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.