Even at its best, though, In My World resembles a less-engaging version of someone else, the sound of an artist regressing instead of stepping forward into new territory.

Were it not for these issues [the album’s lyrical stasis scans as disappointing] and the B-Side's proliferation of yawn-inducing, stoned slow jams, The Getaway could have potentially bested By The Way as the Peppers’ best work post-Californication.

This sort of brevity and emptiness makes the tail end of the album, already short at 26 minutes, feel throwaway and hasty. It's hard not to feel, therefore, that this would have made a much better EP, losing some of the shapeless songs that drag down the momentum and charm of the record.

So though it does often feel like JJ have hit a wall on V, when they're able to scale that wall and dance with the stars, the album's a treat.

Endless Flowers is Crocodiles' best album and also their most frustrating. They're simply trying to do good enough and no more.

Even tracks that circle around a hazily imagined apocalypse—“This summer might be your last!”—can’t summon more than half a head bob. There’s enough energy pumping through these songs to move the 32-minute album along, but it feels like you’re slouching through the moving walkway at an airport. “Hi Someday” is an exception.

If nothing else, Alone reminds us that a lot of those over-ambitious, silly-on-paper ideas often blossomed in Cuomo's hands, and there was more to Weezer in their early days than just crisp power-pop and cute videos.

White People, for all its ambitions, fails to coalesce.

While the band has certainly grown musically, it also seems less patient and focused; much of the record feels like a hastily recorded jam session with a few superfluous electro-bobbles floating above the fray.

Over the course of 13 songs, though, Dude York wind up mimicking their idols as opposed to referencing them.

Nothing here is unforgettable or in danger of replacing its original. The arrangements are formulaic, regressing back to the stripped-down candlelit era of the original MTV’s Unplugged. At worst, Songs of Surrender is an overindulgence. At best, it’s a pleasant interlude.

Fans of shivery folk music with subtle plateaus will surely find things to like, but the rest of you might find yourselves wishing the "black dog" in Selway's basement had a bit more bite. At least he let it outside.

It’s Cosentino’s musicianship and knack for melody that prevents these songs from turning to fluff.

Nothing on Outbursts turns out to overblown sonically, but "Sea Change" does signal a straining quality that runs throughout the album.

For enthusiasts of the goth/post-punk nexus, it absolutely has its moments.

While there's nothing wrong with a predictable approach when deployed with expertise, it's disappointing from a band like the Frames.

Digital Ash has the claustrophobic feel of a singer locked up with a computer, and it's distractingly chipper, like Rilo Kiley in their own Dntel homages; not every Bright Eyes record has to be an emotional epic, but Digital Ash feels like a practice run.

While it is by no means a good album, The Sleepy Strange is a small step up from its brain atrophy-inducing predecessor. On the album's closer, "Vinyl Fever," the band almost attains a tight, Tortoise-esque instrumental groove. But after over 40 minutes of boredom and frustration, odds are the album will most likely be occupying a precious spot in your septic tank before you get there.

As he tries to return to the ponderous themes of such vague nonsense as love and hate, Acey weighs the pacing of the game considerably.

In ten years, you'll be mistaking their superficial work here for the Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, or Fatboy Slim's big-beat bullshit.

Drug Rug have allowed a bit of the drawl of their early work to carry over here, and even when they're playing it fairly straight, there's something slightly twisted about their melodies.

Those at this taping presumably got their money's worth, but other than the few excised morsels that leaked after the show (a long anti-Radiohead screed and a defense of Chris Brown's attack on Rihanna), we don't know what was cut. Alas, those who pick up this record get an abbreviated, neutered version.

They're the opening band you actually kinda enjoyed even though you showed up too early by mistake, the album you half remember liking when it was playing in a friend's car.

The Black Album launched Metallica to superstardom because of its approachability, but in its attempts to offer something for everyone, Blacklist spreads itself too thin.

If This Island failed musically but still got Le Tigre's message out, it could be counted as a minor success. But at this critical juncture in their career, Le Tigre seem tame.

She shows greater range than expected, but the clatter of Johannes' busy production too often obscures her charisma and renders her odd punk melodies sadly lifeless. She's better than this perplexing project.

As evolutions go, Ode to Ochrasy makes for a particularly awkward adolescent phase, the sound of band that is outgrowing their loud-fast-rules roots but still too timid to sever them completely.

EAR PWR were once a band that refused to tie a tie or recite the silly rule--it could be annoying, but at least they were being themselves. Here, they prove how hard growing up can be.

But ultimately, Loyalty to Loyalty leaves a weird aftertaste, and it's not just because the penultimate 'Relief' tries to prop itself up on Willett's falsetto harangues and stuttering slap-bass, before 'Cryptomnesia' ends the record collapsing into a rumpled heap.

The album simply flickers out like a candle, with the faint promise of another visit to this setting.

Joey too often comes out looking like someone who’s already grown weary of the system, an 18-year-old curmudgeon, a sharp contrast with the energy that 1999 promised.

Inside/Absent is a nice listen, but doesn't hint at anything greater to come-- a frustrating flaw for an album already unexcited with itself.

These eight tracks serve as a swift, sinister reminder of why Cathedral mattered at the start and why they intrigued for so many years in the middle.

Overall, it’s hard to see where his strengths are, and on some deeper level, I can’t imagine a situation where listening to this album is appropriate for anything else but falling asleep at your desk.

In a way, it's comforting to know what you're getting: Four or five songs you'll treasure, four or five you'll tolerate, and a pretty good band sticking to their guns.

On Tyranny, that guy has simply worked too hard, and that sense of needless toil bleeds through in every bum lick, brick-walled sound, and garbled burst of noise shoved onto the record.

Belladonna sounds technically flawless-- every marimba strike and fret run has a specific texture that's almost miniaturist in its realistic detail-- but it's all in service to vocal-less songs that are ponderous and dull, whose strict adherence to an overriding motif hems them in.

The upside is that it sounds warmly familiar, a reminder of why we missed them in the first place, but the downside is that the album gives very few indications of what Fink and Taylor have learned during their hiatus.

It may not go down as one of Neil’s definitive works, but Earth achieves something Young hasn’t been able to accomplish on record in a while: he's made an album worth spending some time with.

Hanna mostly wins in the sea of Hollywood action soundtracks, but it's marginal as a Chemical Brothers album (I prefer it to their dry, overstuffed mid-decade works).

Nearly the entirety of Apparitions feels covered by some haze that's equal parts car exhaust and glitter.

As disorienting and overwhelming as any of Kozelek’s defining albums, Common as Light patiently reveals more of the artist to anyone who’s still paying attention.

Like much of X&Y, Magnet is exceptionally unobtrusive, music to ignore.

There's little on Lioness: Hidden Treasures that sounds throwaway, or like it should have never been released; but there's equally little that sounds absolutely essential.

Their slickest and most formulaic pop constructions to date.

The oddest development of Angelheaded Hipster is that most of the 20-plus participants opt to inject angst and torpor into Bolan rather than revel in his pomp and frivolity. ... Sadly, Willner’s last great tribute album tells us little about its subject.

They're not teenagers anymore, but you'd never know it from listening to them. That's not exactly a compliment.

For an album mostly preoccupied with cataloguing past relationships and the mistakes that did them in, it follows that Feel. Love. Thinking. Of. would manifest those feelings with nostalgic sounds, some welcome, others less so.

A letdown after Fables; whether haughty, homesick, or ha-ha, on the way toward frankness, the album gets bogged down in simplicity.

Yes, the high points of the previous record are duplicated here-- but so too are the same problems that occasionally bogged down that record.

The album's use of analogue synths isn't a regression, but an attempt to find a new way forward.

Guitars, synths, and beats all sound crisp and glisten with a layer of cold condensation, but they come together in ways that don't necessarily make for memorable pop tunes.

On Diamond in the Ruff, he sounds more than ever like he's the ultimate good soldier, one desperately in need of a general.

The music on The Gifted sounds fantastic, with intricately arranged keys and strings, stacks of soul and gospel-inspired backup vocals, and deep, rubbery bass lines. The problem is that Wale and his team made a really decent soul rap album without a rapper soulful enough to carry it.

Maybe it's good for a laugh, but only as a defense mechanism against the cringe-inducing experience of watching artistic expression abandon a heartbroken man at his lowest moment.

While much of the tape is forgettable, Still Striving is not without its standout moments.

It doesn’t help that their guest singers’ lyrics rarely scale heights comparable to the duo’s vertiginous waveforms.

He’s just the latest shrugging embodiment of streaming trends.

When A Weekend in the City comes bursting out at you with a gaggle of second-album upgrades-- new tricks, new scope, new arrangements-- the bulk of them sound like good ideas: They've been executed by hard-working professionals.

Kasabian is brash, loutish, and seems liable at times to cut you; the consistent kick drum beat throughout it is like a great party's heartbeat. But like the roustabout in the corner, drinking all the lager and scratching up your old records, it can be more loudmouthed than substantial.

It's honest music from the noise-­pop couple, both of whom come into this project having broadened their sound within their own respective bands.

There is not a single moment of shock or freshness on Delta Machine, and it's enormously frustrating to hear what was once a band of futurists so deeply mired in resisting change.

The album’s best hooks feature Bartle duetting with Okereke, a new trick in Bloc Party’s repertoire. These strengths are even more frustrating because they reveal an alternative path to the binary rut in which this band has been stuck for 10 years.

RiotUSA is behind the boards on every track, and Y2K! is a testament to the strength of their long-running creative partnership. Its weakest moments are those featuring outsiders—Gunna and Travis Scott just get absolutely rinsed here. What makes Y2K! so instantly memorable is Ice Spice’s refusal to be pigeonholed.

Music may lack the crazy ambition of his previous acts or some of the unexpected goofiness of the Gang's debut, but it's still a modest pleasure and a fine addition to Svenonius' catalog.

Sure, the time-tested formula delivers as expected, but ultimately the rote freakout leaves you wishing the band could bring the hammer down like it used to.

Ultimately this is smart but unfinished work.

Everybody Wants to Know is the kind of album that grows more rewarding the second and third times through, as the subtle hooks gradually sink in. But once those hooks have engrained themselves in those old skullbag, it's pretty unlikely they'll offer anything you can't get from any other anonymous alterna-rock record.

The Posies, if you'll recall, used to compose entire songs of understated pop brilliance, instead of just moments.

Roni Size's new album is vapid, boring and uniform.

I suppose that the backstreet Black Market Music will endear itself to gender-exploring teenagers who find the girl-on-girl action in Buffy the Vampire Slayer "fucking awesome."

Despite these moments when PE shows their age, they have largely prevailed with Revolverlution by revamping the very structure of how we digest music.

XOXO still manages a lonesome, crowded sound. Whether it's the sturdy chord progressions, overstuffed lyrics, or just Bianchi's tendency to avoid with melodies with contours his voice can't match, most of XOXO is likeable, if not a little tough to parse.

Arnalds' score ultimately isn't as satisfying [Trent Reznor's The Social Network or Cliff Martinez's on Drive], especially in the front half where he's excessively patient and slow to build momentum.

Overall, Rønnenfelt seems to focus more on discovery than on crafting a cohesive whole. But Heavy Glory’s most assured tracks—like “Doomsday Childsplay,” with its mournful, Western stomp, or the Lou Reed-influenced “No One Else” (complete with talk-sung vocals and a bassline nicked wholesale from “Walk on the Wild Side”)—show Rønnenfelt’s experimenting and broadened emotional palette paying off considerably.

The bracing, sometimes violent collision of rock ‘n’ roll and dance music that’s powered Primal Scream’s best work has been melted down here into mercurial droplets--shiny and radiant, to be sure, but ultimately non-descript.

Catfish Haven and Devastator are so counter "post-modern," counter "indie," deliberately and confidently well-worn, that when the sketches of American rock history lose their way, the band and its songs sounds like supporting players to gorgeous voice and a shared passion for what was.

The problem with Beer in the Breakers isn't one of culture or slang so much as a narrator who is almost wholly forgettable--their stories are boring.

Unfortunately, when they could have stopped it at 12 tracks and had a pretty good party on their hands... they kept right on going, and it stops being fun after a certain point.

Part of what makes listening to Light Asylum so frustrating is a nagging want to see her talent mobilized to the fullest, to roll up your sleeves and try to make a Light Asylum in your own image.

Black Mountain are about as referential as they come. But despite the obvious touchstones-- which, incidentally, fucking rule-- the band are affable and idiosyncratic enough to win over those who passed on recent retrofits like Comets on Fire's Blue Cathedral or My Morning Jacket's It Still Moves, and make those records' admirers practically cream themselves.

Guests reinforces its inessential nature by presenting, for the most part, a one-dimensional rendering of DOOM as a lyricist.

The drastic acoustic reinterpretation on this album feels like the song’s natural state, the long-building crescendo threatens to swallow the singer before he has finished saying his piece.

Aside from its more sociopolitical shortcomings, Everybody refuses to stop and evaluate why it exists in the first place. A lot has been made of Logic’s technical skill, but it can’t really be considered proficiency if it isn’t efficient.

Secret Machines remain the same band responsible for 'Now Here Is Nowhere' and 'Ten Silver Drops,' which means the toughest tracks often still devolve into hypnotic grooves and motorik mutations, and the gentlest starts often lead to the most bombastic conclusions.

Gucci, who was rap's most exciting figure a year and a half ago, is on a profound losing streak, and it's easy to hear The Return of Mr. Zone 6, his new street album, as an attempt to reverse that slide.

The resulting project is dimmed down and diluted.

There's an interesting sound here, a shell of an idea. But there is ultimately very little melody or personality for the arrangements to support and the record winds up sounding weirdly conservative.

The problem with Twelve isn't the staid song selection so much as this dogged insistence on staying faithful to the originals.

A little more stylistic and structural variety could lead to something special.

Though it boasts a couple of heaters, A Thousand Heys butts up against the same problem faced by so many others working in this timeless but relatively basic template -- there are undoubtedly listeners who won't ever get enough of this stuff, but how can you distinguish yourself while still maintaining the spirit of your predecessors?

Where the record falters is on the rockers, which are composed of clichés and exhausted riffs only.

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.

Jamison's most captivating and personal album yet.

Whether inspired by lovers, each other, or the warmongers of the world, Kings of Convenience's latest is ultimately just what its title says: a bold and beautiful assertion that we are better off together than apart.

Treble and Tremble showcases a full array of old-school remedies, from inventive mic'ing and overdubbing to brutal filters and bullhorn distortion a la Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. If Espinoza sang any better than he does, he'd probably be bored in the studio.

O'Connor sounds very relaxed, and ultimately humbled by the ancient material. She resists the temptation to use her vocal tics and affectations; for the most part, she sings the words with a straightforward clarity and reverence.

So while Delìrivm Cordìa is filled with great blocks of sound, it too often loses sight of direction.