The songwriting on songs like “Wake Up and Smile” and “Maybe I'll Burn My Life Down,” while adventurous to a degree, usually delivers the same result: the layering of a few sonic embellishments to rough-edged anthems that end up clashing against each other. But the main offenders are the most straightforward.

Megadeth's self-titled swan song is weighted down by its own sense of importance.

While Vig does a commendable job in providing tasteful sequencing throughout Tenterhooks, the band sticks to a frustrating middle lane as the album progresses.

This is the main strength of Fang Island's songwriting, their ear for power-pop catchiness. But they've also implicitly revealed their fatal flaw: they don't give you enough of a sense of suspense and release which makes those climaxes your favourite parts.

Both pared down and unengaging at the same time, this appears to be a dead end.

It can sound almost laborious in its structural directness mixed with its lyrical opacity.

Much of A Wasteland Companion suffers from the unimaginative fluff that plagued 2009's Hold Time.

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.

G I R L sounds like the work of a much less interesting artist. But if Pharrell’s goal was to bring happiness to his listeners and vibrant tunes to the charts, then by all means he’s fulfilled his goal.

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.

Mythomania’s level of sophistication is not hard to achieve and it certainly does nothing to elevate Cohen’s abilities, his contributions to Deerhoof being markedly superior.

The music saves this album from certain disaster--an idea that, at its root is perplexing at best, is executed in an even more clumsy and confusing way.

A 37-minute album that feels closer to feature-length.

Original Colors isn't extraordinary music.

Although at it's best The Gathering is an immersive throwback to a bygone age, considering there are already many records that do this sort of thing much more consistently, it's difficult to recommend.

They haven’t exactly lost their sense of intrigue, it’s just that on Dear Science it all sounds a lot less intriguing.

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.

This brand of thoughtful ambient music is certainly not for everyone, but those willing to take the plunge may just come away surprised. After all, being perhaps too original and ambitious is often better than being trite and derivative.

There is a lack of uniqueness in the overall concepts and sonics of the project.

Through their first two releases, Foals were able to showcase their evolving sound, but with Holy Fire, their evolution stops dead in its tracks.

There are some more subdued moments (the quiet standout Stumbling Bee) but on the whole Extreme Witchcraft is a frustratingly stodgy affair.

Rather than being enjoyable, listening to Breathe in its entirety soon becomes a chore.

There is very little substance either musically or lyrically, and by the end of the album it feels like the album is already recycling ideas.

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.

They're good but not excellent; they have brilliant songwriting over mediocre melodies and the old-newness becomes old again quickly. Five. Right smack dab in the middle of nothing and everything.

It’s not a completely futile exercise--there are some decent tracks--but it falls far short of the quality of its predecessor.

When Friends get down to it, the energy that brought them together dictates the making of half-profound statements in retro R&B funk jams; and frankly, the result is brilliant.... Yet, when they explore other avenues, the band seem unable to hide their influence and consequently come off as half-hearted.

It doesn’t leave much to the imagination; in fact, it states quite clear that there’s not much substance behind their muscular, other times grounded, modern rock template.