XOXO still manages a lonesome, crowded sound. Whether it's the sturdy chord progressions, overstuffed lyrics, or just Bianchi's tendency to avoid with melodies with contours his voice can't match, most of XOXO is likeable, if not a little tough to parse.

The songs are defined less by sounds or ideas than by their sanded-down edges: plodding beats from Nottz and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, histrionic Marsha Ambrosius hooks, putative passings of the torch.

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

The bracing, sometimes violent collision of rock ‘n’ roll and dance music that’s powered Primal Scream’s best work has been melted down here into mercurial droplets--shiny and radiant, to be sure, but ultimately non-descript.

You’re Welcome feels stale, dried of both new inspiration or improvisational allure.

While Year of the Hare offers nice sounds and concepts, it essentially works best as background music.

Frontloading Power to the People with the One To One performances—the two sets are here, along with a hybrid highlights disc—illustrates how Lennon spent the early ’70s wallowing in the pleasures of old-time rock’n’roll. .... These "Studio Jam" passages are loose, maybe even to a fault, but they’re charming, capturing one of the greatest rock vocalists singing unencumbered by an audience. These two discs of informal jams are the ideal coda to Power to the People, which chronicles the era when Lennon was keenly aware that he was performing at all times.

They sound exhausted, right where we left them.

Seen It All: The Autobiography doesn’t deliver on either one of its titular promises.

This is a band that has given up on trying to look cool to most anyone, so Muse do here what they have always done and likely will always do—throw money at their latest fancy with the indiscriminate, earnest taste of a teenage boy. ... If there’s anything Muse truly nail here, it’s at last embracing just the right amount of camp.

Bringing it live is still crucial to metal success, and on that front they are ready to ascend to the next level. That doesn’t translate on Heartless, where too much space is squandered.

It's not quite hype enough to be pure party music and lacks the cohesive point of view that fosters a more personal connection with a record.

His latest album I Never Liked You—the title sounds like a breakup note passed in the back of a middle-school classroom—has the ingredients of a really good Future album but lacks the depth of one. It plays it safe by continuing to lean too hard on the schtick.

The problem then is one of staying power--Lewis does such a good job of nailing choice sounds and styles from pop's past that you can't help getting reeled in right away; only upon later reflection do you realize that much of her success lies in evoking something else great rather than achieving a greatness more uniquely her own.

Gordian is never boring, and none of the songs drag on past the point of entropy. That every listener might bring their own meaning to each song is an provocative approach on Nicolae's part--but it'd be better if the songs made their own purpose just as clear.

Each track seems specifically constructed to get stuck in your head, leaving you humming its tune for a week after, but it’s mostly an empty resonance. These are conspicuously competent club songs that strain for self-importance.

For all the improved minutiae, French Kicks simply can't shed the "boring" tag.

For all of Thr!!!er’s reliable pleasures, the requisite cover-image riff on the triple-bang logo is the boldest idea here, which makes for an awfully modest record to hold up against the pop-canon cornerstone for which it was named.

Wauters has always seemed breezy but never quite so meek.

The album comprises expanded and elaborated versions of incidental music crafted for the film, however, even in fleshed-out form, SYR9 can feel frustratingly incomplete, with many pieces coming off as a series of loosely linked fragments lacking an emotional center.

Merritt's songs are as delicate and meticulous as porcelain miniatures. Unfortunately, Realism holds more tchotchkes than museum pieces.

The record fits snugly into a certain nameless musical genre that can be found in martini bars and designer-label boutiques the world over, a mish-mash of recognizable sounds and influences that's enjoyable but ultimately hollow.

Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events.

Thank You for Today isn’t as uniformly bland as Codes and Keys--if anything, it’s the strongest Death Cab album of the 2010s, a dubious achievement that nonetheless deserves recognition. But there’s moments that suggest Gibbard and the rest of Death Cab are still struggling through the beige malaise that has cast a pall over their more recent work

It’s harder not to fixate entirely on the formal elements of the music, rather than the things that might make it personal. That leads to records where you listen to and admire them from a distance instead of getting immersed in them.

The Coral have reverted to a subdued and almost jaded sound-- Invisible Invasion reveals way too many wrinkles and stretch marks for a band barely into their twenties.

On paper, the decision to mix the raw invention their early work with the melodic catharsis of jazz and gospel sounds fascinating, while Closer Apart’s weirdly gorgeous companion video makes a case for Okzharp & Manthe Ribane as an enthralling visual act. But the album itself feels frustratingly limp, making you wish Okzharp & Ribane had stayed true to the kinetic force that lit up their EPs.

It’s as if O’Brien set out to make the paragon of a modern My Morning Jacket album and succeeded in both style and sound, only forgetting to leave room for the surprises that actually gave their early works ineffable power. It’s boring.