Action Adventure captures broad feelings of nostalgia from a POV enriched by decades of hindsight and experience; it’s a testament to DJ Shadow’s production skill and human touch. But where his last album used pointed commentary to communicate a clear concept, the new album’s instrumental abstraction is more elusive.

Instead of growing soft and slick while retaining their songwriting prowess, they’ve stayed fast and raw--but left much of their popcraft somewhere behind.

The droning effect of the guitars-- all that static strumming-- might be more effective if they didn't sound so rounded-off and sanded down into a blur. It saps the life out of the songs, which come off more drab than they should.

Aside from one surprising flip of "Be My Baby", Papich doesn't seem as interested in transforming his source material as much as just presenting it.

What it lacks in a unified style it makes up for in a referential (and reverential) enthusiasm that anyone with a subscription to Wax Poetics should recognize as an individualized, well-crafted love letter to funk gone by--and funk yet to come.

Some of these remixes are truly excellent, and some of them are disastrous.

Beautysleep's weakness is that so many songs are pretty instead of awe-inspiring-- that she gives us only a little greatness.

All I Need had the potential to be so much more than mediocre and forgettable.

The Ornament's expansiveness owes a fair bit to Olsen's voice, which sounds like it's been given an emotional B12 shot. His lyrics are prettily--albeit somewhat emptily-- evocative, richly textured, and his tonal pronunciation (the "PO-lice cars" of "Hanging Window") adds temporal sentimentality to his words.

Temples are clearly skilled technicians; they probably could’ve produced this record in their sleep. What’s frustrating is that the project begins and ends at talent. These songs are hollow; you could listen to Hot Motion half a dozen times and feel nothing.

An unwelcome presence, Morello is simply the most obvious of many elements on High Hopes that just don’t work. It’s all the more unfortunate given that there are actually some redeemable songs here, along with some brief glimpses of Springsteen the rock'n'roll storyteller.

Even though the record is irresistible at times, it's also a feedback loop of nostalgia that's creaking as it turns.

As the geometric tones of closer “Take Me to Your Leader” blip and fold into themselves, it becomes clear that, short as it is, Exotic Birds of Prey still has the loose and expansive feel of a radio show. There’s no easier way to visit outer space.

Though The People's Record contains some of the best music of Club 8's career, it doesn't hold up well as a complete album. There are no outright duds, but the sequence is front-loaded to such a degree that there is an obvious drop-off in quality by the middle of the set.

All Harm Ends Here is hushed and apocryphal, but at times it sounds almost as half-hearted as it is heavy-hearted.

This is a subtle refraction of the Ducktails aesthetic, where the brittle abstraction and detours down lo-fi cul-de-sacs are siphoned into songs that are breezier, less inward looking, more in thrall to the possibilities of pop.

Much of this material is short and fragmented, creating moments that flicker into life then vanish before achieving full impact.

2014 Forest Hills Drive is a decent album selling itself as great. It wraps itself in the garments of a classic, but you can see that the tailoring is off.

One of the most annoying records you're liable to remember.

This soundtrack is a nice surprise, exceeding expectations when it eschews the expected.

With only six songs on offer--one of which is a 75-second interlude called 'The Curlew'--it's hard to feel like this is the assertive, confident statement Fake has it in him to make. As a strategic move out from the ghetto of nostalgic IDM Nowheresville, though, it'll suit just fine.

The underlying problem here seems to be that Hebden still isn't comfortable in his own skin while improvising, with Reid or otherwise.

The album sounds exactly, defiantly like Mariah, acknowledging her place in the pop ecosystem both implicitly and explicitly without chomping at the bit.

A couple of really cool parts, and the rest I don't feel so bad for forgetting.

Perhaps it's partly a factor of Oberst's essential attention-grabbing nature, but none of these gentlemen offers up a composition that snags the ear better than the most mundane effort from their fearless leader.

Eternal Youth feels like more of a lackluster stopgap than equal-footing sidecar for Merritt's songcraft, a frustrating teaser from the Merritt portfolio of aliases.

An acceptably underwhelming, state of the art, guitar-centric pop record.

Their penchant to recreate the music they love leaves little room for innovation, and ultimately the album has the freshness of an unearthed time capsule.