Whether Muzz wind up being a lasting band or a one-off diversion, this is a promising debut from three old friends who have an instinctive grasp of each other’s talents.

As welcome as it is to hear Hekt reflect on her burgeoning identity, the most commanding songs on Going to Hell explore personal feelings in service to a community.

[Big Sean is] prone to rambling, will drag schemes out too long, and he isn't afraid to overcommit. But he strings together enough solid stretches to keep tracks moving. Still, Aiko is often the saving grace, holding songs together and delivering the better verses.

While it's certainly enjoyable, it's also a bit more generic than anything they've done before.

The highlights of Ampexian suggest that if he did want to use the moniker for easier listening, the results would genuinely beguile, rather than demand your full attention and hope for the best.

A glut of midtempo dithering mostly takes up the second half, and while some of the songs situated there are decent on their own, together they congeal into an asymmetrical mess, exposing Reptilians' front-loaded wiring.

The album starts to wear thin by the homestretch.

Com comes off as alternately uncomfortable and downright lazy, half-speaking-- or worse, singing-- new-age revelations to the masses.

So yes, on Minotaur they continue draw deeply from 60s soft-pop; if you've enjoyed the Clientele's last few albums, you're guaranteed to enjoy at least 6/8ths of this mini LP.

It’s the textbook definition of a low-stakes mid-career rap album, a place for one of the genre’s icons to show he’s still in decent fighting shape.

A handful of guests aside, though, none of G.O.O.D. Music's personalities do much to justify their newfound prominence. If Cruel Summer is meant to be an argument for the label's other talent, it makes a weak case.

Matangi is a disappointing record because of how listlessly over and "beyond" everything it is--to the point that it often feels uncharacteristically weary and out of touch.

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.

Dub Trio are on to something, but they've yet to fully grasp it.

It may not rival his classic albums—and it never deludes itself into thinking it does—but Got To Be Tough captures Hibbert as committed as always, still giving it all he’s got.

It's still questionable how this pretty, solemn music will work in the quirky context of Green's film, but it makes for a nice little album on its own.

There's a good album underneath all the filler-- probably the Eels' best since Electro-Shock Blues-- but it'll take some editing to excavate it.

Blastbeats churn and tremolo-picked guitars gnash their teeth. These guys know what they’re doing. Liturgy of Death has its share of weirder moments, too.

In the end then, for all of Diplo's good intentions and curatorial muscle, the first volume of Blow Your Head struggles not just as a lesson, or a sampler, but also simply as a collection of songs you want to listen to.

A record that finds SMD operating at half-speed when the accelerator is pedal is close within their reach.

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

Souled Out capably buffs Jhené Aiko’s strengths and shellacks her faults, but the moments where she steps out into the depth of her story transcend the synergy of a group of musicians with good chemistry.

His signature restlessness tends to enhance the Oh Sees’ concussion-inducing material; for the past 10+ years, it’s sometimes seemed like the faster Thee Oh Sees produce, the harder they hit. The approach doesn’t work such wonders here.

With little penchant for bedlam, it’s an album that lacks the exact thing that makes Flume’s music exciting.

The two musicians match well in terms of overall ethos, but at some points it feels like they just stopped listening to each other, and what should be otherworldly comes clunking to the ground.

A perfect party. A perfect soundtrack to your perfect party. You'll sleep like a baby, and inevitably wake to realize that Change Is Coming doesn't play so well by the light of day.

Mr. Love & Justice isn't exactly the musical equivalent of dropping flowers down the barrels of rifles, but there is a certain passivity to the disc, a characteristic magnified by the rootsy approach of Bragg's trusty band the Blokes, who channel the bucolic bent of the Band rather than the edge of the Clash.

This blunt narrative ought to sound contrived, but Hardy’s gift for delicate phrasing is defiantly alluring.

'64-'95 succeeds when Lemon Jelly stick to their bread and butter: pleasant and facile ambience.

Like the rest of his comedy oeuvre, Heidecker pulls no punches. In Glendale arrives as a fully formed beast, equal parts parody and confession of our universal lameness.

Regrettably, no other song here has a lyric nearly as compelling as "Andalucia"-- a major flaw for what is essentially a pedal steel-enhanced singer/songwriter album.

XI versions works best as a companion for smitten Black Noise fans, and it offers a couple of nice moments that Four Tet and Animal Collective completists might want to keep in their back pockets.

After the maze-like worlds conjured by Age Of and Garden of Delete, Love in the Time of Lexapro plays it disappointingly straight.

Fear of the Dawn is fucking weird: not obligatorily weird or try-hard weird, but genuinely, imaginatively weird.

No particular melodies, images, or moods really stick out from the vast, dreamy atmosphere that washes over you while you're listening.

While A Place to Bury Strangers take the brave step of allowing the distortion to dissipate, the unfettered view isn't always flattering: Ackermann's lyrics can sound like they were torn out of a bored, trench-coated high-school kid's notebook, with the cyber-punk fantasia of "Mind Control" and I-want-to-die miserablism.

Oliver Appropriate, with its clap-along drumming patterns and stripped-back production, sounds like an elder statesman of emo gathering his fellow washed up frontmen around a campfire for a story or two. It’s a fitting ending for a band that always stood a step or two outside the scene, pointing and laughing.

The rest of the album doesn't sustain the highs of its first two tracks. At their best, the remaining songs are soothing, if unremarkable. But, at their worst, they plummet into less tuneful and more lyrically cloying territory.

It's a kitchen sink-like flood of sound, always on the verge of resembling a gigantic curveball being forced down your throat, but with Vibert pulling back from the humor brink at all the right moments.

Cut and Paste is hooky and appealing; with a gear change, he could easily move into a realm where people are actually paying attention. For now, he's a very sweet stream in a cultural backwater.

Prophet's widescreen music is wonderful to listen to; it's just hard to really feel.

On an album full of radio experiments, some succeed--“100 Letters,” “Walls Could Talk” and “Alone” demonstrate the perennially fertile sound of alt-pop--and some inevitably fail.

While Lithium Burn is an easy album to empathize with, you wish it'd do more to make you root for the band.

On Palms, the underlying parts fit together so smoothly that there's never any friction that could lead to a spark.

For the most part, though, Old Growth is exactly what this band has always done.

Oddly, for an album that cheekily presents itself as a long-lost ’70s prog cut-out bin artifact, Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk’s most notable characteristic may be its 29-minute brevity, offering a tasting-menu sampler of the various modes the Lips have been exploring for the past five years.

The best thing about Death III is that it finally unravels the narrative set up by their previous two albums: that Death was a punk band, one that in some way may have even helped invent punk.

If Infinite Granite was a debut by a band with no backstory, it’d be impressive as hell. But knowing Deafheaven’s singular ability to pull off thrilling highwire acts, their latest subversion of expectations feel less like a bold statement and more like a predictable move to gentler pastures.

Impeach My Bush is without a doubt her most competent record yet... But it also seems not to trust itself, always returning to the obvious tricks, making things right rather than keeping them as disorientingly rough-edged as her debut.

For a band returning from a decade-long sabbatical, these guys are surprisingly spry. Their consistency is also, to some degree, their downfall, since they still sound uncannily mid-'80s.... But even past their prime, the Go-Betweens are still better than anything on present alternative radio playlists.

To stick with the digital-age-anxiety theme, Networker feels not unlike a dating app meetup that went fine, but not great—just entertaining enough to hold your interest for a round or two of drinks until you’ve decided you probably wouldn’t see them again.

Nixon serves as a reminder that expertly executed stylistic hybrids and ironic juxtapositions-- great though they may be-- don't replace memorable songwriting. Sure, it's a novel concept, but while some of us may still be patient enough to "get it" five albums into the band's career, Wagner's talent and unique vision should demand a more challenging album.

Like their revivalist peers, Cave Singers aren't reinventing a genre here, but they lend their local folkie scene a welcome dark side, and No Witch is their strongest album yet.

One gets the feeling that with a little more ruthlessness about what makes the final cut, Goodnight Oslo could offer more hits than misses. As it is, it falls just a little short.

A disorienting hodgepodge of new songs and instrumental score padded with annoying segments of dialogue from the movie.

It’s better to conceive of Ex holistically, rather than as seven individual tracks—in part because the album's distinct parts tend to blend into one another, with little to differentiate them.

In an effort to make everything sound as massive as possible, the team obscures some of Fender’s more pointed moments.

Their slickest and most formulaic pop constructions to date.

Way is a humble first step in what sounds like a glorious new trip, where the really well played guitar becomes something else entirely.

While Bush is strong enough musically, you can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if this crew had followed R&G with a full-length a decade ago, when everyone involved was still in his prime.

Ultimately, what’s different about Glasgow Eyes is not the form but the tenor. As they advance into middle age, the tension between the Reid brothers has dissipated, giving Glasgow Eyes an unusually congenial spirit.

It’s full of bulletproof hooks and sticky turns of phrase. But in committing to a more conventional form of superstardom, Swift has deemphasized the skill at the core of her genius.

It's not so much that the quality varies, but that a bloated, lethargic feel permeates the record.

Despite its problems, Oblique to All Paths is the kind of commendable idea that feels like a way forward.

Harmonicraft is not without its moments; its just that, sometimes, spans of monotony and predictably make remembering or caring for those moments more work than they're worth.

Horror lacks some of the DIY immediacy of Strange’s first two records. A new degree of studio polish is palpable. .... But with Antonoff’s blockbuster-coded fingerprints on the record, the hooks also go bigger than before, and Strange’s heart and fierce desire for connection bleed through.

Adams evokes the goodwill of his masterpiece as a singer, anyway, even if the songwriting doesn't come close.

This album’s equilibrium-upsetting aural eclecticism comes into sharp focus: even if you’re not a working mom trying to function on four hours of sleep per night, the buzzing busyness and hallucinatory disorientation of Cosmic Logic are liable to make you feel like one.

Even at it’s best, TWFB is mostly just a well-crafted collection of genre exercises; a few too many tracks, like the motorik double whammy of “Das Selbstgespräch” and “Idee, Prozess, Ergebnis” and the ironically-titled “A New Direction”, are standard-issue deep cuts that offer little in the way of surprise.

Palo Santo is a promising sophomore album because it evolves past the sound of the band’s debut. But at its low points, the record lacks the bite to drive home the razor’s-edge duality of sacred and profane that Alexander seems to thrive on.

In a sense Turin Brakes do little wrong on Jackinabox aside from the occasional gooey outbursts of gaiety.

Despite having a satisfying arc that gently bends through it, there are a few moments where Space Project doesn’t solidify as a whole.

Shamir doesn’t owe anyone optimism. There must be room in queer songwriting for a broader spectrum of emotion than pride alone. That said, a sort of hopelessness flows through Heterosexuality.

Even with a side of arena-sized bombast, it remains a pleasure to hear Blige effortlessly rise above the drama.

If you value the merits of a singular flow, then what Monch does on this album can redeem nearly anything. Or at least make something likable out of an album that could've been just mediocre.

The record, then, turns out to be a fairly bloodless experience, a trait that suggests the Luyas should take heed of otherwise dangerous advice: A little violence never hurt anybody.

While Junto is at least happy enough to lift spirits, it feels like they've left it to others to reintroduce anarchy to the dancefloor.

What’s left is an album with an excess of initiative but not enough follow-through, a record that takes on so much it risks burning out. In the end, the little girl at the center of the album gets swallowed by her own vision.

Taking into account the sometimes spotty songwriting and its overtly dreamy similarities to Mojave 3 (like if they'd had a back massage and 1200mg's of Valium), there isn't much to save it from solo slump status.

The two-hour-plus runtime is gratuitous; probably the idea was to present the complete show (a la Alive by Kiss), but the effect is mind-numbing, and most of the successful experiments are lost in well-mannered gray.

The pleasure of Lighthouse is that it’s best appreciated as mood music: with its buoyant acoustic guitars and murmured harmonies, it casts a light spell.

The band's superhuman patience and dirty minimalism seem fit for longer, more sprawling works. Instead, they're stuck in limbo between catchiness and craftsmanship.

The newness of it is exciting, and so is the fullness of his vision; between the narcotic mood and the omnipresent murk, Dream a Garden suggests a maze-like expanse within its borders, perfect for getting lost in. Unfortunately, the album only partly lives up to those promises.

Bolstered by a gimmick and a catchphrase, the album is by-and-large Jeezy qua Jeezy, and the new fissures aren't enough to keep pundits gabbing.

Shangri-La offers more than enough frantic beats, fidgety bass lines, spiky guitar leads, soaring piano riffs, delirious vocal harmonies, and, yes, cowbells to fit in on any house-party playlist.

Art Official Age is not a return to form by any means, but a modestly exciting Prince album.

One step forward, three steps sideways, one step back, The Sweet Escape continues in Stefani's proud tradition of being caught somewhere between the vanguard and the insipid.

Diamonds on the Inside's breathless Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock whirlwind is tiring, at best.

He has evolved quite a bit since Excuse My French, coming up with moments of sharpness, but he is still limited in what he can do.

On the more diaristic songs, the narratives aren’t as vivid, the rapping isn’t as nimble, and the songs lack momentum.

[This collection] is too varied to be streamlined into a single influence-- but at least it transcends the nostalgic idea with which it starts, making the idea of the band taking these ideas and running with them a pleasingly feasible one.

When you sleep... has a much more distinct and iconoclastic character than their slick debut, drawing from the effervescent, percolating polish of early '80s Hot 100 pop that they flirted with on "Heart Out.".... That doesn't mean that When you sleep is consistent by any stretch. It's 75 minutes long, which could mostly be solved by trimming the four (!) lengthy ambient tracks on the record.

Good to Be Home's recollections are only meant to be alluded to, a summer-jam album riddled with familiar nods to shared experiences but still walled off from observers who think they really know Blu.

While Minaj is still rapping valiantly—especially as Red Ruby Da Sleeze, a new persona introduced on the Diwali riddim-sampling single of the same name—the album’s intention is muddled through its scattershot production, which sounds less like genre innovation and more like an insidious ploy to worm its way into as many crevices on TikTok as possible.

At its best, the album explores the contours of an emotional journey in space and time. Occasionally, though, scattered moods and unfocused songwriting blunt the record’s impact.

The diaristic nature of the music, and the blunt force with which it is delivered, showcases Demi Lovato the person and sidelines Demi Lovato the artist. It is an unenviable position: to have a story so harrowing that the emotional catharsis we feel in real life overshadows what she wanted to create on the album.

For All the Dogs caps off a recent persona that sounds like none of it’s fun to him—and he’s dragging us along to be the company of his misery.

This album's strengths-- its intimacy, its containment, its subtlety-- are not the qualities that made Sleater-Kinney great, but it would be ungenerous to dismiss this because it's not as thrilling, confrontational, or exuberant.