As an innovator, she's as vibrant as ever, but as a songwriter, she sounds tired.

One would think that, coming off of last year's rich Snuffbox Immanence, the psych-folk collective would add profound depth and originality to Damon and Naomi's dreamy folk.... But, regardless of who's to blame, Ghost's role isn't large enough to alter Damon and Naomi's sound.

Particularly hoisted onto such dense production, the hooks are so big, blunt, and persistent that even my four-year-old niece counts Foster the People as her favorite band. But on Torches that plays as a crutch as well as a strength.

Although they've played and recorded together in the past, here they sound as though they're still finding out how to best combine their quirks.

Even in its most inspired moments, Amazing Grace lacks the fiery intensity of any of Pierce's previous outings.

We’ve got some Black Metal Muzak here, competent musically but too timid to go into the depths, emotional, musical or otherwise, that black metal should strive for.

Happiness Begins is by no means an extraordinary album, but it’s a respectable showing from a group that has long deserved more respect than they’ve received.

Interplay does just about enough to keep everyone happy: Shoegaze fans get a sonic-cathedral finale, while Ride follow their creative whims. Without many truly great songs, though, Ride might have been wise to play to their strengths, rather than coveting someone else’s.

While Vanderslice's observations and commentary sounded fresh and fierce two years ago, the same essential message run through similarly sounding songs this time around rings hollow.

Despite Price's best efforts to infuse these songs with motion and finesse, Confessions never quite reaches its earlier heights after "I Love New York". When Madonna actually starts confessing, the album loses its delicate balance between pop frivolity and spiritual gravity.

Strangely, pairing with just Mt. Sims on U&I appears to have resulted in less-focused output, with the duo gradually circling a grimy musical plughole, only managing to pull themselves out via less cluttered material in the back half of the record.

As it is, the more Auerbach changes things, the more they stay the same.

The gloriously mopey sound of new wave might be novel to Norrvide and Fischer, but there's not much here that stands out in synth-pop's always-crowded field. In a sense, that's fine; Lust for Youth wear this sound well. But Lust for Youth shows they might have escaped coldwave’s dead end only to settle into a rut.

Knowing that Kahan is capable of a song like “August” just makes the more pro forma arrangements on the rest of the album more frustrating.

Perhaps it’s deliberate that throughout The Take Off and Landing of Everything, hardly anything truly takes off. Instead the album dangles there, an effortlessly leaden exhibition of glum triumphalism--and an example of what makes Elbow, at its least potent, so subtly unsubtle.

Despite their comfortable distance from the industry machine they came up in, Aly & AJ still gravitate toward brightly-colored, big-hearted pop: an old-fashioned stance that dulls the shine of their new direction.

What makes Pan Am Stories worth returning to is the scope Knight works within, where elements of prog, folk, and psychedelia blur in and out of focus.

The moments of goodness and light here bump up against plenty of songs that are depressing or otherwise unseasonal-feeling. You're happy to get the present, but it's not exactly what you would've asked for from Santa.

The slow, sorrowful material rarely summons the urgency this subject demands, nor the emotional catharsis that rippled through Silberman’s best work.

This isn’t his grand final statement (that was Blackstar), it’s a cool little postscript tagged onto an earnest, unthrilling tribute.

Even for an artist this venerable, a remix record is still a remix record-- generally uneven, part enlightening, and part skippable.

For the kind of soul-caressing folk bobbins Adem aspires to deliver, go with Grizzly Bear.

What makes Drogas Wave especially frustrating is the way you can squint and see the shape of his possible masterpiece inside.

This band is particularly long on charm and short on technical ability, but anyone expecting a garage band to reinvent the wheel is expending far too much mental effort.

It's not so much that the songs themselves are weak, just that many of the choices made in them are.

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.

Yes, girl in red is capable of another skin-deep album about crushes and self-doubt. But it would be far more interesting to see her attempt sincere emotional depth.

TWIABP are now making the most technically proficient music of their career and admirably facing down some of the world’s most dire issues. But in the pursuit of radical evolution, they’ve forsaken the emotional dynamism that has consistently buoyed their music through their tumultuous history.