Most of the time it's a joy to listen to.

An excitable sound, great vocal harmonies, a jangling noise that is immensely listenable: It's all here, it's catchy as hell, and it's exciting.

The song writing is passable, the sound is passable, but passable is usually as boring as it sounds.

Between the two, disc 1 is more memorable than its counterpart, but together they still form a fascinating insight into one of the foremost production talents operating on our shores today.

Remove the four or so songs that never seem to do more than bubble happily in an unambitious realm of chanted hooks and rehearsed quirkiness, and the result is an album fit for anyone with the slightest predisposition for fun.

Gang of Four's latest is a consistently interesting and passionate record that illustrates their continuing relevance. What more could you reasonably ask for?

Sure, a couple tracks hit it just right, but by and large, once the album's over, it's not liable to pop back into my thinking.

Even though I'm not praising the comeback album in a Grammy winning category, I think many are simply pleased with the fact that Blake Sennett put down the scuba gear and got back in the game where he belongs. Welcome back, buddy.

There’s reason to believe that the kind of soppy, mellow pop they write just doesn’t have a place in our current times, that it reeks of starry-eyed nostalgia. But as every generation has a Seth and Summer romance for younger audiences to scrutinize and fawn over with episodic foresight, there will always be a platform for heart-on-sleeve songs to track the high and lows of a teen soap opera.

As bouncy as it is insightful, as flashy as it is understated.

This Icelandic association seems to have triggered a benign crisis in Jimmy Lavalle's composition gland and stimulated his transformation from a major key minor artist to a minor key major artist in the course of this one volume.

There are few bands that can match Royal Blood at their heavy, melodic best, and How Did We Get So Dark? proves to be a thrilling--if limited--listen from one of the UK’s fastest-rising rock bands.

It's just painfully mediocre.

Recent Meat Puppet albums have had an ephemeral presence in record shops, particularly in the UK, appearing on a variety of labels and disappearing from the racks not long after release. With music so focused on the transitory nature of things, it seems strangely appropriate.

Although it’s good stuff, there are few innovations here, and while the simplicity is welcome, you may not always notice that there’s an album playing.

Stay Dangerous is an off-the-cuff chronicle of an artist who's gotten too big - at least in his mind--for his own good.

There's much to recommend Just To Feel Anything and while, as with all retro-leaning instrumental rock, the question of its exact purpose is perhaps a little hard to answer when the details come together, as in Adrenochrome's shifting bass-line, or in how the title track gradually blossoms into life, such concerns are ultimately rendered entirely, wonderfully, redundant.

On its own, it's a great record. Tacked onto the end of a sprawling, massively exciting discography, it just doesn't deliver.

jj no 3, in essence, fails to carry the same number of dimensions and, unfortunately, and perhaps unfairly, reduces jj to a hype machine.

Their overzealous sense of accomplishment can't be denied, especially when the album itself manages to never skip a beat.

As an initial barrage of sound, Weird Work can seem overpowering; but as we begin to divulge pockets of sense in the chaos.

Whether Glory will have the same commercial and cultural impact remains to be seen, but for now, Britney fans can rejoice: part of her is indeed back.

It's got a great tonality and texture to it that gives Adams' voice just enough room to rise above it. There are some songs that are right to be outtakes here, they toil that middle ground that Adams can on occasion slip into, and it's when he's at his 'nicest' sounding that often leads to the most uninteresting work.

Almost presents touching, and often forthright, chronicles of the messy scenarios we stumble into which defy easy explanations.

Fragrant World is by no means a bad album - it may start slowly, and end rather mutedly, but there's a fairly satisfying core to it - it's only really a disappointment as Yeasayer themselves have already raised the bar incredibly high.

So, despite feeling that this is a good, rather than great, album, my score for it may have gone up a point or so by the end of the year. Here’s to the return of Tortoise...

If Any Day has that low-stakes feel, their flow just as effortless, it's because they're still keen to deliver a sort of refined muzak on steroids that never ages.

While there are plenty of technical elements to recommend it, The Classic just lacks that indefinable quality that would make you return to it repeatedly.

There's something about how these tracks activate complicated astrophysical sequences dense with mathematical run-off that makes them have hi-speed, cyber-virtual effervescence.

The Libertines have tried to recreate the feeling of their halcyon era but have lost their mojo during their extended hiatus, which means that most of the time, this record sounds like someone playing dialogue from outtakes of Steptoe And Son over a recording of an out-of-tune piano being pushed down an old flight of stairs.

If you really love the lounge vibe, you'll likely enjoy this trip. For everyone else though, keep your visit to Room 29 a short, selective one.

Our Love to Admire’s lesser tracks seem to have placed a greater emphasis on texture than melody or even rhythm, which is arguably the band’s most potent weapon. As a whole, though, Sam Fogarino will be satisfied.

Good Sad Happy Bad ultimately comes across as frustratingly hollow, a hodgepodge of unvarnished ideas that don't amount to their true potential.

The theme is relatable, and relevant because it encompasses more than that one side of desire we all expect to hear about. This exploration and focus is what held together Eels’ 1998 masterwork, "Electro-Shock Blues." It does the same here.

What keeps it from the top is the lack of musical surprises. Still, these twelve songs will keep you warm as winter turns to spring.

At its best, it blows Chemical Chords out of the water but at its worst, it's uninspiring and dull.

It's just such a boringly average release that the band seems to have retrogressed into one of the millions of anonymous and pretentious electro-drone bands that exist nowadays.

Yorn loses some of the album's momentum as it progresses, too enamored with its stately flow—but just like any troubadour who calls L.A. home, he still writes some of the most tuneful folk-rock this side of Laurel Canyon.

The 2nd Law is a love-it-or-hate-it record. It contains some of the best songs Muse has done in recent memory, but also the worst

The Five Ghosts chooses to communicate in a simpler, terser manner, which counteracts their evident vigor to test out miscellaneous musical approaches. By switching their objective, Stars' fifth effort has become their true reversal of fortune.

The album isn't faultless by any means, but Trailer Trash Tracys have made one of the most interesting albums of recent months.

Not Waving But Drowning showcases why Carner is heralded as one of British hip-hop’s biggest talents, but this isn’t quite the revelation his debut was. That being said, any album that includes an interlude dedicated to England winning a World Cup penalty shootout will always go down well.

YACHT’s music is as simple and enjoyable as their philosophy. You won’t end up ruminating on it all night, but you are very likely to enjoy it while it’s on.

Given that Uneasy Laughter is guitar-centric first and foremost, both Saving Face and What Separates Us benefit from having muscular riffs that help offset its huge synth lines and Solomon's tenuous vocal range. Which is Moaning's greatest strength, but can be a weakness too, as they haven't been fully able to add more personality to their vulnerable, dark romanticism.

Ogilala is anything but musically overwrought, and the melodies do keep a haunting quality that elevates his distinct quivering voice.

Sea Of Cowards sounds like the record Jack White’s been trying to make for a long time. Whatever he does next will probably sound that way, too.

Stewart has enlisted the services of several vocalists of an R&B ilk to add a more radio-friendly feel as well as structural steel to the otherwise frantic procession of convulsive electronics, but this is a dizzying listen that is ultimately erratic, but enjoyable.

Melodic pop-punk is the point, after all, and on that level it’s a success. Even with a muddled message, credit is due for the ambition it takes to vent these modern frustrations and break free from the shackles of verse-chorus-verse.

Despite occasional moments of album filler, Delays have still given us an album with at least three slices of timeless pop.

Like unsettling lullabies, The Cave Singers brand of folk music is contemplative, but isn’t that of a summery strum.

The latest in a series that's now produced two very good albums, Something For All Of Us... succeeds on many levels and is a testament to Brendan Canning as a solo songwriter and not just as a member of a very succesful band.

Although these compositions show a ton of improvisation, Radian pigeonhole themselves to a one-note range that imprisons Chimeric with a threatening, claustrophobic mood.

Even if you've learned to appreciate the methodology of music, or lack there of, there are moments when too much misdirection can make you feel lost instead of dazzled. Nonetheless, this quintet from Leeds deserves at least one very enthusiastic thumb up for this compilation.

Oak Island, just out on Secretly Canadian, is a logical extension of that debut's theme and style, but is better crafted--or perhaps just better served--and stands as a good example of how subtlety can sneak up on a person and pack a desolate punch.

On Felt, Suuns are one step closer to creating a language they can call their own.

It tempers Frightened Rabbit’s invigorating merriment in an attempt to turn them into an inoffensive, poker-faced troupe.

Adem has outdone himself, and has created what may be the strongest record of his solo career so far, and Takes merits hearing as an album in its own right, as well as being one of the best exponents of the maligned covers album genre. Highly recommended.

[The album is] really nothing but fun, and it sounds for the most part like it was put together that way, if we can allow that Lynne's idea of fun is carving out a perfect piece of pop production for each delectable morsel he offers up.

The primary question that you are left asking is why it's taken a man with so much talent so long to release his solo debut? Fortunately there is enough worth and intrigue within this record to keep you occupied until the next one, if there is one.

They just haven’t quite found the necessary depth to separate their clinical precision, an incredible feat considering Bagshaw concocted most of Sun Structures with bassist Tom Warmsley in his own bedroom.

If you want to hear this sort of thing done properly, you'll find happiness in the more sedate moments of the peerless Saint Etienne, but there's little to recommend The Trip. It's not much more than a Christmas bauble: shiny and polished on the surface, but with little of substance on the inside.

This album then is in no way spectacular or ostentatious, but partly because of this there are almost no moments at which it falls flat; and if anything marks out an LP as being not just good, but very good, as well as stepping it away from being a mere collection of songs, it's an excellently crafted and cohesive consistency.

On Queen, Nicki spends a lot of time ordering beheadings--which are fun, but get old quick--rather than showing us why she is and should be queen. Here's to hoping the next album gives us a more earnest, more raw glimpse of the head that wears the crown.

For sheer instant appeal, the winner has to be Cyberspace and Reds, which is clearly one of the most bizarre, absurd, and exhilarating records dropped in 2011, while Computers and Blues requires a great deal of thought and introspection before it can be truly valued.

It's elegant, but hardly likely to inspire any particularly stirring flights of fancy, or any reevaluations of the band's post-Moon Safari discography.

Bedroom is an album of dynamics and contrasts with its biggest asset its heart; chipped, cracked or broken, naivety is replaced by genuine emotion. Sometimes it’s boring and sometimes it’s endearing.

It’s trashy yet too self-conscious for its own good, it’s lovingly crafted yet ultimately hollow, it’s dance music which veers from so catchy you can’t help yourself to chin-stroking music to nod at and appreciate.

In what was already an inane, washed-up concept to begin with, P&A fail to enlighten by opting to deliver trite lyrics and characterless humor for their own amusement. Evidently, consciousness suits them better.

NonStopErotik lives and dies on your particular hunger for music like this in 2010. If you love what Francis has done over the span of his solo work, (and to a lesser extent, if you love the Pixies) you’ll find just enough in the album to merit a listen or two. If you only have a passing interest, it’s probably not worth your 45 minutes.

Does Tonight satisfy what we were all hoping for after three years between albums, along with the lofty expectations that are by definition bound to accompany a concept album/rock opera? Probably not. But, is it better than "You Could Have It So Much Better?" Definitely, if not only for the points on the record where Kapranos and company get it oh so right.

As much as The Deep Field concerns itself with Joan Wasser's considerable emotional needs, this is not a self-absorbed record. It's a big, open-hearted statement on the best way love in a world where "good living requires smiling at strangers."

Chugging, jangling versions of "Honey I Miss You" and "Life in Vain" are tuneful and serviceable, stripping out Johnston's idiosyncratic touch while faithfully aligning to his simple, primal songwriting style. On the other hand, their version of Good Morning You sticks to the original's scrappy melodicism, and at a minute and a half, doesn't overstate its welcome.

It’s all a learning curve, which is never a bad thing for a sophomore album. Thankfully, AlunaGeorge have offered us plenty of examples of what they do best in I Remember and, perhaps most importantly, left us wanting even more.

Go! Pop! Bang! is a fun album, even when it's suffering from the too many cooks syndrome. I just hope Rye Rye asserts more control over her next release.

While it's hard to say whether or not Our House on the Hill is truly a great album, it's clear that with this record, The Babies have defiantly surpassed the less-than-lukewarm expectations geared towards them to create a pop record ripe with personality and flavor.

Interestingly enough, Where You Stand may be the first Travis record that snugs comfortably into an adult contemporary format.

This is not his creative masterpiece, but there is no doubt that one is yet to come.

Bleached have discovered that they have a canny knack for inoffensive rhythms, melodies and harmonies which will immediately appeal. But where this record needed to provide an abrasive counterpoint in the lyrics, they’re more sickly sweet than the music.

This is about as musically adventurous as Lou ever got and those who think he could only toss off simplistic three-chord tunes are advised to listen closely. Berlin turned out to be a place well worth revisiting.

CALM is occasionally inspired, sometimes incredibly stupid, and most of all: surprisingly fine.

Going from an awful opening half to a solid backend was hard enough, but the real villain of Magic Touch is Name’s bitter perspective. On an album about breaking up and getting back together, he isn’t a narrator that you want to spend time around.

It's a solid, summery album that more than delivers on the tunes, and the LOLs, and you can't really ask for more than that.

It leaves the impression that The Last Shadow Puppets are principally a conduit for Turner and Kane to demonstrate just how suave they are, and while it’s hard to find many faults with the record, it’s lacking an edge to make it a great one.

YG regains some of the energy that made his early output stand out, though all the new elements he brings into focus--from the spirited features to his tribute to Nipsey--feel tacked-on and half-hearted, well-intentioned but not well thought out.

The lyrics, like the trio's over-familiar vintage keyboards and melodic guitars, feel mailed in. On the other hand, the middle of Thin Mind hits a refreshing apex, starting with the fourth track, Out of Control.

TEEN still manage to come out strong and fully formed on their debut, with In Limbo proving to be the working man's take on dream pop.

In•ter a•li•a is a blistering return for the band; a record of thrilling paranoia, agitated by brutal, scissoring guitar riffs and slashing vocals.

As a whole, it leaves you thinking that Bobby Conn could have, if he wanted to, made a seminal underground record.

Into The Diamond Sun is somewhat equivalent to being pelted with macaroons; at first sweet, delicate, even impressively constructed, but soon proving not just boring, but intensely samey, sickly and unsatisfying.

Nonetheless, Saturdays = Youth finds itself in the higher echelons of '08 so far for radically different reasons, and, unpredictedly, it wouldn't be too surprising if M83's decision to avoid making a by-the-numbers album saw those overdue dividends finally reaching them.

Inasmuch as they continue to build upon The Velvet Underground's Warhol-ian art rock daze and the psychedelic blues of hometown heroes The 13th Floor Elevators, The Black Angels attempt clarity with Phosphene Dream, revelatory guitar playing that owes more of itself to the garage gems associated with The Kinks, The Monks, The Troggs and even The Doors.

Lost Worker Bee makes for a lovely epilogue to this period of the band's existence, incorporating the best of their qualities while also diving into previously unexplored musical landscapes.

They're always willing to invest on either side of the coin, driven to earn their place inside the majestic hall.

Recorded by Steve Albini, the Shellac’ish touches of The Mine, the sturdy Wet Concrete, and the album’s finale, Terms of Visitation, provide plenty for listeners to enjoy. But, Antarctica, itself a seldom-visited location, is rife with ground that’s already been well-traveled.

DINOWALRUS fuse together a perfect blend of dance punk and art funk.

Sadly, the difference here in 2019 is that reaching the end of This Is Not a Safe Place—listening to the whole album—is not as rewarding as it needed to be.

Ra Ra Riot's focus on overall listenability may have produced an album lacking some of the excitement found on their first record. While The Orchard is certainly a pretty record, it's not always the most thrilling.

There's a significant lack of depth to Within and Without.