Constellations begs for more rather than delivering all of the goods all of the time. Perhaps that's an old-fashioned concept-- demanding the sort of patience and attention that technology's made obsolete. But at this point, it's exactly the move Balmorhea needed to make.

Every hoedown on Sigh No More-- every rush of instruments in rhythmic and melodic lockstep-- conveys the same sense of hollow, self-aggrandizing drama.

It leaves a very hazy, almost spectral impression when it ends. But it's also warm and in some ways comforting, and it improves the more you listen to it and tease out the details in the songs.

Alternately inspired and frustrating, it addresses themes of lost love (and lost chicness) with Queen-size 70s-rock pomp, neoclassical interludes, and one ukulele-based chamber-pop song.

Though there's a nice sense of humor throughout, there's just not enough meat on the bone to inspire any sort of real investment in the majority of these songs.

Kollaps Tradixionales makes no apologies for this shift, but it does defuse 13 Blues' sometimes oppressive air by reconciling the band's current incarnation with its more graceful earlier output.

Measure is, if nothing else, a truly crafted record.

As it is, Peace & Love sounds like a rough draft full of rookie mistakes, rather than a veteran defiantly going it alone.

The Stimulus Package would work better as an album if Free had a little more help directing his skills, or if he just decided to rap hard on every song instead of tying himself to concepts. But even the goofiest songs here are still fun listens, and a few tracks come close to capturing his old brilliance.

At first listen that seems off-- the chops and compositional sense here are the most immediately impressive part of the album. But dig deeper and you realize Local Natives never lose sight of the pleasures of being a youthful rock band-- right down to themes of wanderlust and discovery.

Argos is still witty, but here his punchlines tend to be predictable, due in part perhaps to the disc's overstretched answer-song conceit.

It's a shame to waste the term "spectacular" on such a mundanely depressing, blatant cash-in.

While Presidence may keep its distance, it's never hard to enter, and individual pieces are as intriguing by themselves as they are in the album's wide-open context.

None of the tracks leap out on first listen as obvious show-stoppers, but Pearson's nonetheless collected the most rhythmically diverse selection of tracks to appear on a Kompakt-branded mix in quite some time.

It's hard to miss the pressure the band was under to deliver here--it's nearly palpable in their overfed production and search for direction, and as a result, Odd Blood is a bit too much of not enough.

One Life Stand is their most consistent and most complete record.

Yet it still feels honest, like something said out of necessity instead of opportunity, and the result is an album that engages with the idea of loneliness in exceptional ways.

The undercurrent of menace and sadness that defined Massive Attack's best music is largely absent, replaced with a drowsy, half-formed gloom that, if anything, suggests resignation instead of dread.

Soldier of Love offers listeners a rather narrow range of interest-- songs that (at their best) suggest strong feeling restrained by a fierce dignity-- but Sade remain the best at what they do.

In general, Talking to You sounds like an album that is gradually divorcing itself from history and geography, as the Twins learn to build on that West Coast sound to create something unique and personal. They're not there yet, but give them another tour.

Bundick embraces a cleaner and mellower sound that's more indebted to hip-hop. He wears his inspirations proudly, and throughout there's a clear nod to producers like J Dilla and Flying Lotus.

The best bits of Eyelid Movies show range and attention to detail, so it's hard to care when they downshift into waves of serpentine sound. Eyelid Movies is a sumptuous, seductive record, easy to let fall into the background, sure, but easier still to fall into.

At 70 minutes, Black Noise is a big, dense listen but also the kind of album that rewards investment.

The slower pace and more sentimental outlook of XXXX gives listeners the necessary space and encouragement to surrender to the band's emotional message.

Kings Ballad still doesn't meet all the expectations Muldrow may have initially inspired, but it's a positive, measured sign that there's more to come.

With precious little exception, these songs are just so wispy, and the band's treatment of them so delicate, it turns Courage into a museum piece, stuffy, bloodless

Concocting the world's finest excrement-related rhymes, Rebirth is most definitely a flop, terribly unsexy, and contains surprisingly few shit jokes.

Though Lamkin's monotone voice is not the most expressive instrument--it barely wavers whether the occasion calls for a Monks-style organ vamp ("Move Along") or a prom-night embrace ("Mexico")--each album side gradually ratchets up the tension and releases it through a raucous rave-up ("Pull Out" on side A, "Parasites" on side B) that successfully bridges the Soft Pack's Nuggets-schooled ethos with the modern-day discord of San Diegan patron saints Hot Snakes.