Class Actress still sound a little too weird to truly break through (and if they toned that weirdness down, this record just wouldn't be as interesting).

Kinski have the potential, the skill, the other requisite intangibles to be awe-inspiring, but somehow they keep shooting left of the mark.

This is Weird War at their most minimal and stoned.

While Sunday at Devil Dirt may be more of the same (with glimpses of Tom Waits' junkyard blues tossed in to good effect), Campbell and Lanegan were never out to do anything different.

Roll with the Punches never falls, or even falters, exactly; it’s just a series of punches, whether of the clock or in the air, landing with consistency and specificity and only occasionally drifting into anonymity. To paraphrase Morrison himself, it doesn't pull any punches, but it doesn't push the river.

Some songs miss the mark—“I Get What I Need”’s creeping, bluesy bassline proves awkward—but most of them work, if only because the band sounds like they’re truly putting their all into their melodies and riffs, rather than leaving the heavy lifting to distortion.

The Uglysuit are certainly competent, but on this debut their music feels too by-the-book.

The Strange Boys have proved to be great attention-grabbers but seem a little lost when things get too quiet.

Summer of Hate felt meek at times, content to retreat into its own shadow; Sleep Forever's many oversized melodies and wider-reaching sound prove that these guys do a lot better taking a few steps into the light.

Tidelands, by contrast, finds the Moondoggies (and particularly lead singer Kevin Murphy) admirably striving to find their own voice, yet it's frequently a more crabbed and deliberate album than its predecessor. In other words, a quintessential example of artistic growing pains.

Despite their abstraction over the last few years, Autechre aren't an altogether different beast than when they started. In fact, they're smarter, more refined.

A record that finds SMD operating at half-speed when the accelerator is pedal is close within their reach.

While there are some musical highlights--like the 8-bit ambience of the Ricky Eat Acid-produced title-track--the album is constantly in pursuit of a voice it never finds. Which highlight Smith’s writing, some of the worst in rap this year. His lyrics are crass and half-baked and insulting to one’s intelligence.

The inner-space exploration is enjoyable to a point, but it comes with an underlying claustrophobia and, at times, a weariness.

With Dark Red, he’s taken another turn, slipping out of the pop-shadowing path he was on in exchange for something darker and bolder, but compromised by its own disorder.

Unfortunately, the duo's apparent ambitions to be something more hold it back from reaching serotonin-peaking heights (like Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION).

Home Wrecking Years feels like a guy just filling in the downtime before he gets back to work with his main band.

While [Matt Sharp] wisely defers to Wolfe and Laessig to deliver the album's biggest hooks, his unwavering wistfulness still has a way of flattening out Lost in Alphaville’s emotional terrain and lending the album a steady-to-a-fault temperament.

Outclassed by their own ambition, the band has aimed Annabel Dream Reader toward the lofty heights of Poe’s glum, fog-shrouded majesty--and winds up hitting, at best, late-period Tim Burton.

It can feel indulgent. Yes, they have expressed some of these thoughts more succinctly in the past; and yes, the tracklist could be condensed so that you don’t have to clear your schedule to get through it. But when everything clicks, their work has never sounded so patient, so personal.

Although these pieces are wrought with meticulous detail, they're rarely memorable.

Although Michael is likely destined to end up a minor effort in Bundick’s expanding catalogue, his talent and radiant passion for new musical ideas and a wide breadth of sounds render the album a worthwhile effort for even casual listeners.

More than anything, Glazin's sneer'n'strut is just too much of a pretty good thing: One or two at a time, these songs work wonders, but over half an hour, the Boys' retrograde sneer and strut proves a bit too safe and samey.

The split between Perry and Gerrard's singing parts remains distinct not only vocally, but for the different subjects each explores. That could be a stumbling block in other hands, but always seems to bring out the best where these two are concerned.

The contrasting styles don't always sit comfortably, but individual tracks sparkle with creativity and the newfound dark side is a surprisingly pleasant fit.

Damage is a far cry from the stripped-down screech that made these guys famous. In its contrast, it calls out everything the Blues Explosion once was and now isn't.

Before, it seemed like these beautiful free spirits were just cranking out great happy-sad songs, one of which happened to sneak into a Target commercial. Now it seems like they're trying to make music for a Target commercial.

Not everything here is as compelling, but the true takeaways (the first three cuts, including the outsized, life-affirming "16 Years") are well worth the misguided ambition and watered down moments that inhabit the EP's second half.