Kaleidoscope isn’t going to kickstart Coldplay’s critical reappraisal, nor does it deserve to. But it rewards those of us who’ve stuck around with a few songs that capture the band at its best.

Unfortunately a whole album of similarly DJ-pitched material, all the quote-unquote pop frills shaved off, wouldn't have allowed blog readers to devote the few days their attenuated attentions can muster for He Was King's singles, before the next this-is-kind-of-okay-I-guess electro-pop album arrives to distract them.

After all the sentimental rigamarole, it’s tough to come away from Heartbreak Weather feeling any closer to Horan. He spends too much of the record bouncing between sounds and songwriting concepts to feel distinct.

When Delerium forego the listless Gregorics and stale beats employed by their more renowned contemporaries, they truly shine. The beat-heavy "Aria," for instance, and the salsa-esque "Fallen Icons" are arguably Poem's strongest tracks. But these moments occur only now and then, and are often sandwiched between songs that, while helping you survive the subway's rush-hour crunch, won't meet your needs at any other time-- unless you're about to have a mid-life crisis.

Raw is a perfectly executed version of what Westerners might call global kitsch: a series of evocative tourist postcards showing sunny scenes from Rio and Honolulu.

The main drawback to Worlds’ sound, an impressionistic approach to mass-appeal fare, is that anyone with their ear to the (festival) ground might find these sounds to be relatively old-hat.

They’re modest songs for modest moments, occupying the space between the hookup and the breakup, of getting hired and getting fired, that manageable lovesickness, regret, and anxiety that underlie just about every URL and IRL interaction.

In the end, though, Everything Is Borrowed's musical high points aren't enough to save it from its lyric sheet, and that, going forward, constitutes a real problem for Skinner.

Though not without highlights, Not Your Kind of People contains nothing as memorable as their big hits, and it's heavier on the filler than their earlier albums.

It’s messy and menacing in equal measure, a bar fight that ends in broken glass and slippery floors, but not before landing a few killer strikes.

It’s harder not to fixate entirely on the formal elements of the music, rather than the things that might make it personal. That leads to records where you listen to and admire them from a distance instead of getting immersed in them.

Despite production from current-day heavy hitters like Da Internz and Mike WiLL Made It, he still comes off like a relic from the past, the class clown who never quite grew up.

The songs are defined less by sounds or ideas than by their sanded-down edges: plodding beats from Nottz and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, histrionic Marsha Ambrosius hooks, putative passings of the torch.

Pocket Symphony winds up feeling strangely transient, accomplished and genuinely likeable but also forgettable.

Most of the cars in The Great Gatsby crash and so does Luhrman's soundtrack.

At its best, the casual atmosphere makes for one of Kozelek’s loosest, lightest collections to date: something to throw on when you don’t have the emotional capacity for his more distinctive albums.

The record is not wondrous, but it’s a light listen with a couple of good moments and a handful of clunkers. The weaker moments reveal his shortcomings as a rapper without being provocative or ponderous enough to provoke a firebomb, or even a raspberry, in response.

Flaws is well-produced, many of its songs nicely augmented by fleet drumming and intricate guitar figures, but Steadman's lack of having anything interesting to say and inability to say it distinctively ultimately sinks the endeavor.

If Wale, Meek, and Pill could find a way to focus on their own strengths, maybe they'd sound more comfortable alongside their new boss. Instead, they all sound like they're trying to become mini-Rosses, and it doesn't work for them.

Harlequin is an odd album with perplexing priorities and a conflicted sense of scale, but just enough sweetness and heart to make you want to give it the benefit of the doubt anyway.

Leray boasted about introducing the younger generation to artists like Busta Rhymes through her use of samples. That’s a nice idea—introducing people to other music through her samples—but that’s basically the only idea she brings to COI.

The redeeming moments are ones which make some unpredictable moves--any shocks are welcome on a record as polite and poised as this.

Wheels starts to lose a bit of steam toward its end, but as with previous Russian Futurists albums, it's over well before Hart's shtick turns monotonous.

[“XanaX Damage” is] a flash of greatness bogged down by poor execution, which could stand as a theme for the EP as a whole.

The band plays with tremendous power, verve, and energy, but the results feel leaden, even after dozens of list For all of its dense conceptual underpinnings, The Ark Work comes up curiously short on new ideas long before the album ends.

Thankfully, it's not just dour missives and desolation--there's life in these songs.

Even on some of the stronger tracks, Zimmerman seems to be going through the motions.

Despite its slightness, Notes From a Quiet Life is still a landmark in Washed Out’s catalog: a true solo turn and a complete break from chillwave sonics. But having finally acquired all this space, Greene seems unsure how to fill it.

I just always felt comfortable in my thinking that one Toad The Wet Sprocket was more than enough to fulfill a specific emotional and intellectual niche. Am I wrong?

Iron Sea is filled with the sort of greeting-card poetry that would even give Bono pause.

It's a soundtrack to a '70s made-for-TV movie, but a damn fine one.... But ultimately, Pelo is a triumph of average-- a zero-sum game. The few noteworthy tracks are negated by the bombs. For every standout, rare as they are, there are embarrassing nadirs like "Tom of Finland (An Homage)."

Manages to ignore the essential art-rock flourishes of Sound-Dust, and in fact, [has] done away with anything even remotely interesting or new.

There is an alarming lack of imagination in evidence on Skeletons, and virtually nothing in the way of strong emotion.

There's something to be said for a debut album that so vehemently defies conformity, even if it kinda cuts off its nose to spite its face in the process.

There is a lot of loud, full-bore belting. It's a little showboaty and on occasion his voice threatens to overpower the song itself.... Still, not a note of Magic Moment rings false.

In the end, lost amidst the faithfully reproduced house piano progressions and familiar melodies is anything signaling that those epiphany-filled late nights were actually, you know, fun.

While Rundanns has all the makings of a late-career triumph, it’s less a new watermark for Rundgren’s sprawling discography than an analog to it: beautiful and baffling in equal measure, all over the map, and beholden to nothing but its own inexplicable logic.

Paper Tigers is one or two decent singles surrounded by a bunch of mediocre-or-worse filler.

Time to Die bests it as far as consistency goes.

Whatever pleasure can be generated from Bellamy’s admirable melodic sense and overblown hooks is negated by Muse’s insistence that they’re profound rather than fun.

As a think piece, Rehearsing My Choir is enormously engaging, but as a pop record, it's exhausting and fruitless.

The problem with Fear Yourself is not that it sounds big, rather that it sounds condescending to the man it's supposed to be all about, and more importantly, by.

Mono have wisely restrained from directly replicating their previous sound, but here the band has sacrificed sonic heaviness for intellectual ponderousness, and too often has fallen prey to slow, repetitive, tiresome songwriting patterns and a frustrating lack of variation.

There's nothing especially bad here, but once the smoke clears from their bland, bassed-out ambiance, HTRK are another band without a sound to call their own.

Ghost demonstrates well enough Ferreira's versatility, certainly her stylishness, but even more than those, it shows her empathy.

With every bungled attempt at pop, metal, or pop-metal, Get Hurt just rewrites its own worst case scenario.

Outside the sagging middle section, the subject matter and production will be nothing new to those familiar with Yela's music; his voice and perspective remain sharp and unique, and he certainly hasn't lost any of his technical skill.

What feels missing from Heavy Mood is specificity: Where are the characters, and what became of those kids passed out on the lawn? The heart of Heavy Mood is lost its in own sloganeering.

The lack of honesty doesn’t really matter--nobody’s going to Sheeran for gritty soul-searching. But the lack of imagination does.

This album should alienate virtually everyone who's ever been a Shadow fan.

These songs tend towards fuzzy sentiments—the words “love,” “life,” “light,” and “feel” are staples. Many of the musical ideas—tinkling pianos, plasticky strings and emotion-squeezing chord progression—have been part of Moby’s toolkit since the word “Go.”

Which brings us full circle, in a strange way, to DFA79. While the band surely wasn't the headiest of its era, there was a svelte, muscular quality to their music-- a feeling that any excess had been cut away-- that is absent from this record (and, it's worth noting, Keeler's work in MSTRKRFT).

There isn't a lot left on Nothing, apart from these faint reminders, to indicate that these two guys were the same pair who once revolutionized the sound of hip-hop.

For the first time, it sounds like he sat down in a good studio and carefully assembled a record. That's good, in that Odd Nosdam's production rode out the lo-fi thing for exactly long enough before moving on; but it's also a disappointment, because the new work isn't far off from where he was before-- it recycles a lot of his ideas with none of his usual edginess.

MPLSound is (surprise) momentarily enjoyable and completely inessential, happy to provoke Palovian responses since the hard work of honestly juicing your head, heart, or hips is antithetical to the whole idea.

Doused in interminable glimmering drones and wimpers, spending 45 minutes in its company feels like being smothered inside a snowglobe.

While Eminem’s verbal dexterity has remained intact, his shortcomings have grown more glaring with the passage of time. When he isn’t unleashing his id, he has, at times, veered toward power-ballad treacle.

Conceptually, they're close to Mumford & Sons: opportunistic in their borrowings, yet entirely unimaginative in the execution. Theirs is a thoroughly timid, tentative take on Americana: roots music without the roots.

He issues his grievances with a smart-ass certainty, rarely showing empathy or compassion for his characters or admitting that maybe it's his perspective that's skewed.

Sadly, they seem content for the kind of mediocrity that designates you as the headliner Firefly and Bonnaroo call when someone else isn’t available.

In other words, it’s not MGMT vs. Oracular Spectacular; if anything’s holding MGMT back, it’s themselves.

Imagin shines whenever it isn't contorting to fit preconceived notions of format.

Sticking with him through the machinations of the music industry has never been more difficult than it is now, but IV Play still has its rewards.

The dewy-eyed sound of Who Am I? appeals to a younger generation, confirming that modern Britpop doesn’t always equate to aggressive young men—it can be gentle goths with their friends, writing songs for kids hoping to figure out who they are. All Pale Waves have to do now is figure out the answer to that question themselves.

A flatulent, irrelevant, self-indulgent attempt at recapturing the hotwired spontaneity of their debut through a dirge of sub-par psychedelia and try-hard freakouts.

Cover albums and mixes aside, Radio Retaliation is the pair's fifth studio album, and finds them once again failing to make anything but the most minute adjustments to the polite groove that is their stock, trade and--in 2009--monopoly.

Fans of mid-fi one-man indie bands and anyone who loved Elbogen's when he was still Say Hi To Your Mom will undoubtedly find things to like about it, but Oohs & Ahs is ultimately a decent record that's weighed down a bit by some puzzling sonics.

You’re Going to Make It makes life sound like one big bouncy castle of fun, and that unquestioned contentment renders Mates of State musically anonymous.

Only staunch Volta cultists would claim every minute of Xenophanes is worth your precious leisure time. But damn if the best bits don't make an excellent in-car soundtrack for pretending you're on your way to something more dramatic than your day job.

Keep On Smiling’s glossy veneer never disguises its particle-board center.

They've jettisoned just about anything that ever made them perversely enjoyable.

Much of Numbers feels melancholy-by-numbers, so melodies seem recycled, riffs feel tedious, and the emotional register dampens.

It is an alluring collection that hints at greatness but halts at achieving it, instead teasing listeners for its sequel.

Anyone who buys this without owning Ironman, Supreme Clientele or Fishscale is going to miss the bigger picture, and anyone who buys it while already owning those albums isn't gaining much at all.

The complementary pieces are all keystones here, and stylistic variety--the focused punk-vibe grit-and-grind of P.O.S., Dessa's smooth venom, Cecil Otter reining in agitation, Sims and Mike Mictlan rounding out the rewind-demanding punchline barrage--is what keeps the album alive even when the words start to blur.

Dapperton’s potential shines when he pushes himself, when it sounds like he’s making music for self-expression and fun, expanding his vocal range and messing around with reverb. He loses it inside of self-imposed pop formulas and strained symbolism.

Sidewalks often inflates the worst attributes of Matt & Kim's big sound (overly simplistic lyrics, crude synth melodies, shouty singing) and smothers much of its sugar-rush energy and joyously defiant attitude in studio flourishes.

This album sounds like it was recorded and released as a favor from someone at the label. Truth is, the lighter that ignited All This Sounds Gas is long out of butane.

Her own versions aim at some druggily evocative conception of 60s soul, which makes them pale next to the originals.

Finally Rich benefits from some professional tweaks in the mix, but otherwise leaves Keef's sound untouched. And in addition to succeeding on its own terms, it proves that Keef has a lot of potential-- much more than his detractors might have hoped.

There’s craft in Beach Slang, just not the kind that translates to a chamber-pop setting meant to showcase intricate arrangements, deft melodies, and arch wordplay. While he’s switched up the instruments, Alex hasn’t bothered to reimagine the songs themselves.

Unfortunately, none of these songs actually feel like songs. Only a few have choruses or any significant chord changes. Instead, they're set pieces, which makes sense.

Unless you're a diehard retro-rock fan, you might want to leave this figurine in its natural environment: on the shelf.

As Manifesto runs through its forbidding 20-track playlist, it unsurprisingly falters when it chases Hot 97 spins that are laughably out of reach.

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.

For all of its coos about love and devotion, it's the album equivalent of a faked orgasm-- a collection of torch songs with no fire.

Ersatz G.B.'s abrasiveness, inscrutability, and tedium are increasingly tough to take with repeated close listening... a shabby, grueling album.

While Milagres may sound like a lot of music fans' favorite bands, it's hard to imagine anyone preferring this record to the real deal.

Sugar is notable as much for what's missing as for what's been honed and emphasized. Morris no longer howls like Kurt Cobain, nor does he drawl so studiously. There are no 12- or seven-minute stoner epics either; instead, the songs are shorter, more compact, punchier. Almost missing: personality.

Their forlorn, polished California pop is like the sprawling Valley suburbs: nice enough, if that's your sort of thing.

Keeler succeeds in meticulously reconstructing the electronic music he clearly has a taste for, but without stirring in any of his own personality the songs do little more than run in place, joylessly hitting the marks without changing the rules in any meaningful or attention-grabbing way.

It's his unhinged vocals that make Christmas in the Heart interesting, and, in some ways, appropriate to its subject.

Like its predecessors, Three's Co. mixes the sun-soaked power pop proclivities of Teenage Fanclub with the sylvan jangle of Felt, though the Tyde too often seem afraid to really make waves.

It's Loverboy-style lite-metal meets new wave, without the riffs, melodies or red leather pants. In other words, it's Survivor.

For all of their upgraded production, instrumental technique, and influences, All Is Illusory sounds like a record that primes the Velvet Teen to succeed around the time Cum Laude! was released—but making the best "2006 indie rock" record of 2015 makes them stand out in a way that they hadn’t managed yet.

After spending 15 minutes sounding like preordained headliners, Tribes trudge through half an hour of perfunctorily composed and performed verses and choruses that are all too deniable.

Fuzztone guitar and the occasional woodwinds dress up the many slow-paced songs, but repetitive, fragmentary compositions such as 'Paquita Reads by Candlelight,' Vancouver-repping 'Skeleton Aim,' and the typically moribund 'Come Darkness' sound more concerned with melisma than memorable melodies or vibrant production.

In its most fully realized moments, ...And Star Power is the album Todd Rundgren could’ve released between Something/Anything? and A Wizard, a True Star, its best songs striking an uncanny balance between the exquisite balladry of the former and the progged-out fantasias of the latter.