It's good for what it is--better than it needs to be, in fact--yet what it is is only a fraction of what it could be, if only Earle would stop trying to tidy up his inspirations.

EarthEE makes one think more than feel.

Dark Sky Paradise is a big leap in the direction of the ideal Big Sean full-length.

The songs on here are surprisingly strong, such that any of them could have appeared on a proper album at any point in Beam’s decade-plus career. But the collection never sounds like the sum of its parts.

Physical Graffiti is Zeppelin's best album ultimately because it felt like a culmination.

Her blasé delivery might seem impenetrable at first, but there is warmth and wit to her work that rewards those who are patient enough to hear its message.

Some of the rougher edges and raw(er) emotion that got the twins noticed in the first place get ironed out a bit. And one side effect is that a few of the album's final tracks sound somewhat similar in tonality, tempo, and their vibe. But Ibeyi still find subtle ways to create shape.

Rose Mountain might be Screaming Females' most deliberate music yet, but it lacks much of their former wildness.

At his finest, most expansive moments, Deacon renders this dilemma beside the point, but on Gliss Riffer, it's hard to avoid it; the battle between song and arrangement is staged in too small of an arena.

On Restarter, that precept again takes the lead, and Torche have made their most compelling record since Meanderthal.

It sounds less like a young producer enjoying the fruits of quick success than a restless experimenter figuring out what to do next. Lucky for us, the woodshed is destination enough.

Rapture is ultimately an honest effort devoid of staying power.

As it is, the album feels slightly cluttered by a surfeit of dry minutiae that calls for a cutting room floor of its own.

On a whole, Whatever is milder and gentler than the darker Become What You Are; that comes with age, I guess. But, all said, it does feel like a return.

The six-piece around Houck is more competent than combustible, a quality that’s long made Phosphorescent a good band to see for a 90-minute show but not one that makes you need to take them home.

Pierson hasn’t lost any of the force or heat that’s characterized her vocal work for 40 years; if anything, she’s acquired the ability to enrich otherwise pedestrian line readings with a resonance that feels born of a life well lived.

The most successful [alternative versions] are the ones that drastically reinvent their material, recasting, for instance, rock songs as synth-pop songs, synth-pop songs as rock songs, or busy twee-punk as slightly less busy acoustic twee-punk. But Supermoon never takes those kinds of leaps.

Even when Vestiges & Claws exudes strain, González never gives the impression of truly challenging himself.

Most tracks on the first half clock in under four-minutes, but as the songs stretch out longer on the album’s back half, there’s not enough structure to support them.

It might still mortify some of his more purist fans, but there's little on this record that a few instrumental-version substitutions wouldn't fix.

The end result is a record that reverently draws from a dazzling array of past masters only to short-circuit critical capacity.

Both the scant material and under-inspired lyricism are symptoms of the same problem: a dearth of unexpected ideas from an MC once seemingly capable of endless ones. Ghost’s done worse, but he used to be so excitingly unpredictable. Now you pretty much know what you’re going to get.

On If You’re Reading This, all of this chest beating is delivered over the most darkly hypnotic beats Drake’s graced since So Far Gone.

He’s spent decades getting musical vocabularies from all over the world under his fingers, and even when his improvisations begin to meander, what he creates from his well of options is remarkable and wholly his own.

Those who are coming into Transfixiation blind might just hear a notable band boasting a currently rare commitment to an '80s kind of noise-rock rather than the '90s iterations of shoegaze, goth, or industrial that’s more prominent in 2015. Then again, APTBS’ progress as a band only serves to expose the underlying one-dimensionality of their actual songwriting.

Talent Night at the Ashram is grounded in a very palatable reality, one that harkens back to the band’s first two albums. But that isn’t to say this record isn’t without its surrealist moments.

If Circus isn't a front-to-back triumph, it's got enough juice in it to forgive the occasional misfire.

More than a simple clash of teen-angst noise and old-soul poise, Mourn’s debut album is a reminder that a big impetus for the former is the frustration of wishing you were old enough to savor the latter.