The only saving grace, pun possibly intended, is God Is, where West's voice genuinely cracks as he calls the Lord over a soulful sample. As you might imagine, the production overall is expectedly top-notch. But that's the slight upside to an otherwise tepid attempt at finding commonality with his devout followers—except that we never wanted West to come across as ordinary as the rest of us.

He implicitly tells you to “die, die” on the Slightly Stoopid-resembling Zombie Bastards, after all, a joyful retort to the haters who won’t shut up about how Weezer has become a meme in musical form. But Cuomo, ever the mercurial songwriter, later goes off over the pleasures of parasailing on the escapist, Paul McCartney-recalling High as a Kite. And that’s when Weezer (Black Album) peaks.

It's an in-the-moment album that's best when it's in the moment.

What's also noticeable is how unnecessarily restrained most of the album is.

F.A.M.E. is a vile, despicable album that doesn't deserve to be supported in any way, shape or form. Its very existence is a frightening indictment of our times, in terms of our attitudes to music, women and the cult of celebrity.

Liam Lynch is about as funny as the plague, and even that had its moments in Monty Python. This doesn't have any.

After a promising opening trio of tracks, Sticks + Stones wanes badly, and begins to sound more and more like it's been focus-grouped by industry executives in pursuit of a quick buck until there's barely any semblance of character left.

The occasional highlight isn't enough to make up for the cloth-eared versions of timeless songs found elsewhere on the record, or to cover up for the fact that See My Friends is a mostly soulless, and an entirely pointless album.

It's a mediocre album, and I'm only being hard on you because I sincerely wanted more. Like a pissy parent, I'm not mad at you... I'm disappointed.

For most of My Bloody Underground, Newcombe vocalizes like a decaffeinated Kevin Shields, barely audible under the weight of reverb that blankets just about every track.

She's still one to watch, but the hype which preceded the release of Who You Are promised much more than what has been delivered.

This album is a carbon copy of Vampire Weekend, but you know how when Gus Van Sant remade Psycho shot for shot and it was rubbish? It's like that.

Quite frankly, it's f**king boring.

Backed up by masters of electronica David Guetta, Diplo and Swedish House Mafia’s Sebastian Ingrosso, they all make sure to drop a storm of ugly, trite and utterly soulless EDM breakdowns and dubstep drops whenever they can.

Conveniently, he’s premeditated every song in #willpower with a bevy of wishy-washy, quotable clichés that are meant to fit the space of 140 characters. Sadly, that's as deep as it gets.

Owl City is electro-pop's unwanted bastard child, combining all the worst elements of the genre. The production is lazy and unbelievably dull.

Conley's diaristic accounts are clumsily direct at times, but in doing so, we also gain insight into his spiritual awakening.

After half a decade away, If Not Now, When? really does feel like a misstep. Hopefully a little creative control can be wrestled away from Boyd in the future, otherwise a much under-rated band really could be lost forever.

The album aims for Grohl-esque rock anthems, but falls short mostly due to a lack of melodic gifts; given that, it needs many more musical ideas than it has to keep anybody interested.

The album does have one redeeming aspect preventing its plunge into epic echelons of suck, and that's lead single Party Rock Anthem.

Polished to the point of being nausea-inducing, this album has been packaged to a precise remit: robotic, stadium-rock-lite that follows the tried and tested formula of acoustic quiet bit, drums come in, second verse, chorus, repeat to fade so strictly that you’ll feel like banging your head against a brick wall and/or adding your own beat-box percussion.

Up until Lulu, I didn't think it was possible to be both enamored and disgusted at the same time. Mind? Blown.

There’s barely any turntable work, just vanilla rock that once you’ve heard once you’ve heard it a million times. ... Incubus have un-made themselves.

The record sounds phoned in, plain and simple, and its awkward concessions to cliche, its trash heap lyrical conceits, and its dopey production have a cumulative effect that would be insulting if it weren’t so transparently uninspired and uninteresting.

For what it is, it may in fact be quite good. But, to her discarded fans, at least, she's given the ultimate finger.

The derivativeness quickly overwhelms.