You don't judge a compilation by its hits alone, and it doesn't take long to find the set's weakness: sequencing.

Dents and Shells is Buckner in top form, using a broad brush to manifest his enigmatic poetics, hallucinatory atmospheres, and melodies that appear and evaporate like breath exhaled onto cold glass.

Yes, the Brothers still overuse lyrical gore the way the Evil Dead series did Kero syrup, but their sonic pace and intensity has somewhat slowed.

Here, as on previous albums, Arthur demonstrates his gift for emotionally direct songwriting, but the specifics often escape his attention.

Dangerous Dreams is plagued by a pervasive feeling of been there/done that, and the album ultimately sounds like the same two or three tracks on repeat.

Despite the strength of "Music Is My Boyfriend" and lush single "The Fear Is On", I continually find myself humming songs from the debut instead.

The second disc is ultimately little more than a curiosity for most-- and will no doubt be complete anathema for some-- but given that the entire package retails for a single-disc price, that's hardly a reason for a die-hard to opt out.

A uniformly strong collection of sharp-eyed, sardonic allegories.

[A] disappointing release.

Unfortunately, these high points are surrounded by plenty of semi-coherent nonsense about the wanderings of their fictional protagonist soldier boy.

Arguably their best record yet, a logical and accessible realization of a sound they've been developing for more than six years.

The Dears, by and large, make tracks that would slide without much distinction onto any number of mid-90s albums, neither gumming up the works nor sounding particularly special.

A more immediate, less cerebral album than you'd expect from such a green musician.

Tales Told lacks the charm of the Seeds' most ebullient singles, and it's certainly no Crocodiles, either.

Slim still loves blabbing repetition and dropping yapping vocal samples into the gobs of the dull, and this helps make Palookaville less a reformation than merely his latest and quite bland big beat manifesto.

Its chief problem is that every word, every note, and every instrument sounds dry, sapped of most of their personality.

Mono have wisely restrained from directly replicating their previous sound, but here the band has sacrificed sonic heaviness for intellectual ponderousness, and too often has fallen prey to slow, repetitive, tiresome songwriting patterns and a frustrating lack of variation.

Hidden Vagenda is elegantly constructed and outwardly naive, but it lacks a consistent underlying honesty.

Spooked sounds closer to folk-inspired songs Hitchcock performed very early in his career, his recent forays into Dylaniana, and Welch's prefab Americana. For Hitchcock, it's both a departure and a return to his roots.

It's awkward to witness such a gloriously thuggish monster vainly attempt the rope-a-dope.

It lurches along like a junk-heap jalopy, unsteady and unsafe, bits flying off in every direction, stopping, starting, and bouncing in pain.

For an album I approached ready to shrug off as sheer novelty, its humor and candor give it a fair amount of staying power.

These are summer-blockbuster songs, overdriven and overproduced simply because they can be, with little-to-no actual substance behind the heavy-effects bluescreen.

The Grind Date brings together an unimaginable team of the underground's hottest producers and meshes their idiosyncrasies without dissidence.

Power is, to say the least, hardly the collection of hard rockers that No Kill and Different Damage were. But with its lilt melodies, Davis' downplayed role, and the band's admission that, hey, a bassline here or there couldn't hurt, Power boasts a cohesion and distinct identity missing from Q & Not U's two previous albums.

He contorts both his simplistic pop urges and his more obtuse soundscaping, and makes good on neither.

Burned Mind, better than any recent album I can think of, betrays music's implied purpose of providing an enjoyable aural experience, while at the same time being psychologically compelling and richly imagistic enough to invite repeat listens.

Damage is a far cry from the stripped-down screech that made these guys famous. In its contrast, it calls out everything the Blues Explosion once was and now isn't.