, ready to sing and dance against apathy. This album is worth it for that fact alone.

With the zeal of archivists and a yen for experimentation, they have found strength in giving tribute to their influences, reaffirming the role of interpretation in contemporary music.

The triple LP effect doesn’t ruin the album, but it would have been stronger had they edited the whole thing down to the best songs that could fit on one disc.

The album quickly loses itself into a tasteless, gimmicky wormhole of hideous sounds that grate the ears. Superorganism are onto something here, but as it stands, their erratically-paced scheme is a passable novelty.

When it's good, it's great; it's just a shame so many tracks fall short of his usually very high standards.

An occasional retread, Innocence remains difficult to dismiss.

Mackenzie-Barrow is clearly a talented songwriter and, taken individually, most of the material here is engaging. Taken sequentially, however, his sparse compositions blur together, emphasising his vocal limitations and rendering Book of Churches a somewhat dour affair.

This may be his best rock record since "Born In The USA" (I think I prefer "Lucky Town"), but that’s not saying much. Frankly I suspect his heart is in the quiet acoustic stuff, but it’s still great to hear him pick up the old Esquire once in a while.

While Years is pleasant enough, with Somewhere, there’s more of a palpable milieu to these songs that pushes it from good to great.

Some of Weather Diaries sounds a bit thin, as the album's vibrant singles come off as outdated recreations of old songs with some unnecessary polish. It isn’t short of ideas, though.

As it stands, there is a lot to like here and a lot to digest. One advantage to having so many vocalists is that each song can be separated and dealt with accordingly, giving the record the sort of film soundtrack feel I think the principle authors were aiming for. Other than that, this unburdens Sparklehorse fans slightly of the wait between albums by providing a mainly interesting and, at times, genuinely moving distraction.

Crystal Stilts won’t be winning many new listeners with Nature Noir but that won’t matter to the band’s fanbase, as another album comparable to their previous work has been created, albeit with an improvement on the production side.

The earlier albums were hyper and hi-energy affairs whereas Jumping The Tracks is more measured and has a more constructed feel.

Although the record’s themes are well-worn, her approach to sound remains pure.

If you've embraced Clinic's reverberating panache for the past ten years, there's no reason to dislike Bubblegum's peculiar fabric. This is the sound of a unit that still has no intention in keeping up with the times, delivering more of what they do best with an already proven track record.

There Is No Year is one of the most disappointing follow-ups in recent memory. Knowing the group is capable of much more gives hope for a re-energized effort in their future.

On a Saturday night, in an adrenaline soaked club with a nasty bass--Simian Mobile Disco is amongst the greatest fun you’ll ever have. But on a perfectly round, 16 gram piece of plastic--it ain’t really worth a damn.

Get Guilty is best enjoyed in chunks, as nearly all the tracks are great pop songs. But a full listen through can be an ordeal.

Here Before questions its existence as a new chapter for the band while content to see it closed, mentions of transition and introspection at the core of their story. What you can take from it is that its protagonists are aging gracefully and that, if this is their last hurrah, The Feelies are going out strong.

Haines dwells in some synth-driven soul-searching that should’ve been cast aside for a different project. Still, the slick, forceful Art of Doubt accurately identifies where their true strengths lie.

What it loses in irreverence it gains in solemnity and seriousness, but this is still the Zahner-Isenberg of before, ruminating on his past with a conflicted conscience that threatens his every thought.

Somehow, because Uptown Funk is so, so good, Uptown Special is even more disappointing.

Human Ceremony is an instinctive record, with the band more than happy to act on an impulse. The enthusiasm of the band is infectious, always remaining grounded but delightfully exploring their own infinite limitations.

Into the Waves is an invitation to float. The mature lyrics and vocal performances in conjunction with the flow of disco-like melodies makes you feel like you're walking the fine line between fantasy and reality. It's a lovely indulgence.

It doesn't really work for either audience it aspires to please, and I'm left feeling a bit bored.

Man Alive! fleshes out Krule’s song crafting abilities to make for a slightly more cohesive and concise listening experience, albeit, one that remains perplexing—and still has a killer bite.

La Di Da Di is full of very cool timbres and some incredible drumming, but its arrangements leave a lot to be desired.

Overall, this album was a just-in-time surprise: a musical excursion of folk, soul, rock, and soul-baring honesty--fun to listen to, no matter where or how it is heard.

There have always been shadows cast from the overriding ebullience of Lennox’s work as Panda Bear, but with A Day With the Homies, the shadows are confined by a skyscraping sun, where elastic psychedelic bungees in and out of the surf and basks in its feverish gleam.

Even though there aren’t any forcible tracks or extreme depth to this album, it captures an experience that should be played out entirely.

What makes You Know I’m Not Going Anywhere frustrating is the knowledge that Grote has all the right ingredients (including Fridmann in this case), but somehow isn’t consistently stringing things together.

There are so many ideas in Heartworms that give substance to Mercer’s unremitting passion to create, and though he manages to enliven and push the project forward it more so blurs Mercer’s artistic and commercial ambitions.

TFCF is riddled with confusion and self-reflection, and it faithfully continues Liars’ unconventional stride, though this time it had to affect him intimately and personally to take him there.

Static is remarkably self-assured and meticulously produced, but such traits cannot disguise its throwback trappings. It’s hard to look away from its unfortunate backstory, and the music never really makes a point to consider it outside of its context.

One's enjoyment of Dream Get Together will depend greatly upon their appreciation for good jam sessions. Jam sessions are fine after all, but it's hard not to be a little disappointed in Citay after hearing the disparity between what they are capable of and what they want to be.

Absolute II doesn't reveal anything on repeated listens, in spite of the densely woven textures. While it's another prime example of Oneida defying expectations and challenging themselves as artists, it's perhaps a step too far. It's a blip in an otherwise solid discography.

Grace/Confusion is an aptly confounding record, its six tracks very much dissimilar to each other yet held together with a sense of grand gesturing and tireless virtuosity.

Even if 12 has its share of flaws, Sloan still manage to write one of their most proficient set of songs since 2008's faintly more exploratory Parallel Play.

Clutching Stems doesn't hit the highs some of the band's albums have, but it features some added-in coherency that quite helps the album along.

Harmonium is as sunny and affable for outdoor get-togethers as it is sexified for one’s swinging bachelor pad.

Even though it falls apart towards the end and could stand to cut a few songs, Welcome oblivion is a powerful record, both musically and thematically.

It's far and away the finest record Frank Black has produced in a long time, and shows that it's time for the old pretenders to show the new pretenders a thing or two about writing a rock song.

Hear the Lion’s Roar is filled with positivity and joy, and though sometimes the silliness buries some genuinely tuneful compositions, it’s yet another worthy escape that preserves Fair’s endearingly idyllic fancy.

He embraces a lush, widescreen sound with such vigor that even he can't keep up with, causing the album to lose some momentum as it settles into repetition. But Hunter's biting social critique is the focal point from start to finish, revealing his more vulnerable self in the process—a bold reinvention that should follow whichever direction he chooses to take from here on out.

The record lacks vision, direction, clarity.

What made Laughter’s Fifth great and this one better than it might otherwise be is his commitment to just plugging in and playing, which gives the music a spontaneity sorely lacking in much of today’s post-digital landscape.

She's a vibrant presence on Anywayz and How Did You Know, pushing her operatic vocals over soaring, anthemic choruses. But that's not enough to save an album that, despite sounding so busy and hectic, fails to generate much excitement—even if Stelmanis' emotional downward spiral is compelling in the lyrical sense.

Their live performances are largely improvised around one riff per song, which could make for an interesting show--but on this record, it gets old fast.

The mood and the energy here is as catchy as it's ever been, even if the duo's clever, tightly-wound experiments sometimes come across as intriguing rather than complete.

Middle Kids haven't quite found a way to articulate their sudsy emotions with deft intention and control. But if you're looking for pristine pop that, admittedly, sounds really, really good, you can't go wrong with this pleasant diversion.

Tell Me is an impressive work. Mayfield shines as she enters new territory in her musical composition and her lyricism.

Dancer Equired trounces for thirty minutes in the same formulaic way as before: one-note exuberance, monotone instrumentation, and washed out pop hooks. Granted, it features some of their strongest songs to date, but it's not enough to salvage the exhaustive, pouring reverberation.

Too often the way of the beat ends up a distraction rather than a fully incorporated addition to good songwriting.

Deeper Than Rap is a single-minded record about making money off of drugs and nothing more. You could do a lot better than Rick Ross, but you could also do a lot worse.

While Link's observations are often engaging on the album, they can sometimes get lost in her sometimes-affected lethargy.

That the record plays out so consistently and yet flows with such apparent ease is testament to the skills honed by the band since its inception back in Copenhagen in 2000.

Wilderness Heart is probably the best new utilization of the Iommi/Page/Lynott grab bag you'll hear because, to put it simply, it's going to appeal to men AND women.

It sounds like a labor of love through and through, and its painstaking process of development only augments a desire for something exclusive. In all accounts, your satisfaction is most certainly guaranteed.

Wilco has come up with 50% of a classic album and 50% of a merely decent one. Buy it for the moments you simply won’t hear anywhere else.

As a whole, Elements Of Light might feature a fair amount of padding, and it might not be quite as original sounding as the idea would suggest (other than the aforementioned Bjork comparison, there are more than a few moments that recall Aphex Twin at his more contemplative), but even so it does offer more than enough to satisfy as a listening experience, rather than just a curiosity.

Almost without exception it seems this album delivers good but never great: and, when you put it like that, its clear that good is not good enough.

It’s largely inoffensive and bland, with a few above average moments, and has a tendency to fade into the background.

Lines is Lynch’s most complete effort, altogether more rhythmically loose and less meticulously detailed.

While few tracks rise to the level of aggression promised by its introduction, Ultima II Massage contains enough wild ideas to maintain an engaging level of oddity.

So, if everything works reasonably well, why does this sound like its lacking something important? It is perhaps the result of long-distance collaboration.

There’s nothing too revealing here, but the familiar, comforting touch they always offer is more than welcome.

It’s not to say that English Graffiti is musically incompetent, though their impulse to borrow eighties nostalgia is more akin to that of perusing your relative’s baby boomer collection instead of following your cool uncle’s guidance.

The Catastrophist is an odd record--an album that was probably more interesting to perform than to listen to.

Ultimately, Marble Skies is a hopscotch of metamorphosizing sounds that can be rewarding for the most part, but only if you can muster the energy to make it so.

Marauder is a solid record with several decent tracks that will make it a welcome addition to the group's discography.

Enter Wu-Massacre a fun, but mostly forgettable affair that comes from three of the clan’s most prominent members; (Ghostface, Raekwon, Method Man) and for the most part ends up being little more than good-natured fan service.

Everyday Life may not be able to reach the peaks of Coldplay’s work in the 2000s or have the discipline of the mostly-minimalist Ghost Stories, but it shows a level of creativity, imagination and sheer enjoyment in making music that felt like it had been lost.

Maybe it is a recycled sound, obvious in its allegiance to Y and the No Wave, but Mi Ami is compelling, nonetheless.

Careers can be perceived as a step backwards, or as an opportunity for Citron to find her voice, even though it may not make that much of a difference considering there’s very few variations in the tradition they dutifully follow.

The album is extremely easy to listen to--so much so that it can veer slightly into monotonous territory--but it’s a soundscape that is impossible to dislike.

What always distinguished HEALTH was their ability to go off into a maelstrom of ominous disrepair, and losing sight of that leads its core sound to suffer regardless of whether they alter their approach.

Recalling only bits of their awkward past-flirtations with electro-pop, this new material feels ripe with a formative momentum that only occasionally misses the mark (the elementary musings behind On a Hill in a Bed on a Road in a House, we can do without).

All in all, the result of Chairlift dabbling in the mainstream pop archetype is the duo’s best and most cohesive album to date.

Fun, but also forgettable, Power Chords marks a not-so-bold transition for an artist who's on track to reinvent his sound.

It’s not going to change the musical horizon, as there’s absolutely nothing new here. But the oldies – the hilarious Chicken Payback, the beautiful 50s ballad I Love You, or the exuberantly wonderful One Glass of Water – are strong enough to make this both a worthy successor and a promise for the future.

Those who love the group for their approach to melodicism and big hooks will find a lot to love about Tomorrow’s Hits, but those who still long for the group’s noisier days will only be further repelled and forced to stick with their first two albums.

Saviors doesn't stray too far from what they've done in the past 10-15 years, but it's far more impassioned despite their pairing things down, proof that maintaining an agreeable middle ground with just enough anger suits them best.

Rainier Fog has enough highs mind to comfortably recommend as a must-listen--a lot of this material is what Chains do best.

The often overly-enthusiastic arrangements threaten to smother the qualities that made Rodrigo y Gabriela special in the first place with the quiet brutality of their guitar playing often lost in the extended jam-band style... structures.

All in all, Curve of the Earth comes across a little on the self-indulgent side, and although most bands evolve and move on from past successes, over-complicating things can lead to that band losing their sense of character and identity.

For all of the melancholy, it's far from a depressing experience; if anything, it's an oddly uplifting album, one that manages to find a great deal of beauty lurking just beneath the ugliness we sometimes find ourselves confronted by.

I'm going to give this bonus points for the admirable trait of messing with our heads and not apologizing for it. But in the end, the quirky ideas are found lacking and sheer bizarreness only gets you so far.

Pala is music for the here and the now, with a hedonistic samba swing and a cheeky smile – don't start worrying about tomorrow – after all, it's still a day away.

All in all, Instrumental Tourist offers more proof that these two are undisputed masters in their field, regardless of how necessary a collaborative effort like this really is anyway.

Tao of the Dead finally channel their indulgences, creating a heroic symphony that sounds wholly constructed.