While “Dishes in the Sink” and its companion ballad “Hardly Hanging On” tell a genuinely affecting story of squalor and depression. Despite these peaks, Sisyphus is more fun to ponder than it is to listen to.

Bartos is one of the few people allowed to get away with such blatant mirroring of the past, but it's hard to escape the thought that he's done it all before, and better, and with a little more elegance and wit.

Mimicry is one thing, but at least choose wisely. You see, OK Go decide to impersonate post-Pinkerton, post-catchy, fun-by-numbers Weezer, resulting in an Ivy Leaguer Sugar Ray sound.

Hints of humor are often symbolized in Scholefield's artworks, but here they have an unbalancing effect, only serving to detract from the portentous musical renderings of the uneasy symbiosis between digital glitch and the natural world.

No No No may sound ineffectual after a cursory listen, but it reveals some subtle pleasures if you keep it in rotation.

Much of Until the Earth comes off like the narrator from "Windowsill" still telling these damn kids to get off his lawn.

They remain a surprisingly divisive band, with detractors accusing them of imitating rather than innovating. Desert Skies does absolutely nothing to answer that criticism, but it does provide a useful point against which to measure their later efforts.

She tears into every song with indomitable energy, and usually has production to match. Though it doesn’t quite mesh with the ballad, the twitchy percussion of “Carnival Games” at least livens things up.

Fall's worst moments are queasy and charmless.

So then, what is the excuse for a typically elitist music nerd to bow to Andrew WK's blistering tard-rock? That's right, folks: there isn't one.

Yelawolf sounds like he's just going through the motions instead of actually covering ground.

They keep the music raw enough that it sounds almost-but-not-quite amateurish--again, following in the hardcore/early-thrash tradition--while Marrow’s willingness to indulge in comic absurdity with the lyrics makes Body Count’s preachiness more palatable.

The "Americana" tag sticks thanks to the general country-rock tropes and all the natural imagery, but as usual the group excels at blurring the edges of an already blurry genre with spacey (but never indulgent) psych leanings, controls set for the heart of the sun but anchored comfortably down to earth.

Most everything you'd expect from Cornershop pops up somewhere on Disco and the Halfway to Discontent. You get your guitars, sitars, and Singh's tasty subcontinental breakfast of a voice. But you also get slapped with a dosage of bad opium.... For the majority of its duration, Disco merely simmers when it should be sizzling.

At best, this record is Suicide resurrected as a novelty act; at worst it could pass for an extreme deodorant commercial with swearing.

When the ways Bodan tries to eliminate distance come together--the voice, the lyrics, the rawness of the emotion on display--the final product can induce claustrophobia. The effect is undeniably powerful, but there's a fine line between powerful and overwhelming, and his work should grow more potent as he manages to find a balance between the two.

An EP is often a great place for a band to experiment and test out new ideas between albums, to make mistakes and start again, especially when their trademark sound seems tired. But Little Dragon show none of those desires.

The bad news is that the overwhelming vibe is still that of easy listening digital mush.

Four years later, though, all Blonde Redhead has to show for its lengthy studio hiatus is another too-obvious bauble.

They've certainly got the pure sound of it nailed down. More than most mini-genres, goth demands ambiance-- the mood is everything, and on this front, Violet Cries succeeds tremendously.

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.

The versions of Winehouse's repertoire that turn up on At the BBC's audio disc, though, are almost all sloppier than their studio counterparts, and she rarely manages to reveal anything we didn't already know about her songs.

Ghost Wave get comfy in simplicity, tone, and tempo, and maintain that true course for the rest of the record. There’s a great, mid-60s Stones energy that runs underneath Ages that keeps the whole thing hearty and on its heels. But Paul’s faux-lysergic lyricism peppered throughout is never as focused as something like the Stones' “19th Nervous Breakdown”, even though he matches that jaunty cadence often.

A charitable perspective might see the band's embrace of pub rock as a conscious rejection of political correctness in the form of so-called good taste; the reality is that it seems like a last-ditch attempt to aestheticize a sublime lack of inspiration.

Come Around Sundown is, and it ends up being no different from a lot of the phony populism in the air these days.

There is nothing original or novel about Telekinesis' music, but somewhat counterintuitively, its by-the-books professionalism is what makes it so effective.

Love Goes, Smith’s third album, unfortunately fails to deliver on the promise of “How Do You Sleep?” The album is clumsily split in two, with no regard to sequencing; it begins with a collection of bubbling, at times electric songs spanning melodic funk, pulsing deep-house, and mid-tempo pop, before abruptly veering to five messy ballads that would be better delivered via Hallmark card.

Large chunks of MDNA are shockingly banal, coming across not so much as bad pop songs per se, but as drably competent tunes better suited to D-list Madonna wannabes.

Oceans Will Rise is not a bad album, but it is very much the sound of a band still trying to figure out who they are--and in fairness, they have lost and gained a member since their first record. But three albums into a career, they should have a better idea than this.

The upshot of these six tracks seems to be that Adult. have been listening to a hell of a lot of Bauhaus. And I have to give them credit: They've followed that impulse right out to the sweet spot.

[The album has] overproduced but underwritten pieces that seek to create atmosphere but mostly leave empty spaces that the Hundred in the Hands aren't sure how to fill.

Trouble Man's scattershot approach makes it the realest album the guy could make in 2012, but that doesn't make it any good.

Turns out, so-called mini-Mariah can hold her own in 2014; and while the best songs here may not be timeless, they certainly feel right for right now.

While Funplex's super-sized dance pop can't quite compare with the band's best moments, there's plenty of residual B-52's-ness to satiate longtime fans.

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

Super Extra Gravity is too deft to be too dark, though-- there's joy in its catharsis.

At best, the verses, bridges, and instrumental passages feel custodial, doing little to disturb the flow so that the chorus can deliver a proper dynamic boost. Mostly, they just feel like Guards killing time, and Follin's power-pop Madlibs make the 45 minutes of In Guards We Trust feel significantly longer.

Like a child playing dress-up with their parents’ wardrobe, Only Run’s impulsive change-ups can result in some ill-fitting looks.... Fortunately, Only Run finally hits its stride in its more focussed second half, with Ounsworth and Greenhalgh strategically building upon simple ideas rather than trying to cram them together and see what happens.

Try as you might, searching for vestiges of the ol' Morcheeba is futile.

Occasionally the devotion to six-string mayhem overwhelms the songwriting, and unless you really get off on reams of guitar raunch, Major Stars on CD may still not be for you.

A restless and sometimes laborious album that attempts to spotlight all of Enslaved's parts in one very overbearing package.

Delete two-thirds of I’m the Problem, whose back-end filler tracks are not even worth noting (save for the bizarre “Miami,” which sounds like a The-Dream song for the Don’t Tread on Me set), and a more interesting album emerges.

Whether or not they've produced anything that justifies the time away they could have spent producing something better, more consequential, by themselves? Well, the jury's still out there.

Any record that emphasizes variety will have a few tracks that fall just outside the artist's reach; not everything works quite so well, although that has more to do with song choice than execution.

The rest of the album’s expansive epics are built on a shaky foundations, with too many songs that contain too many concepts for their own good.

It is not, strictly speaking, a good record—Eminem hasn’t made one of those in a decade—but it boasts enough technical command and generates just enough arresting ideas to hold your attention.

In the end, Barbara could've been made by a computer with a specific coding procedure: bass riffs align themselves into right angles, sharp synth lines blare, hi-hats sizzle, hooks dissolve on contact, and 2004 never ends.

On the whole, Cómo's not a weaker album than "YTK," but it sounds like it's overcompensating for its likely increased exposure.

Even if La Costa Perdida isn't a great Camper Van Beethoven record, it does illustrate how unique this band still is, 30 years after it formed.

The sheer size of Hello Everything's scope dictates it's a bit of a sprawling beast, more a collection of moments than a cohesive record. Nonetheless, it's a consistently enthralling listen.

While Black Rainbows may represent more of a flickering flame than a raging inferno, it at least yields some evidence that Anderson's once-fiery persona has not been completely extinguished.

Whitney’s music is starting to sound better than it is. A little more songwriting, and a bit more leeway for that old, bracing strangeness, would go a long way.

Love’s rapture is on full display on the lyrics sheet, but throughout Myself in the Way, the chemistry feels lab-sterilized.

In the place of anthems, though, are carefully constructed gems making up a sequencing run so solid it takes a few listens to pick out the exact drop-off point.

Swallowed whole, Autumn Was a Lark can seem sonically disjointed, but it's also an apt representation of Portastatic's ever-roaming muse.

One gets the sense, however, that in acknowledging where his inspirations came from and figuring out where his compositions will go on Take My Breath Away, he's misplaced the present tense and the once-present tension.

This is ultimately mediocre music that sometimes recalls the sound and feeling of excellent music, and the only thing that Heidecker brings to the table is a smirking irony that is not particularly appealing when separated from hilarious comedy.

The record is expertly mixed and produced: It brims with fully realized moments, like a synth bit on “Anxious” that conjures the exact feeling of seeing an ex like someone else’s post on Instagram; the portamentos on “Slow Burn” should come with a vertigo warning. But the album’s mood is just sour.

It's a thrilling look inside his brain, a microcosmic version of this peep under the hood that Battles have allowed with Dross Glop, showing off the constituent parts that now make their machine a smooth, assured, and always giddily exciting ride.

The Saga Continues is full of competent if forgettable rapping straight out of the Wu-Tang manuscripts, and each Wu rapper does a serviceable job mustering up shades of their primes, in function. The verses don’t do what they used to, but at a distance they move in the same ways.

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

Rarely does a band bid you farewell and admit it overstayed its welcome in the same breath.

While this sort of proactive fandom hardly qualifies as bad art, you'd have to get pretty smashed to ignore the album's missing spirit and just dance, which, sadly, may be the point here.

The group's clearly more concerned with making great sounds and creating a distinctive vibe than they are with making lasting statements.

It's punchier; the themes are weightier; the emotional range is more dynamic. And it finds Kodak Black sounding like nobody but himself.

As far as mainstream pop-rock records go, Brain Thrust Mastery occasionally gets the job done.

Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, their new drive can be awkward. Even more unfortunately, it's most notable on what should be their catchiest songs.

The main weakness is the same one found on Crazy Clown Time: the songs. As songs, they don’t do much or say much.

Naturally, the double-album's peaks occur when both members' ideas intersect.... With these moments, Hella back up their ambition with impressive amounts of ingenuity and elbow grease, creating a White Album for disgruntled Gen Xers still finding solace in shoeboxes full of NES cartridges.

Just as you'd have to be made of stone not to enjoy at least some part of a Monotonix gig, anyone who likes garage rock would have to be an obstinate stickler for originality not to enjoy the best parts--that is, the majority--of Where Were You When It Happened?

Religious music was never a hot button issue, and at no point does this, Moore's latest, feel like anything other than an honest expression of love.

Masseduction Rewired is by no means indispensable, but as a distraction it has the frustrating charm of a good crossword puzzle.

It settles for being a mildly adventurous AAA rap album made by two friends searching for fun in heartbreak.

Most of these songs aren’t offensive on their own. .... The cumulative effect, though, is exhausting, a daisy-chain of shaky half-measures that doesn’t even feel particularly committed to being depressing.

If this attempted reconciliation produces moments of both elation and frustration, well, the band's erratic track record gives us no real reason to expect otherwise.

Like every jerk who reads an Orwell or Rand novel and walks around a few days with a chip on his/her shoulder, Starsailor play the self-righteous yet simplistic social critic.

It's softer feel also illustrates the dynamic range Cohen has as a songwriter on his first solo outing, one that isn't especially revelatory or inventive, but does offer a solid starting point for the second chapter of his career.

He’s never sounded more checked out. Even Cudi doesn’t seem to believe his own hype anymore. To its credit, INSANO is trying to do something different—that different thing, however, is just having DJ Drama provide thin narrative window dressing to a spate of uninspired Kid Cudi songs.

On an album that feels about six minutes long (it's actually just under 29), a couple highlights aren't enough to make it a keeper. But you can't necessarily count the band's new younger focus as a flaw; Velocity of Sound showcases a tight, concentrated power-pop sound that the band seemed to have lost on their last couple outings.

No peaks, no gorges, just a steady oscillation between adequate and inspired.

Not fully realizing where their strengths and weaknesses lie makes Sam's Town, despite the drastic makeover, roughly equivalent to Hot Fuss, a mediocre album surrounding a few towering singles.

Like its unexpected stylistic kin My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges, Seeing Sounds finds its creators partaking in the subversively phallocentric narcissism of staring at their CD collections, confusing music listening with music understanding rather than enjoyment.

Contrary to what some have claimed, They Were Wrong is listenable, and intentionally so: the band frequently finds ways to successfully straddle the fence between form and noise... though most of the time, it's admittedly impenetrable and alienating.

There are a lot of reasons this album doesn't gel, not least that Liam Gallagher now sounds like a singing anti-smoking campaign, and the brash, snotty arrogance that once sold "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and "Champagne Supernova" is crushed out by his gruffness.

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.

The truth is, if Head Carrier had arrived as the umpteenth Frank Black solo album, little about it would seem amiss. But coming from a band whose legacy was built on shock-and-awe transgression, Head Carrier feels overly pleasant and pedestrian.

These many mismatching, criss-crossing threads create an incredibly convoluted 77-minute slog that is as tough to listen to as it is to digest.

Even at 46 minutes, Preparations is wearying; it's the same Prefuse tricks once more, with less feeling.

With more experience, the group could perhaps one day drum up a more cohesive, compelling vision, something that reaches out and grabs you. For now, though, the band's grasping at straws.

To some extent, WYWH can get by on vibe, but really, a listener can do much better, even without going further back into the Concretes catalog.

Like the YouTube culture the "Pork and Beans" video depicts so well, the song--and this album--relies on a high quantity of short-lived pretty good ideas to distract from a shortage of great ones.

Blake is fighting the respectable fight on Enough Thunder, though the EP's totally bass-less tracks show that he needs dubstep as much as dubstep needs him.

These clusterfuck all-the-cooks experiments, more often than not, add up to way, way less than the sum of their parts.

After confidently striking out from Delorean’s cocoon of reverb on Apar, Lopetegi has returned but the rest of the band hasn’t, giving Muzik a curiously unbalanced, deflated mix.

Sadly the two best (read: different) tracks come at the end, a shame because you'll have probably put on something closer to actual music by then.

A treacherous, crashing disaster.

If Sia spent more time at the piano, and/or hired Robyn to write her a couple of tracks, the results could be marvelous.

Instead of crashing rock and roll and electronica head-on, his integration is a more subtle mix. He's not a pioneer by any means, but Volume Two is testament to his more nuanced approach. On this, his third album, Warren allows the guitars and "real" instruments an equal say, and ends up with music that sounds incredibly intelligent in light of many other clumsy cross-breeding musicians.