The album is too inoffensive to leave much lasting impression. Over 18 songs, its initially appealing tastefulness becomes cloying and monotonous. Instead of the dynamism of mixing colors, the album mostly yields just a uniform pastel wash.

Despite his reputation as one of rock’s great thinkers, Byrne has never sounded more like a stoned teenager staring at the clouds and spit-balling deep thoughts about the universe. And yet despite its many misfires—including a truly unfortunate pun on the word “duty” in that dog song—American Utopia manages two unblemished triumphs in its final stretch.

This album is weighted heavily with [Efrim] Menuck's quavering, strident vocals; a fact some listeners might reasonably regard as an obstacle. Thankfully, however, his bandmates frequently come to his aid both instrumentally and vocally.

In the three years since Last Broadcast, Doves have cultivated a better understanding of their strengths and limitations, and Some Cities beams with a revivified looseness.

DeVotchKa cycle through and marry varying strains of world music with great aplomb. It's very rare that you'll find a seam.

Another Fine Day offsets some of what it lacks in freshness with aw heck poker-night camaraderie.

The subject matter here is repetitive, pseudo-intellectual pandering runs rampant, pointless skits and mid-song dialogue sessions interrupt the flow, and most importantly, wasted beats fall at the hands of Slug's newfound penchant for verse-long tracks and poorly realized singsong bridges.

Monkey comes off resembling either a padded greatest-hits comp or an "inspired by" soundtrack for a non-existent movie. What it certainly isn't is a DJ mix where previously hidden links between seemingly unrelated songs are unearthed through the ancient art of juxtaposition.

What we have here is a long-awaited stepchild of IDM and hair metal sensibilities, joined by the omnivorous appetite of hip-hop.

Finds them as able as ever, playing as though they'd never been gone, and offering their most organic album in ages.

So, essentially, this is the pop record '70s prog bands would make in the '80s-- Big Generator and Power Windows for a new generation. Aside from two major blunders nothing is overtly offensive, but simply lachrymose and lactose.

With Maladroit, Weezer has finally given the full punt to the nerd-rock label they sorta invented and always shunned, settling instead for being our generation's version of Cheap Trick.

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

[An] entertaining, varied rock record.

The album's laissez-faire production fails to anchor its quaint, melody-allergic songs. In turn, Elverum's retiring vocals float to the top, which is a horrible place for them.

In the end, it's hard to decide if Descended Like Vultures is better or worse than Rogue Wave's debut.

Throughout Free at Last, Freeway displays a deft ability to play the foil to less exuberant MCs, with the exception of a firebreathing Busta Rhymes cameo on 'Walk With Me.'

If you're able to view it through that lens, then New Clouds has much to offer as an unscripted, decidedly un-pop kind of album: mood music and drug music, yes, but more than that, the uncompromising work of a dude making sounds strictly on his own terms.

As with generations of Swedish popsters before them, Sambassadeur excel at picking up sounds from the U.S. and UK and refining them to their catchy essence.

Light Chasers improves on 2008's Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) by focusing on what Cloud Cult do best, though it lacks the colorful songwriting and hooky inventiveness of the band's most endearing songs.

Koima is a beautiful album, and at times beautiful to the exclusion of anything else.

Dense and darkly lovely music.

Yakuza continue to forge a specialized and strange alloy [of metal and experimental music] on Beyul. Don't expect to love all of their recombinations. Do, however, expect to be surprised by them.

It sounds uninviting on paper, but there's frustrating murk and there's haunting murk, and Growing Seeds is the second kind.

Loyal is a hypnotic record, siphoning in and out of repeated, textured loops that soothingly chafe against each other like fingers performing a head massage.

Mala is Banhart's best record in nearly a decade--largely because it's his loosest and funniest.

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

The five songs on the Crosswords EP sound like tracks that come easily to him, songs he knows how to make without stretching himself.