Overall, Outer Peace is a half-hearted attempt coming from an artist who’s testing a series of rough sketches in real time.

ATUM is more sonically consistent than 1995's opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. ... Corgan somehow achieved the impossible: a genuinely likable, odd, and even inclusive album that sounds like nothing else in 2023.

It's black metal for prog fans or math rockers, Liturgy's attention to arrangement and speed the sort of maddeningly precise output nerds like that eat up.

While Hitch may kick off poorly, it more than makes up for it by back-ending the tracklist with some of the band's best work.

For a first try, the Black Keys do a decent enough job providing the backbone upon which this collection of rappers can spit and strut, but the actual musical output is overshadowed by the concept of this collaboration, and that is Blakroc’s biggest problem.

From the saucy R’n’B of Tide and Chandelier, the frenetic Choking on Your Spit to the gorgeous, laid-bare swoon of Keep Me, Get Gone is an expertly accomplished piece of work from a band still fledgling in their career.

All that it has going for it is the promise of adolescent wit, and even in that regard it completely fails to deliver.

100 Lovers has a fair few highlights, but as a whole it's merely another example of Devotchka still not managing to successfully capture the exuberance of their live show on record.

Future Self sounds like a developing band, but one that's developing in some incredible directions. None of it is glaringly new, but they sound quietly innovative, developing their own unique take on indie rock.

With strong, fully realized statements such as Mauve, Ringo Deathstarr are making a strong case for being one of the most vital bands in shoegaze today.

The widening of Banhart’s previously contained and signature sound continues to pay off here, the funky and inviting rubber basslines that are scattered throughout the album particularly memorable.

What emerges is a fascinating, infinitely bleak break-up album, but one without the scope of Disintegration or the raw, intellectual power of Blood on the Tracks.

It’s the kind of record that leaves no stone unturned and surely, during the playback sessions, a warm swell of pride must have risen from within all those involved. And rightly so.

Violence may make you roll your eyes as much as tap your feet, but when everything comes together, Editors manage to sound like a genuinely exciting prospect for the first time in years.

The transformative qualities of Spring reveal themselves with time and patience. What begins as a search ends with a confirmation of newfound clarity, where every location Cohen visits inspires new questions and new experiences.

He's faithful to his musical vision, even as he expands its scope, though there's a fair degree of sameness throughout that makes it a somewhat monochrome listen. Still, it never feels like a chore to weave through Ross' honest, personal songwriting.

BRIGHTSIDE is no different: belt out vibrant and occasionally resonant anthems that are easy to grasp even if somewhat oversimplified. The nuance is altogether lost, though, like most of their discography, it'll win you over with its scrappy, can-do charm.

There is no excuse for accepting this level of mediocrity.

And, though, theirs is not the only voice of dissent, they continue to provide an argument against convention. And, it's very convincing.

What is frustrating about Junior is King's obvious talent. It is clear that this is a woman capable of a level of musicianship most artists can't achieve, yet she seems unable to do anything more with it than repeat a few good ideas with diminishing returns.

The implication is that there was some kind of journey involved in getting from Point A to Point B in Trans Am’s spaceship of Douglas Adams-worthy quirks. But after twelve tracks totaling a brief-seeming thirty eight minutes, and despite some interesting routes, it feels like we’ve barely left the launch pad.

What they lack in experience they make up for in pure zeal.

His performances are impassioned, though sometimes slightly tedious, adding strings and keys over scruffy folk-rock. Ounsworth even alludes to his past brush of fame on CYHSY, 2005, though what we really get are broad, everyday depictions of the mundane.

White Hot Moon doesn’t really vary much from their last full-length Feast of Love, though it does showcase a still-promising band that’s one step closer to finding their true identity.

Realism strikes a compelling balance between cringing honesty and organic chemistry that comes through in its crystalline composition as well as its more rugged manifestations. Complete reinvention isn’t necessarily reached, but isn’t quite the ultimate goal either.

This is a pop record, and a great one at that. Hints of Elastica, Veruca, Republica, even Neko Case (isten to the country-inspired refrain on That Ain't Right) pepper this satisfying debut.

None of the songs are good enough as growers or deep tracks to hold up the album.

Alexis Krauss is still a potent vocal performer, though the same cannot be said for an album that stubbornly covers the entire contemporary pop gamut with an an irritating self-confidence. It ultimately sabotages their own efforts.