Considering the band's taste for zoning out to infinity, One Track Mind really needed a harsher edit. With some tightening and pruning, it could have burst into bloom.

As put-together as Good Grief’s presentation is, and as ingratiating as its songs are, the record suffers from a distinct lack of identity.

The New Moon OST has all the touchstones of what is considered, by many who consider themselves cognoscenti, "good" music-- from Yorke to Grizzly Bear to the more populist Death Cab, Killers, and Muse--but it uses its tastefulness to solidify the borders of what is acceptable, not to broaden them.

Though there's an electric current coursing through Ride Your Heart, it's too often wasted on mundane material--which is especially disappointing given how zany and lyrically imaginative their previous band was

The Pinkprint’s singles underwhelm.... But they’re redeemed by the bonus tracks—a thrilling, confounding six-song set that elevates The Pinkprint from an occasionally transcendent, if unbalanced, break-up album to something far more intriguing.

It's a miracle Reed was able to turn one of the most hermetic albums of all time into a communal experience, but Live at St. Ann's was also a one-time-only slight of hand: Berlin will forever be a record best enjoyed alone.

It's all pleasant, but when it's over, the only truly memorable song is "Wave Forms."

There are good ideas somewhere inside The Air Conditioned Nightmare, and anyone determined enough to look might get something out of them. Lyrics ranging from naively clichéd to slyly astute.

In Your Honor, like most Foo Fighters records, is sterile and controlled; there is never any threat of dissolution.

There's a fair share of undeveloped sequences and meandering noodling, but that's the price you pay for the effortless pop collages.

Grooms' aims give off a whiff of vague danger, a static unease occasionally broken by detuned guitars and skins-smashing breakdowns.

This time Osborne, Kunka, Rutmanis and Crover all sing leads in various spots, which gives Three Men and a Baby a loose, freewheeling vibe, especially when coupled with the variety in the music.

Many of the songs on Isbell's sophomore release don't necessarily aim for (or achieve) such profundity, yet they still compel through sheer verve and Isbell's unwillingness to let an unhip sound or idea discourage him.

Thug Motivation somehow feels both airless and over-inflated, the sound of an artist trying to revisit something gone.

It also probably means that we'll be getting something new from Nau the next time around. Switching between musical characters is obviously Nau's default setting, and for all of its pleasantness, Paranoid Cocoon, in the context of his career thus far, feels like transition music over a costume change.

There is less to dig into on it's a big world. To be fair, there are two bona-fide new Kurt Vile songs on it's a big world out there.

One of its most charged and inspired records in years.

The first five songs at least are totally gorgeous, the strings glassy, the tone all understated seduction, the structures fluid and surprising. ... By the Homme-tinged desert rider "Used to Be My Girl," misanthropy has set in.

Their songs fuse Ashlee Simpson mall-punk with the retro 80s fetish of former tourmate Ryan Adams' recent high-profile stinker.

Though often disjointed, when some of these fragments manage to really connect, it's hard not to imagine Supreme Cuts as being able to hit a decent stride in the future.

How Far Away holds its juicy details a little too close to the chest to truly prove cathartic to anybody but Bleeker.

In seeking their answers from the indie rock firmament, Literature have found something freeing, as Chorus sounds surprisingly fresh. More importantly, it sounds like the record their previous recordings hinted that they wanted to make.

4REAL 4REAL doesn’t quite reestablish YG as the album artist of My Krazy Life and Still Brazy, but what it lacks in a satisfying through line it makes up for in highlights.

It can sometimes seem as though Friendly Fires are playing catch up for a post-EDM scene that largely sprung up in their absence. The cooing vocals and build-up/drop patterns grow a little tiring across the album despite their careful production, because they’re working in well-trodden territory in a post-Flume landscape. But there is a winning warmth to their music.

Wolf Parade’s sound was once state of the art, but Thin Mind captures only intermittent reminders of how wild and wonderful their moment was.

If Out-of-State Plates is about as revelatory as your typical garage sale, it's not because these are necessarily bad songs (except for their lamentable cover of "...Baby One More Time")-- it's just that most of them seem somehow defective, one element overpower-popping the others.

The songs are dense and trebly, swirling and mutating but rarely growing, and too often staying way past their welcome. There are plenty of worthwhile ideas, but a seasoned producer could strategically shave 20 minutes off the album while losing little.

Cramming together brash rock snottiness with meek country hollers is hardly uncharted territory (not that it matters), but BRMC's particular mash-up still makes for a strangely intriguing party.