On La Cucaracha, possibly out of a debt to realism, the duo has mostly chosen material founded on notions of placidity (or, in the case of "Friends", erased much of the original color), purposefully disallowing their own music its previous vitality.

It's an intriguing approach that yields a few great songs, but because of the glut of similar material, these standout tracks tend to get lost in a neutralizing fog of sameyness.

It’s easy to miss Krauter’s compelling and complicated arrangements; the record is subdued almost to a fault. You have to put in work to feel drawn into Krauter’s world.

The band has easily come up with its best set of songs since its sort-of 2001 breakthrough "Behind the Music." If not every track on the set is a winner, neither are there any outright stinkers.

Adding more voices to the mix turns the monolithic Big Mess inside out. What was once a foreboding haunted mansion is now a carnivalesque fun house; not a place to linger or live but rather a wild ride that’s worth one spin—but maybe not a second.

So while the record is pretty and intermittently enjoyable, it feels one-note and ultimately flat.

Gallery is six Craft Spells songs that range from good to pretty good, which theoretically should make it a welcome addition.

It’s a confused album that sounds like it wants to sit on the shelf next to do-it-all pop savants like Jeff Lynne or Todd Rundgren, yet retreats to the safety of Antonoff’s alt-pop impulses before anything spectacular really develops.

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

Their singing is stripped of its former bite, and while they still ramp up the fuzz, it's a much cleaner-sounding album made at Dan Auerbach's Nashville studio. And as a whole, it's very inconsistent.

Though lyrically ponderous and humorless, Titles and Idols is far from being an unpleasant listen.

Hair finds Imperial Teen in full-bore navel gazing mode, talking both obliquely and directly about where they are and, more importantly, how they got there.

It was and is a spotty album from a time when Prince was making a lot of those.

But for all of its immediate pleasure, In Ghostlike Fading feels slightly vacant, valuing tribute and stylization above personal expression.

Though the album is staid and formulaic by design, it doesn’t always color inside the lines: It feels more like background music failing up than ambient music failing down.

For all its imposing scale, though, it lacks some of the dramatic finesse of classic Prurient. Fernow’s poetic lyrics, spoken or shrieked, have been a key hallmark of the project, and without them, these abstracted noisescapes lack the narrative character of his best work.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the LP for anyone who can't make an hour on the treadmill, but there are a few tunes here worth hearing. Too bad you can't exactly make out who's cranking them out.

For the most part, the songs on Cosmic American Music slip into the ether without much to keep them earthbound.

The group is at its best when it balances excess and exuberance, when its sparse snippets of quiet feel like clarity, not compromise.

In other words, Fool's Gold made a Foreign Born record.

Many of the songs here sound not just derivative but generic. Compassion still feels like the album that Lust For Youth have been working toward this whole time--it just turns out that the journey may have been more rewarding than the destination.

When the Shock does muster a strong melody, he makes a synth-pop jam out of it, and those are Maritime's better moments.

As frightful and bewildering as a Dion McGregor nightmare, Thought Gang reveals Lynch and Badalamenti’s shared drive to disrupt any through line or logical outcome, the sounds and words as baffling as dream logic.

Finally, albeit in flashes, there are hints that Fifth Harmony may reach that peak.

Machine Messiah, though, is the rare Sepultura album where the vibe of the music doesn’t consistently match its central themes.

After the surprising opening salvo, however, Shots clumsily bogs down in its desire to be big and rocking, even though any time Ladyhawk can be bothered to push the tempo.

In her raw, rollicking delivery, MØ does sound comfortable in her skin again, giving the lyric a genuinely openhearted turn. Motordrome occasionally passes through such exhilarating moments, but faceless production too often spins its wheels, making it seem as though MØ is still in search of a sound to match the bravado.

There are few moments across No Fear that feel immediate, timely, or necessary, and their sense of urgency has dulled. For all the hype, fans deserved something better than just good enough.