Their forlorn, polished California pop is like the sprawling Valley suburbs: nice enough, if that's your sort of thing.

The six-piece around Houck is more competent than combustible, a quality that’s long made Phosphorescent a good band to see for a 90-minute show but not one that makes you need to take them home.

Ryan Adams is a persuasively dark album, one defined by themes of struggle, instability, isolation, and regret.

Convertibles ends up a low-stakes affair without being a low-quality one.

There’s just enough to think about without getting fatigued, as the Strokes continue to toy with the sound of their late period.

Bibio's [Ambivalence Avenue] had two things Look a Little Closer is missing, namely context and a true sense of discovery.

The meat of the album is generally good, with strong vocals and decent songs, but there's enough gristle on this record that it ultimately obscures some of the pleasures of listening to it.

Taken as a whole, it’s a pretty, enveloping record that executes its modern influences with panache, though the intangible, purely aesthetic nature of Woolhouse’s vaguely downhearted emotional state makes it hard to appreciate Defo as anything other than luxurious ambient icing.

The Giveon of Take Time experimented with melody and challenged himself vocally; Give or Take stunts that growth in favor of secluding himself in his comfort zone.

Milosh’s crisp electronic soundscapes work mainly as contrast, immaculate bedding designed to melt away as his warm voice slithers in. At his best on Jetlag, Milosh builds up his tracks in the simple interest of pulling them back to let the vocal take over.

If Never Gonna Touch the Ground is less a party album and more an album as party--self-contained, relentlessly upbeat, rowdy, self-celebratory--too many of these songs come across as kegs of near beer.

Kiyoko’s debut won’t blow past anyone’s expectations, but it contains just enough intrigue and individuality to sustain them for a second shot.

Yeah Right has its charms, but they're echoes of a band Bleeding Rainbow used to be under a slightly different name.

Without that commitment to either pop immediacy or boundary-pushing weirdness, let alone being able to pull of both at once, Tussle are always going to feel like they occupy some kind of tepid middle-ground, however sharply their cymbals are recorded.

Perhaps they’re too-smart-for-their own good, but in the moments they can get over themselves, Althaea, at least for a flash, can offer more than just a thrill.

What’s missing from Panic is some kind of levity or the cutting humor that once personalized Hutchison’s self-loathing.

Like its predecessors, Three's Co. mixes the sun-soaked power pop proclivities of Teenage Fanclub with the sylvan jangle of Felt, though the Tyde too often seem afraid to really make waves.

They’re the sort of tunes that the Keys can pull off with ease, as satisfying as a perfectly tossed curveball landing in a beaten-up catcher’s mitt. But they also make you wish the Keys didn't spend the rest of Dropout Boogie lobbing underhand pitches right down the middle of the plate.

Borrowing Mahler’s vivid contrasts while jettisoning the soothing unity, Song of the Earth feels more like something coming apart than coming together, which may relate to Longstreth’s ideas about the earth and how we live now. But if you can’t get on its chaotic wavelength, it can wear you out.

Is Octahedron the band's best album? No, but if you dig on MV's unrepentantly "big" and meandering suite-driven concept-album thing, you won't necessarily be disappointed.

Neither off-putting nor engaging, Client's debut occupies a rather uninteresting place in electropop's soft middle.

The struggle of the wealthy and talented white rapper was never especially sympathetic. And on Ben, his trials are mostly internal, the enduring struggle of man to find meaning and leave a legacy. This Macklemore is likely the most honest version we’ve seen to date.

At the very least, it sounds terrific. With imaginative production from Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn and accompaniment from a sterling cast of (largely) North Carolina ringers. ... But across the 42 minutes of Henry St., Matsson rarely responds to them in kind. To put it plainly, the writing is just bad, as though it were some slapdash afterthought to the strong instrumentals already in place.

Even if the overall effect here isn't terribly original, there are still plenty of nice touches spread throughout these tracks to suggest Le Loup holds the potential to become more than an amalgam of well-regarded influences.

We're Animals still has haywire guitars, bushwhacking rhythms, and those homemade synthesizers we're always hearing about, but the real story is the band's conflicted strategy for melody.

The album is so densely packed that it’s easy to miss Marr’s overarching themes, a shame exacerbated by his habitual neglect to draw attention to his lyrics. A pleasantly flat, unassuming singer, he functions mostly as a conduit for his melodies, which is only a detriment on an album with so much potential thematic resonance.

There are solid hooks scattered all over No Life For Me, and they sound like they could've been knocked out in five minutes--each melodic note notches in the expected place over thrumming power chords and steady drums.

It’s all so easy to digest, so pitch-perfect, so safe. Let’s Start Here. clearly and badly wants to be hanging up on those dorm room walls with Currents and Blonde and IGOR.