If this album is indeed the beginning of a long, arduous journey of rediscovery and rebirth and other fun ponderous stuff, here's hoping the rest of the trip is more enjoyable than this initial misstep.

The Optimist too often gets lost in non-committal melodies as Bulmer tries and tries again to capture quote-worthy elegant wastefulness.

It may actually be best to just pretend that H.N.I.C. 3 ends after the 10th song, because up to that point it's a pretty good, if slightly uninspiring, mixtape.

The effort and energy are there but the soul is missing.

The Lips’ Fwends are so intent on tripping up the songs’ rhythmic momentum and weirding up the basic melodies with hammy vocals that they ultimately reinforce their sturdiness. They’re trashing all the furniture in the house, but not bulldozing any walls to open up new vantages.

His belief in his own profundity is kind of endearing as Manchester Orchestra's driving force. It's hard to imagine something like the title track, which uses infidelity as a jumping-off point to question the entire basis of human existence, even standing a chance without it.

With its variations in mood, tone, and personnel, Basses Loaded plays more like compilation of B-sides culled from multiple recording sessions spanning several years.

Having seemingly mastered all modes of excess, you'd think The 2nd Law would be Muse's unimpeachable triumph. It's not, and the problem isn't that Muse have gone too far... they haven't gone far enough.

The most disappointing aspect of Go Fly a Kite is that it sounds so satisfied, almost smug, in its complacency.

The evolving identities of Lee Ranaldo might be a valiant pursuit, but they have made for a problematic tone on Last Night on Earth.

As much work as Sweet clearly put into this disc, hearing him glide instead of soar makes it all sound too easy, which sadly makes it that much easier to forget.

It shows how Ruess might succeed on his own as a good-hearted Midwestern boy--not quite a star, but someone capable of appreciating their light.

It is not, strictly speaking, a good record—Eminem hasn’t made one of those in a decade—but it boasts enough technical command and generates just enough arresting ideas to hold your attention.

Bouquet is as odd as boring gets—an album inspired by her real life that nonetheless comes off as lifeless.

Instead of trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its intellectual nature. Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the group's need for fan-friendly riffage.

Slaughterhouse­'s biggest weakness is what brought us here in the first place--for a record that's supposed to be so lyrically godbody that aspiring rapsters will retreat to a lifetime of Auto-Tune in fear, the lyrics display no real wit or inspirational spark.

On her fifth solo release, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, she may be maturing, or more vulnerable, or more vulnerable to her maturity. But regardless, the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller as the time passes.

It's well-recorded, well-mixed, well-performed-- hell, it's even well-packaged-- but it has little spark and a bad habit of insisting on five-minute songs.

Foreign Landscapes enters a deadly boring lull before its second half and never recovers. The result has the energy of a cup of tea slowly going tepid in the Sunday afternoon sun.

Logic’s lyrical prowess continues to get in his way on songs like “The Return,” which sounds like a motivational song made for a late night Nike ad.

Head Above Water marks a new chapter in the singer’s lengthy body of work; it’s a shame that Lavigne thinks her high notes are all she has to give.

The truth is, if Head Carrier had arrived as the umpteenth Frank Black solo album, little about it would seem amiss. But coming from a band whose legacy was built on shock-and-awe transgression, Head Carrier feels overly pleasant and pedestrian.

More than many of Snoop's recent efforts, Doggumentary has something of a sonic identity.

The most enjoyable moments feel like controlled chaos. Redd’s songs used to be looser and more free-flowing. He does at least sound more composed. That’s to his credit as a person but it’s not to his advantage as an artist.

It is a work that shows a band still struggling to come to terms with itself, discovering on record the music it wants to make, and settling for a safe middle ground in the end.

It's hard not to think that Jackson would have made a better case for this music if he'd put together one blinding disc of stomping giants and polyrhythmic oddities, rather than padding things out with so many wannabes and never-could-bes.

When it comes down to it, there's a very poorly kept secret about this band that will likely determine what you think of Dark On Fire: some of these lyrics are just borderline retarded, combining rhyme-first, ask-questions-never couplets with more arson imagery than a Thursday album.

His second album, Weird!, feels like an ode to his audience of self-identified misfits, but it isn’t as boundary-pushing as his look—and too often, it’s a shallow imitation of more popular songs you’re already tired of. Pop-punk isn’t dead, but Yungblud’s charm gets buried.