While bidding for timeless and universal appeal, Finneas sometimes comes up with hollow platitudes. ... Occasionally, he hits on something more stirring, like on “Love Is Pain” when he recalls waking in tears from a dream about his parents’ death—demonstrating the very real consequences of getting older rather than vaguely fretting about them. Finneas’ exercise in restraint has its limits: These subdued songs are surrounded by highly produced, pointedly topical ones.

Their stuff floats off, and the synths carry the whiff not of a beach breeze but of a department-store escalator.

Lyrically, Wolf is convincing when sticking to the grief-stricken script. It's when he goes off-book that things start to get awkward.

Sonically, at least, Son of Spergy, is in the same ballpark as a SAULT or L’Rain record, its negative space, vocals, and instruments in stunning harmony. But that prettiness can’t save the sophomoric songwriting.

Cronin’s music has always been ingratiating, but that quality works against his material here, which yearns for something deeper or darker. There are clear limits to the affability that makes some of his previous singles so winsome.

Luna is enjoyable enough to listen to, and a lot of Beta Band followers will find plenty to enjoy here, but it's ultimately an album I didn't like as much as I wanted to, and one that doesn't really find its footing until it's almost over.

Rapor should be a display of Grossi’s adaptability, but it just ends up leaving you to wonder what he actually stands for as an artist.

The voice is willing, but the musical backdrop is weak.

Wilson’s chipper duets never reach equilibrium. Either his presence feels underutilized--the syrupy "On the Island" with She & Him, in which his vocals are scant--or the guests feel shoehorned into musty production that undermines their own charisma.

Milk Famous falters by creating an Uncanny Valley effect by adopting the most easily replicable aspects [of Spoon's sound] without maintaining any sort of human element or offering anything that's identifiable as their own.

Iggy's delivery is too wry to exude rage, the songs rarely rise above a mid-tempo chug, and Mackay's jovial sax blurts are way more roadhouse than Funhouse.

Seefeel is a thorny album, a thicket of crackling guitars and faltering rhythms.

Sella once stood out for a demeanor that was both wide-eyed and jaded, torn between a yelp and a sigh. In Sickness & In Flames tilts too far toward the former; the Front Bottoms have lost their bite.

Without a razor-sharp point of view, mgk far too often fails to synthesize his very real pain into something truly artful, instead falling back on the crude tools of rote songwriting and borrowed melodies, which he occasionally manages to build out into something arresting thanks to his instinct for what resonates with his audience.

The album’s most tolerable songs fixate on the physical, a pulsating goo of slow drums and reverbed descriptions of skin mashed against skin.

Infuriatingly sub-standard...

Re-Up Gang is sort of like going out for a nice meal and filling up on bread.

Throughout it's fourteen tracks, there's no doubting The Weakerthans are smart guys who keep up with literature and politics, but over the course of an entire album the band's ambitious literary posturing drowns in the bland songwriting and lack of captivating hooks.

Like all of Mazzy Star's releases, Bavarian Fruit Bread works well as a mood piece and makes good background music, but it doesn't reward close listening.

Yeat’s linguistic flair has kept him from tipping over into the infinitely derivative personalities of Balenciaga-wearing, blank-Instagram-feed-having twentysomethings, but LYFESTYLE sometimes gets awfully close to the edge. Still, his heavy-handed punch-ins are hefty enough to make a couple dents.

Scenic Drive feels like a detour because it is: Khalid announced his next studio album, Everything Is Changing, last summer. For now, though, he seems content to take a step back, sounding like he’s singing and shrugging at the same time.

It's too bad that the majority of The Black Dirt Sessions is so familiar, as the band dutifully strides through the same well-worn territory, perhaps even less palatable in their stubborn sameness.

The band still wants to rub shoulders with the its moody English influences, but dabbling in styles you're ill-equipped for, weaving unnecessarily recurring themes into the songs, or piling on incidental effects-pedal sounds for atmosphere aren't going to inherently elevate your music.

The shame of it is that somewhere in here there's an album that could've done more to revive the mostly moribund idea of 80s pop tropes in contemporary music.

When this sound is done with edge and freakiness, it can be a unique surprise, which is exactly what You Think You Really Know Me was. Electric Endicott is too often the opposite--predictable and numbing, even when it's good.

This turntable of pastiche never allows Grace and the Devouring Mothers to develop an identity beyond Against Me! side project or to scratch much more than the surface of these assorted styles. Owing in part to the trio’s shared experience and chemistry, this feels a lot like rock-band karaoke.

Natalizia recorded Banjo or Freakout with Nic Vernhes at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, and Vernhes' naturalistic production style deepens the expanses in Natalizia's sound while maintaining its clean lines and immersive chill.

Too often Favorite Waitress sounds too too clever to accommodate something as visceral as a groove.

While the first half of the record is promising, however, the band loses steam toward the end.

The pop genre is in control of Kiyoko rather than the other way around. Instead of defining a unique sound, Panorama carries the unmistakable metallic tang of reverse engineering.

The seeds of a half-decent album are buried among The Secret of Letting Go’s more experimental tracks. But, in the immortal words of another extremely ’90s act, that don’t impress me much. Modern audiences with no notion of the band’s unusual history are unlikely to be moved by this album’s velvety shrug.

The darkness is where Lortz repeatedly returns, and when he does, the album swoons into a near-stasis.

The lyrics' yearning for something tangible and substantial ultimately feels at odds with what Sweet Sister, promising surface and all, actually brings to the table.

It's just a return to very familiar territory without the urgency and mystery of Luscious Jackson's 90s-era music--the Lollapalooza Nation equivalent of, say, a new Winger or Y&T album. For the most part, it even sounds like it was fun to make; if only it were as much fun to hear.

Given the far sunnier cast of the group's debut, it's fair to say Now or Heaven is a document of growing pains.

There are enough nods on Kiss All the Time to Styles’ stated influences—-a sharp, craggy synth running through “Season 2 Weight Loss”; chattering drum machine on the bittersweet Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-ish highlight “Taste Back”—that you can at least identify his intention. (This isn’t Dua Lipa talking up a Britpop album before delivering nothing of the sort with Radical Optimism.) But Styles undermines himself every time with moves straight out of the stadium-pop playbook.

City of Refuge seems more like a collection of ideas for three or four different albums than one complete work.

This album still falls way short of what it could be, and I have to wonder how this even happened.

There's little here that couldn't have been on previous albums; the difference is what's gone missing: the in-your-face homosexuality of Rough Trade debut The Smell of Our Own, the perverse grandiosity of 2004's Mississauga Goddam.

The first five songs at least are totally gorgeous, the strings glassy, the tone all understated seduction, the structures fluid and surprising. ... By the Homme-tinged desert rider "Used to Be My Girl," misanthropy has set in.

Though having one good trick in the bag keeps him from becoming a mere oldies jukebox like so many other 40-year rock vets, the sampler platter of Chrome Dreams II suggests his renowned versatility, by comparison to its cult-classic ancestor, ain't what it used to be.

At this point in her career, Thorn shouldn't be courting the middle, and considering the best moments on Out of the Woods, she didn't have to, either.

At times it’s almost impressive how long an album called Beerbongs & Bentleys can go without cracking a smile. It is more assured and impressive than its predecessor, Stoney, but it’s also more exhausting.

It creates an album weighed toward showcasing masterful execution that leaves a pretty muted general impression. Unless you're predisposed toward technical prowess and solo bass recordings, it's probably going to come off as more of a clinic than a collection of great songs.

The resulting clash can be momentarily compelling, but lacks the nuance and character and to really pull it off, which all leaves Seachange huddled on the cusp of something significantly worthwhile, but still a few wild, miscreant swings away.

Fishing Blues’ saving grace, the only song with any real passion and continuity, is one about police brutality written from the perspective of the officer.

Soft Opening maintains a sort of oddball consistency in this regard, but is ultimately so aimless, messy, and at times beyond tedious, it hardly matters how many hands were in its pot.

Generally, the tracks here are pleasant and well-produced, but are rarely engaging enough to justify their runtimes.

The failure of this album, in addition to being overlong and under-ambitious, is the idea that maturity should beget lazy, hammock songs.

What is frustrating are the infrequent but genuinely interesting moments of creativity and cohesion, which suggest that if Marching Church had taken their time and laid off the improv a little, there might have been something special here.

It's so clinical that it works better as an audition reel for their next round of features than it does its own statement.

The joycore bricolage of CSS is all but missing on Donkey.

Barring a few notable exceptions, World Music Radio is so beholden to its premise—so enfeebled by Batiste’s insistence on universality—that it offers up few opportunities to get to know Batiste himself: his stories, his struggles, his euphoric victories and devastating losses. That absence leaves the record feeling hollow, like a pretty house where no one lives.

Interpol might still be an exceptional act, but it’s a chore to have to squint this hard to see it.

These lyrics threaten to drag the rest of the album down if you listen too closely, but Stephenson’s vocal melodies are buoyant enough to keep it all afloat if you’re playing this in the background.

Its intentions are noble. Yet the album’s sentiments are often bogged down by cloying lyrics and worn-out arrangements. At times, the music feels conspicuously out of character for a band that has historically made tactful, if occasionally bland, rock’n’roll.

Whether it's a unique opportunity to peek into a talented musician's creative process or a throwaway collection of sonic gags depends on your tastes.

There is less to dig into on it's a big world. To be fair, there are two bona-fide new Kurt Vile songs on it's a big world out there.

Were its songs more dynamic, its arrangements less haphazard, its tone more even, its sentiments a bit more clearly stated, Elf Power could really be affecting. But as it is, it just feels affected; the sound of a band in mourning seeking a musical catharsis they can't quite extend to the listener.

You get the feeling as you listen to the entirety of Lost Themes II that someone let their finger linger far too long on the butter button at the movie theater concession stand.

Even its best moments sound like an amateurish reiteration of These Are the Vistas' quasi-jazz anarchy.

The emotions are big and the choruses are bigger, but the production is too washed-out to risk actual vulnerability. It’s music to sink into, an electronic dreamy mush that’s somehow equal parts Foster the People and Mazzy Star.

The lyrics to Mascis’ songs no longer resonate.

Uncool is not bad, and if anything, DISCO could stand more of it: to evoke actual disco in all its frisson and desperation, rather than the remembered-40-years-later version, full of kitsch and clip-art disco balls. The album, with a couple exceptions, has two modes: overly tasteful cruise-ship programming, and gauche rehashes.

Leo Abrahams’ stylish production steers the discussion toward his previous work with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins, even if Shoals just as often makes me think of a weighted blanket or paint roller soaked in aloe vera.

There are a couple of good performances here and there, but no choice cuts, just songs left on the cutting room floor during sessions for recent solo albums and filler tracks from lower-ranking artists on the QC roster. The longer the comp goes on, the more obvious it becomes that nothing is happening.

Everything about Cast, from its high-end synths and imperious production to Biliński’s alabaster vocals, is superficially flawless and taken at face value; most of one’s time with the album is spent looking for cracks, hooks, or anything resembling a personality. The thing about perfection in art isn’t just that it’s unattainable--it’s also uninteresting.

For all the racket, there simply isn’t enough focus, enough control, or enough music. Improvisations hints at the duo’s potential but is a fundamentally insubstantial listen.

Psapp are certainly getting closer to achieving a perfect balance in their sound, and The Camel's Back is certainly lounge jazz of a higher proof than most, but save perhaps 'I Want That,' 'Screws' is the one number here that'd make you put down your drink.

Mirror Mirror smacks of a band struggling to be taken more seriously, but simply settling on a more stone-faced form of pastiche isn't the way to do it. All they've really done is trade a Halloween party for a history lesson.

These tried-and-true structures can seem fried-and-false.

For all that the band straddles the worlds of dance and guitars, the arrangements on Battle Lines are incredibly tame, as if the duo mistakenly joined the blandest of electronics with the politest of indie rock.

With that frustrating distance between Tiny Rebels' finely tuned sonics and Kelly's uncharacteristically indistinct lyrics, it's hard not to wonder what another week might've done.

The best moments all come courtesy of his guests. ... While Rich the Kid busily squanders goodwill, what a more engrossing rapper might have made of it.

It’s always just one move too many.

This generation-crossing collaboration feels like a record lodged in a sort of chronological rut, one where a young artist fronts an old-sounding record that sounds like it could've been released at any point in his lifetime--and helmed by any number of MCs that could've sounded like him.

It is more interested in signaling than embodying. Cyrus can access the best musicians and producers, and she can register a genuine interest in more subversive art, but few songs on her new album feel like they emerge from experience, or a burning desire to explore new sounds.

There are real, new stylistic portents here. But Josephine mostly suggests new directions rather than moving in them, and the traceless ache of its muddy middle-third ('Hope Dies Last,' 'The Handing Down,' 'Map of the Falling Sky') is burdensome.

It's here we enter the world of the tame, a land where Sting is king and Phil Collins is raucous.

The busy arrangements and serious frontloading make Born Under Saturn’s 54 minutes a demanding investment, and the effort it takes to simply get any sort of visceral pleasure out of it makes it feel twice as long.

The original is a seduction; this [album] is food-court flirtation.

Kanye West, who once again produces the majority of the album, has tried making a tribute to Common's Jay Dee-fueled Soulquarian-era sound, and he doesn't fit it well at all, managing half of its vibe and none of its energy.

It's rarely boring, and often full of promise, but it's a direction that calls for further tweaks, experiments, and exploration to get the balance just right.

These 12 songs feel like whimsical larks, and Jackson's considerable charm should be able to put them over just fine in a live setting. But the record can also be too whimsical for its own good, and for most listeners, Jackson's Belle and Sebastian songs will be enough.

The tracks on Yanqui are content to continue building to bored, satiated endings we can see coming 20 minutes in advance.

A goofy, sloppy mini-album, cramming familiar Weezer fuzz, stoned piano ballads, playful analogue synths, and misguided Bad Company references into a little more than half an hour.

Greenwood and co.'s impulses have grown disappointingly easy to dissect. The result is music that, by any definition, remains experimental and difficult, but the invigorating internal tension between the ordained simplicity of American musics and the free-will noise jams has evaporated.

While 'Bruises' proves that a well-done song that sounds like other songs can make people take brief notice, Inspire mostly proves that recycling isn't the only answer.

It’s the pro-forma songwriting that transpires between those brontosaurus blasts that ultimately proves problematic. By using their muscular might to prop up otherwise featherweight tunes, Royal Blood have effectively built themselves a castle and furnished it with IKEA.

On Deceiver of the Gods, they are satisfied with plugging 10 new anecdotes into 10 songs they’ve made before and, unfortunately, will most likely make again.

Overall, CLPPNG is chock full of ideas, and if its failure is due to overambitiousness, well, there are worse ways to fail.

Melodies coast, but they don’t always stick; everything’s too mannered, too clean, and the album is marred by a clinicality further punctuated by its bonus tracks.

Butler’s commitment to the detached frontman where singing occurs barely or not at all robs songs of their emotional largesse, that basic thing we licensed to Arcade Fire and upon which their entire identity relies. What saving grace there is on Everything Now is scattered throughout its mercifully short 47 minutes.

Toggling between merely pleasant and overly precious, Melt Away is such a low-stakes endeavor that it never even registers as a comeback.

Four albums in, it's becoming pretty clear that the genre in which Manchester Orchestra resides has more untapped potential than the band itself.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the album sounds too comfortable, too familiar: It's so deeply entrenched in their comfort zone that it sounds too easy-- not effortless, but automatic and rote.

It’s almost as if the first half of the album is comprised of songs that Crocodiles had finished writing by the time they got to the studio, and the second half is all of the stuff that they came up with while they were there. And this exploratory spirit is where Boys finds its strength.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges on Twentyears is a simplified version of Air that swaps out most of their quirks for only their most palatable qualities. It’s a lite version of the band, and a frustrating missed opportunity.