Miller offers more than enough quality material here to justify stepping out on his own: what he's occasionally lacking in energy, he largely makes up for with craft.... That said, it's unlikely to instigate much beyond some afternoon head-nodding, and even some of Miller's fans will be somewhat put off by the album's borderline MOR sound.

Overly orchestrated mid-tempo ballads with inane lyrics.

Ultimately, It'll Be Cool succumbs to the general lack of ambition that has always been Silkworm's Achilles' heel.

The album's saving grace is the surrounding music, which almost, but not quite, makes up for Kinsella's constant barrage of tiresome non-sequiturs.

Every line is laid with the rich sense of rhythm and texture that he's mastered over the years, but it still adds up to very little: a wildly spiritual record without any spirit.

Dinosaurs is a testament to how 90s alt-rock angst can translate meaningfully to middle age.

Blastbeats churn and tremolo-picked guitars gnash their teeth. These guys know what they’re doing. Liturgy of Death has its share of weirder moments, too.

Luckily, Grand features not only some of the band's most personal lyrics, but also some of its most universal.

Here's yet another exemplary Aimee Mann album to add to the pile.

Except for the previously released singles that pad the end of the record in keeping with industry norms, High Off Life is better-paced and sequenced than most of Future’s recent releases—the whole thing seems to glide by frictionlessly.

While it's admirable that Kisses turned their puppy dog-eyes outward, their attempt at social commentary ultimately feels half-hearted.

The quieter work here may suggest a way forward, but Wild Strawberries has a transitional feel.

Ending with a brief, queasy reprise tease of 'Wrong,' Sounds of the Universe concludes anticlimactically, an echo of its promising start.

Elegies to Lessons Learnt is an undeniably effective 50-minute ride, but it's also rather coldly mapped out.

The way he colors the film’s world leaves it wide open, with room enough for gentle movement and subtle triumphs. His light, playful motifs buoy the narrative without crowding it, and help paint a rich, fulfilling portrait of a girl on the edge, ready to fly.

Spilling out over the course of 73 minutes, the album drags, even if it has no specific slow spots. .... Any random song on The Way I Am is sharply crafted and unpretentious in a way that carries on the best Nashville traditions. If it’s not quite a comeback, it is, at least, a satisfying demonstration of Combs’ strengths.

Whiteout doesn’t always sound like a revelation, but it allows Howard to open up, letting in new lyrical and musical ideas that complement his own without overwhelming them.

Clear Heart is just good enough to keep us listening.

Eels' latest, Tomorrow Morning, is far too insular to mean much of anything outside itself. It's an exercise in self-referentiality, which might be more impressive if the music didn't sound like the folk-with-beats path Beck was smart enough to avoid.

There's an organic, humanistic ethos operating behind her music: we are all people, and we're all moved by the same primal passions and stimuli.

While the whole package is marketed as a "love letter" to fans, true followers will quickly be able to sniff out its inferiorities. If anything, this latest selection from the dwindling Buckley vaults subverts his talents and ultimately insults the same hardcore fans it's aimed at.

Framing Pretty Ugly as a broken-beat album helps account for its pleasures, but can't entirely absolve its pitfalls, perhaps because much of what is true for funky remains true for broken beat, namely, that the flight into syncopation should not be heedless.

Ghostory is at its best a very pleasurable realization of niche.

Windy City never quite reconciles her genre history with her populist ambitions, creating an album that toggles back and forth between the two poles and then ends abruptly.

While Trouble Maker doesn’t usurp the band’s primordial peak, it’s far and wide their strongest effort since 2000’s excellent self-titled.

Its quality is mostly a testament to Pusha's connections and his ear for beats, but the rapping is sufficiently competent enough that the album never drags, which is less of a backhanded compliment than it might read.

This is the Killers' spitball album, the one where they try everything and see what works while Flowers grasps for a relatable tone.

As opposed to the didactic nature of the booklet, the audio portion of No Business tends more toward arch satire of the ongoing debate over fair use in digital media, creating a précis of its contradictions and ideological schisms rather than advancing a particular thesis.