It’s too bad that many of the other collaborations here feel as generic and laborious as a ProTools tutorial.

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.

In a sense, this turgid collection is the ultimate expression of Be Here Now: as bloated and indulgent as the record itself, the music a secondary concern to the product’s status.

Even at 46 minutes, Preparations is wearying; it's the same Prefuse tricks once more, with less feeling.

For the moment, cherry-pick the highlights from this album, and cross your fingers for her sophomore release.

Timbaland's productions are the weaker links on this frustratingly ordinary album.

It's a nice flourish on an album with more than a few such moments, but they're not enough to make the Donkeys' nostalgia sound like more than a pose, or Living much more than dry and dull.

On Big Boat, they come up with a few winning moments.

The album's saving grace is the surrounding music, which almost, but not quite, makes up for Kinsella's constant barrage of tiresome non-sequiturs.

Collaborations like this work best when there’s some meaningful contrast between the performers, though, and Joe and Remy Ma are too similar to establish any kind of yin/yang dynamic.

Despite its slightly more diverse palette, Sleep Forever merely dabbles in more styles rather than explores them, and as soon as their creative finger slips off the pleasure button, it's hard to resist from dozing.

Unfortunately, the ratio of thoughtful zeal to clunky screed this time around is decidedly not in his favor.

For all the champion horsepower in their stable, Gone Is Gone just never really gets going.

There's something uncomfortably sterile about The Sea and Cake's new, seven-song Glass EP that precludes it from functioning emotionally.

Despite production from current-day heavy hitters like Da Internz and Mike WiLL Made It, he still comes off like a relic from the past, the class clown who never quite grew up.

Infinite Arms just feels less tender, less personal, more twang-by-numbers than the last couple, despite its familiar sound and many of the same principals.

Where the Rock*A*Teens played an artful, echo-laden take on rockabilly, Tenement Halls takes traditional pop and plays it through a murky wall of sound.

Discodeine settles too comfortably into a consistent four-on-the-floor groove that ends up sounding an awful lot like a rut.

Occasionally plodding, and too ruminative by half, Anarchic Breezes is a journey in need of a destination, stuck between staring at the sun and gazing thoughtfully at its own navel.

The unnatural and unnerving smoothness of Canopy Glow shows that if there was any one Anticon record that deserved to be called Alopecia, it's this one.

The album is simply not the format for DJ Snake. The conventional song barely is. He makes tracks. Instead of being, at least, a collection of great, standalone singles, the album is riddled with ill-advised rap songs and bad ballads.

Fifth Harmony isn’t offensively bad, in fact, it sits quite comfortably with many other acts dominating the charts at the moment. But it’s too safe, too by-the-numbers, too beige to stand up to even Fifth Harmony’s previous work, which carried more lyrical and musical heft.

By aiming for so many different styles, settling for subpar-at-best lyrics, and trying to pay the bills with rock'n'roll, they never find a sound that's fully captivating or convincing.

They aren't inept, amateurish or even exactly boring, but their parlor music takes a slow and emotionally neutral path that almost fights against engagement.

A Very She & Him stands guilty not of being oppressively adorkable, but of being not nearly adorkable enough.

Pretty, lovely, fine, fair, comely, pleasant, agreeable, acceptable, adequate, satisfactory, nice, benign, harmless, innocuous, innocent, largely unobjectionable, safe, forgettable.

Grand Animals may jostle for more musical elbow room, but it sounds just as preening as their previous efforts.

Marigolden fares best when it loses the florid similes and addresses character and story.