You see, as Swords, mopping up of the stray B-sides and bonus tracks from the comeback years, suggests, Morrissey now has a dilemma: Following group glory, solo vindication, political notoriety, sullen exile, and dramatic revival, what on earth does he do for an encore?

I can't deny Church is a solid craftsman capable of cranking out extremely inviting pop-rock hooks, but this ground is so well-trod that it's hard to find anything to get even a little bit excited about here unless you're relatively new to indie-rock patronage.

There aren't many hooks on this record, and the tempo shifts are sometimes subtle, so it can feel overwhelming-- kind of a constant onslaught of sound. This is a taste issue, but if you require a respite now and again, it might be a difficult listen.

When this sound is done with edge and freakiness, it can be a unique surprise, which is exactly what You Think You Really Know Me was. Electric Endicott is too often the opposite--predictable and numbing, even when it's good.

Player Piano finds Hawk more concentrated and economical than ever. Unfortunately, it comes off more like complacency than conviction, that Hawk's either holding back on us, misreading his true strengths, not recognizing the need to rise to the occasion, or possibly all three.

It's all lovely and certainly more immediately engaging and compact than Jónsi's mostly-instrumental Riceboy Sleeps multimedia project from 2009.

This is a record with a handful of standout songs struggling and straining against one another after being crammed into the standard album format.

The richly produced, melodically generous Candy Salad is plenty to chew on, but one can't help wishing its songs could be as vibrant as its sounds.

Smith comes across similarly disenchanted and tempted by the prospect on Songs for Imaginative People, where he's torn between celebrating and bemoaning commercial excess.

You get a good sense of just what kind of man Drew is on Darlings, reconciling monogamy with promiscuity, Broken Social Scene’s cheap-seats bombast with love-seat confidentiality.

Crime Cutz's weakness lies in its lack of diversity--you spend a lot of the record hoping for something to take them even further over the edge, but they continue to pull back until the very end.

When Silkjær traces his vocals over the lead guitars, it’s enough to make “Uncombed Hair” and “Pills” stick. Otherwise, A Youthful Dream can only push through its weaker melodies and reverb through self-will.

Head Over Heels might replace the duo’s trademark mannequin legs on the cover for their own, but these days such co-opting of realness is real meh. It’s genderfluid like a tech bro in a stunt romper drinking a Monster. The farce is strong with these ones.

It isn’t the strongest work from either artist, but the white EDM DJ turned rap producer and the face-tatted trap rapper from Watts make a good odd couple. ... The vibe is more couch potato than cinephile, and the tape works because it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Non-offensive, near-benign, and as if custom-built for the provocations of doing something else, Simulcast, like many Tycho works, is a reliably egoless experience, an art that approaches productivity-enhancing apparatus.

It’s exciting seeing how they’ve learned to play off of each other’s energy. It’d be easy for Uzi to coast and phone in verses after the year he’s had so far, but he’s shown no signs of slowing down.

Petrichor’s many quick pivots are almost guaranteed to provoke occasional frustration that Shake has seized upon a great idea and then let it go. Which tracks provoke it is a matter of taste.

For most of its 50-plus-minute runtime, Bieber appears, finally, entirely unencumbered. .... When Bieber dissociates into safe territory, alongside rappers Gunna, Sexyy Red, and Cash Cobain, on a trio of totally adequate but otherwise impersonal, paint-by-numbers R&B love songs, the specter of an algorithmic Spotify playlist looms. .... SWAG’s riskiest and most unexpected, are its most rewarding.

While it is certainly admirable that the Scissor Sisters' creative vision is strong enough that they sound very much like themselves no matter who they work with, they really could have used a strong push from their collaborators this time around.

There are easily as many misses as hits on the album, and 14 tracks is probably about seven tracks too long.

Sometimes wars are won with persistence and numbers alone, after all. And in any case, when you're cruising along in a pleasure craft as nice and reliable as this one, it's all right to tread a little water.

The album is restrained, surprisingly low-key, and-- at its lowest points-- polite.

From the Valley to the Stars has hills that rise close to "El Perro del Mar's" peaks, and its cohesive vision is a pleasure to behold. At the same time, though, it harps on its themes with an overzealous single-mindedness, occasionally letting flimsy stuff support an overarching conceit that requires foundations of marble.

The band's saving grace is its commitment to and execution of its textural aesthetic, owing as much to David Lynch's oneiric odes to Los Angeles as any musical counterpart.

Artificial Sweeteners certainly isn't a terrible album, and it does the trick if you're just looking for a quick pick-me-up, but it leaves a bland aftertaste.

Throughout the album, Fuchs' playing is exemplary, but not in a showy or needlessly florid manner; he simply gets to work and gets the job done, content with being just one part of a greater whole.

The confidence in their new record is clear, if only because their vocals sound more boisterous than ever, but for the most part, the experimentation is the problem.

As appealing as it is challenging, Extended Vacation is the sort of album that might even make those Wilco fans who can sing only "Kingpin" believe it.