The album does offer the listener the high-quality mix CD that techno purists have long suspected Speedy J could deliver.

For an album recorded primitively inside a Nashville box, there are some stunning performances on A Letter Home.... Occasionally, though, the recording quality distracts from the album's content.

In the context of Wire's catalog, this is just another document of incremental change, and not even the best live recording they've made lately (that would be their gorgeous Daytrotter session from 2008).

Many tracks come off as retreads or ideas freeze-dried for consumption at the trio's famous exhaustingly intense live shows.

Whiskey Tango Ghosts stays satisfied, to the point of sounding undifferentiated.

Ontario Gothic is certainly part of a great story; but as a perfectly satisfying half hour of modest and common dream-pop, it's not much of a story on its own.

The Messenger won't be included in the body of work that made Marr great, but it's a solid approximation of his strengths.

Newcombe is a master at turning the minimal into maximal, layering myriad swirling textures into a dizzying head-rush of a tune (see: "Seven Kinds of Wonderful"), but crafty production only takes him so far.

Like their namesake, Melted Toys’ willfully warped nature can get in the way of their utility.

While they've made great use of deconstructive syntax, repetition, gibberish, and in-jokes in the past, too much of Relax simply feels like dead air.

Vile certainly has the talent and ability to churn out tunes, and with a little focus and editing his best batch is most likely ahead of him.

Volume II is like an unnecessary b-sides compilation.... Nonetheless, the album has its high points.

Chant Darling doesn't hit strike that balance often enough, and very few of these songs allow such a glimpse of the musician behind them. Ultimately, Lawrence Arabia's carefully tailored influences have the same effect as that stage name, as if Milne was intent on absenting himself from his own album.

Silversun Pickups tap into a well of quarantine-bound inspiration that results in some of their most varied and carefree songs in over a decade, even if the majority overstay their welcome.

With their new album, Maxïmo Park avoid both utter disaster and absolute success by playing it safe. Nice and safe.

As beautifully assembled as parts of Seaside Rock are, a couple of genre-specific tracks underscore its stopgap nature.

Evolution takes time, and Mastodon continue to publicly work out their growing pains as they determine which traits best represent the unified sound they’ve been chasing this decade.

It lacks the razor-sharp focus that made Just Cause Ya’ll Waited 2, a brutal and affecting listen. Durk’s presence is strong and his endurance is inspiring, but his intentions are as muddied as ever.

Kwes’s gentle songwriting sensibilities are unable to keep up with his exploratory beat making and the result is too often a mismatch that ends up leaving the listner at a loss.

Even if La Costa Perdida isn't a great Camper Van Beethoven record, it does illustrate how unique this band still is, 30 years after it formed.

It leaves Selected Studies in an odd place, one that doesn't feel like any kind of stretch for one of its participants, but is quite the opposite for the other.

Breaking the Balls of History has a blurry quality: a jumble of all-too-familiar thoughts that never add up to a breakthrough.

For the most part, the tracks hang together and flow relatively well, orbiting the shimmering dreampop mass that serves as the record's unstated inspiration.

For what is in essence the ultimate expression of inadequacy, self-loathing, failure, and impotence, 12 Angry Months is a tough little thing.

On Thank You, Diana Ross’ musical star shines strong after six decades of inspiration, offering signs of renaissance even as she teases tender farewells.

There’s nothing as intimate as breakthrough single “Hey Now,” but in return, the greater variety avoids the sameness of past albums. While Soil doesn’t always fulfill their ambition, it still suggests that the more sound this group makes, the more they’re worth hearing.

They've finally happened on a formula that goes down smoothly for the length of a whole album, [yet] you may still find yourself missing the slick tricks and rough edges, all that dance-as-rock oomph and crap rapping, that once made them so endearing.

While “Dishes in the Sink” and its companion ballad “Hardly Hanging On” tell a genuinely affecting story of squalor and depression. Despite these peaks, Sisyphus is more fun to ponder than it is to listen to.