It may not be as instantly gratifying as Pleasure, but it's more sophisticated and self-aware.

Bauhaus can hold their head high, mission accomplished; but with no victory-lap tour, no more studio albums, and several awesome new tunes pointing at an un-actualized future, it all feels rather anti-climatic and lacking closure.

If there's a criticism here it's in the way these songs don't stray far from the original pieces, instead working as tasteful updates that add a dab of cohesion that was never needed in the first place. It's a treat for fans, which is really all a project like this is ever going to be. But it also highlights a continuity in their work.

The biggest detractor here is the band's lack of focus. The record is downright messy at times, even if the thick, murky quality does, in some instances, work to considerable effect.

The biggest difference between the two 6ths records is obvious: Wasps' Nest allowed some of indie rock's finest vocalists to lend their talents to a grade-a batch of Merritt tunes; Hyacinths and Thistles pairs remarkably average Merritt songs with largely substandard vocalists.

The Vines get credit for ambition, but Highly Evolved covers so much ground that none of it seems convincing: there's just no emotional depth here.

For an album I approached ready to shrug off as sheer novelty, its humor and candor give it a fair amount of staying power.

Like their best, "SNL"-aired material, these songs get better as they go on, mostly because of the way the lyrics carry the joke to its logical and grotesque endpoint.

A decade ago, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were a modest, rickety band bearing the albatross of hype; today, they’re an amorphous, musically adventurous entity basking in the freedom of no expectations.

There are some good songs on here, I guess, but they're not as good as anything from If You're Feeling Sinister, or even The Boy with the Arab Strap. It's weird, because the songs definitely sound better, but the album is still kind of disappointing.

Though inspired by weightier and more evocative themes [than 20122's Too Beautiful to Work], Animator already feels less memorable-- it seems to constantly evade the listener's grasp.

It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion. Rather than dreaming of the future, these nostalgic pieces feel as if they’re looking back at the past, taking in a bird’s eye view of the change that occurs throughout life.

Instead of the charming, shaggy stoner vibe that permeates most of the current A&C catalog, Cinematographer shows off a nerdier, bookish quality.

It highlights their strengths (that voice, those beats, that authentic giving-it-their-all vibe) and hides their weaknesses (lack of songwriting breadth and dynamic diversity) making it sound like there's no place more fun than a Gossip concert, and no better host than Beth Ditto.

Despite radio-ready production and commercial hooks that tell us we're hearing pop, it can take some hours of intense listening before most of these tunes ever stick in the head, and there's little to no emotional investment.

Tipped Bowls feels like a minor record, partially by design. It never grabs you by the throat. It never gives you something totally new to consider. It's also highly listenable, and has a way of slipping in through the side door that I admire.

Times changed; Dntel, less so. Aimlessness, his third album of new material, arrives without context, scene, or convenient narrative.

For a band that once stood out for its too-much-ness, Walk the River now gives us too much of the wrong things: too many midtempo songs, too many minor-key acoustic strums, too many codas that outstay their welcome without really connecting.

Maybe some thought Busdriver sounded self-satisfied before, but he used to sound one step ahead of the listener instead of running to catch up.

The Century of Self turns out to be every bit as stubborn as its predecessors, even as it goes a certain way towards justifying them.

The blurry sound drifts through the music and seeps its way into the lyrics, as much of the album is steeped in uncertainty, Nau's footing never steady enough to see a bold, clear image as he had in his Page France days.

It'd be much easier to love, as opposed to merely like, They!Live's glistening, long-form tech-house soundscapes if there were more bombs and curveballs hidden amongst its lovingly pruned forest glades.

The time-slowing, pulse-quelling Spirits is a good place to get some thinking done.

The tracks on Remembrance don’t sound like they’d be improved with people spitting over them, but they do connect to the emotional world of a certain kind of rap production, with chords and patterns that suggest tension, danger, and, ultimately, melancholy.

To paraphrase the great Roy Kent, real love should make you feel like you’ve been struck by lightning. 6LACK manages some sparks here and there, but the tingles fade fast.

You can't deny that Cuomo feels no shame and is making exactly the kind of music he wants, and there's ultimately something disarming about that.

The Fragile Army is an all-out orchestral and choral assault for optimism in a turbulent era, but only infrequently are the Spree's songs as memorable as their numbers.

It's billed as something of a minor release (in the same way What a Time to Be Alive was minor but they still wanted your money for it), but it's still an "official" one, meaning Future swings for a few radio hits here. They feel more obligatory than outright bad.