Their spit-polished full-length is a throwback to the sort of CD-era pop rock album everyone remembers buying at least once: The one with the re-recorded single surrounded mostly by less-developed, vaguely similar stuff.

For better and for worse, there is nothing cringe-inducing on It's Decided; the record mostly sounds like I should remember to tip my barista.

Sloppiness has crept into their once-perfect attack, and there is a certain any-era-of-modern-rock, unstuck-in-time vibe to the production choices and songwriting.

While Milagres may sound like a lot of music fans' favorite bands, it's hard to imagine anyone preferring this record to the real deal.

If it’s a bid for dance-pop stardom, then the big singles—finely crafted though they are—are too few, too timid. If it’s meant as a deep-house long-player, it’s paddling in the shallow end.

THINK LATER is full of homogeneous trap-pop ballads devoted to one-dimensional introspection.

This is the sound of an ever-curious, shape-shifting band finally finding the confidence to tell us who they really are. But they are not telling us anything we didn’t already know.

The sound is as warm and rich as could be expected from a craftsman of this caliber--David Piltch's upright bass tone alone should be bottled and sold to the highest bidder--but musically and melodically Civilians falls short of making much of a connection itself.

Songs rarely pick up from a crawl. Sustained guitar chords fan out and crush whatever momentum the band gets going. The bursts of distortion that colored If Children are almost pornographically expanded.

Imagin shines whenever it isn't contorting to fit preconceived notions of format.

Thankfully, the execution often surpasses the ideas—these are intricate tracks, twinkling through layers of texture. But they get clogged in swerves and side-steps.

The Liam-written songs are largely a drag. ... But a few of Liam’s clunkers are elevated in the live format, helped greatly by the Hull crowd, recorded high in the mix.

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.

Dinosaurs is a testament to how 90s alt-rock angst can translate meaningfully to middle age.

A record whose middling between arena aspirations and headphones listening feels less of a fusion and more of a compromise.

Too many songs on Taiga come across as filler—too small and formulaic to impress at "taiga" scale, but too leaden to reach anthemic heights.

High Road feels strained, scattershot, and loaded with tension, like someone trying to portray freedom and free-spiritedness–even a recovered sense of identity–who isn’t quite there yet.

Lyrically, the songs cling to familiar themes of loyalty, betrayal, and soured romance, but the writing feels hollow. Repetition, once a rhythmic weapon in his songwriting, becomes a crutch and registers as filler.

In Dva, Emika may be aspiring to a larger scale of pop, but for the most part this only serves to amplify her flaws.

As a whole, Eats Darkness feels haphazard in a way that shades into self-indulgence.

Cosentino sounds strongest when she gives herself permission to veer from her influences and find her own voice.

Given what he’s proven capable of as part of his main gig, though, it’s hard not to wish that, when left to his own devices, he made more of an effort to get outside of his own head.

Where overbearing arrangements don’t get in the way, a cloying sentimentality does.

Night is ultimately hamstrung by a personality vacuum. It's easy enough to enjoy Night while it's playing, but even after so many listens, it's hard to care about it.

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.

There are too many special effects surrounding the messages-- Craig B's penchant for preadolescent vocals included.

They're the opening band you actually kinda enjoyed even though you showed up too early by mistake, the album you half remember liking when it was playing in a friend's car.

For all its promises of a leisurely, good time, A Productive Cough plays like a quarantine.