For every moment that Sov's supreme wit and impeccable cadence is fitfully showcased on Public Warning!, there is a moment when her gifts are squandered amidst anxious beats that try to compete with her huge personality.

Despite the Album Leaf's studied textures and buoyant songcraft, there is a crippling lack of tension inherent within Into the Blue Again's careful constructions.

Full of the kind of basic strum-alongs and diaristic musings that yield showers of Starbucks praise.

As beautifully assembled as parts of Seaside Rock are, a couple of genre-specific tracks underscore its stopgap nature.

These songs are fiercely internal, which also makes them remarkably hard to shake--here, Roberts is singing about the no-place of everyplace, the desolation we all know.

Regardless of the inconsistencies, The Ways We Separate still leaves its mark.

Given Ruppert's past predilection for dramatic singing, one would think his vocals would be a perfect match for these backing tracks. Unfortunately, he often doesn't rise to the challenge.

The looseness of Oblivion Hunter is a nice reminder that the core of their appeal isn't so much that they're pushing their sound into new places, but that they're two guys who can't hide how happy they are that they get to spend their lives making this kind of a racket.

On the whole, though, the women Craft expends so much breath obsessing over drift in and out of his songs like cardboard cutouts from a bygone era, there to be lusted after and then blamed when they don’t fit into his fantasy.

It’s remarkable how many of Scorpion’s 90 minutes are musically engaging. But the kind of juvenile navel-gazing that leads someone to write a line like, “She say do you love me, I tell her only partly/I only love my bed and my mama, I’m sorry” is less compelling when it’s coming from a 31-year-old father than a would-be college kid trying to make a name for himself.

It's a complete piece of work, and one that serves as a commentary on the intersectionality of art and fame by someone who has recently acquired a new level of notoriety. But the sacrifice here is the personal flair that gave her previous album a spark of creativity and set it apart from the songs she had already been writing for other pop stars.

Suitcase is crammed with classic Pollard moments-- those unique occasions where poorly-recorded, sloppily-delivered songs somehow become transcendent pop genius.... But perhaps the greatest problem with Suitcase is simply its size. At 100 songs, it's practically impossible to comprehend in one sitting.

Making the Saint is a refined yet minor record that works as an intimate aperture into the subtle wonders of Schlarb’s catalog.

It’s surprising how well the new sound works, though the voice of Skiba doesn’t always mesh comfortably with the production. As always, angst and unrequited affections are aplenty, but it all feels far too tame.

Too bad the songs aren't as adventurous as the music. This lack of songwriterly imagination severely limits the band's range.

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.

Siberia faithfully captures the wistfulness of the pilgrim’s journey--but it also suggests that the ears may be fickle traveling companions.

To catch a glimpse of these guys' past glories in 2009, your best option is still to go see them live; this is just a souvenir.

Memphis, their debut LP, bottles all of that up with remarkable skill, but often to disappointing effect. Its many flourishes are much more satisfying than its songs, each dissolving on contact no matter how much buoyancy or sugar they boast for stretches.

The lack of any sort of critical thesis or undergirding may seem merely academic, but it translates into performances that are wanly reverent and unanimated, celebrating the music mainly for its age but not its actual history.

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They are a powerful outfit, and Subjective Concepts is cohesive and fierce.

Angels & Ghosts isn't a bad record, but it's frustratingly tepid.

It's just a return to very familiar territory without the urgency and mystery of Luscious Jackson's 90s-era music--the Lollapalooza Nation equivalent of, say, a new Winger or Y&T album. For the most part, it even sounds like it was fun to make; if only it were as much fun to hear.

Fec’s most disturbing songs were often his funniest, but Sweatbox Dynasty rarely allows Fec’s puckish side to rise from the muck.

As with previous albums, Yours Truly benefits from creative sequencing that winks at expectations.

Strange Weather, Isn't It?: you'll enjoy it plenty while it's on, but once it's over you might forget it ever existed.

Ultimately the music becomes another mask, another thing Barnes is trying to untangle, in a great chapter in the lengthy, wonderfully ornate Of Montreal compendium.