The album's bluesy tenor does wonders to mitigate its shortcomings, something that the debut's spacious environs couldn't do. With Fool, the problems mostly reside in the words that Bones sings.

Pop singers certainly don't need to reinvent music production to be gripping, but Esser's debut doesn't strain or stretch creative boundaries or hit that perfect balance between playful and experimental in the same way that contemporaries like Micachu and the Shapes do.

Times changed; Dntel, less so. Aimlessness, his third album of new material, arrives without context, scene, or convenient narrative.

Legendary Weapons' greatest asset is nearly two decades of goodwill, but at what point are you just flat-out going to admit that Ghostface has been badly coasting downhill for at least five years?

Trouble Man's scattershot approach makes it the realest album the guy could make in 2012, but that doesn't make it any good.

The Great Escape Artist's intricate, heavily lacquered production--courtesy of Muse-man Rich Costey--has the effect of making Jane's Addiction sound like an anonymous assemblage of oversaturated recording tracks.

You can't deny that Cuomo feels no shame and is making exactly the kind of music he wants, and there's ultimately something disarming about that.

Unfortunately, on Planta, they only seem half-awake.

Tremors is actually kinda intriguing in a “canary in the coalmine” sort of way.

Mostly a failure, but with enough glimmers of a true comeback to tease fans into checking out the next one.

Manages to ignore the essential art-rock flourishes of Sound-Dust, and in fact, [has] done away with anything even remotely interesting or new.

Eventually Doughty is going to have to do something about his lyrics, because "The moonlight shines like a luminous girl tonight/ Yeah, Jesus Christ like a luminous girl tonight" isn't going to hack it.

Byrne and Slim never misstep here, but they also never surprise. At best you may wind up distantly admiring their craftsmanship.

With the Night Sweats, he’s elevated with grit and muscle, but strumming solo on And’s Still Alright, he gets bogged down in a melancholy murk.

What is unexpected is how Wilson sounds almost anonymous here. As he drifts through his greatest hits and personal favorites, he doesn’t invest his playing with much personality, so these smooth sounds are about as memorable as a piano twinkling away in the background of a department store.

While there is much to admire about Beal taking such an abrupt left turn at this crucial juncture in his trajectory, in this case, it’s one that, more often than not, leads to an aesthetic dead end.

Dave Matthews Band sounds best when it’s weird; the bummer on these songs is how bored the band sounds. But even as a cadre of producers smoothes out the band’s crunchiest tendencies, glimpses of the DMB’s ambitious musicianship shine through. These outliers aren’t always successful.

It’s not that the album is bland, it’s that it doesn’t really do anything or go anywhere.

Compared to the wool-sweater warmth of those early recordings ["Crocodile Rock", "Babies"] Oberhofer's sad-sack persona and yelping vocal ad libs come off here as less endearing and more desperate, like someone trying to oversell simple songs with eccentric affectation.

Far from being either vindicating or enthralling.

Every line is laid with the rich sense of rhythm and texture that he's mastered over the years, but it still adds up to very little: a wildly spiritual record without any spirit.

Whereas that band [Title Fight] used shoegaze and sludge as references and jumping-off points, Creepoid treat it like the whole point, and the album grows wearying long before it's over.

While the long tracklist and equally protracted verses make for an exhausting listen, there are rewards for those that endure.

They have general technical proficiency and a knack for a good riff, but listening to them is nevertheless a chore-- and a boring, repetitive one at that.

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.

Lightning Bolt begins with a spirited sprint before sputtering out and winding up in dullsville.

Much of Happiness Ltd. suffers from one of the cardinal sins of radio-ready rock: stuffing unmemorable verses between overblown choruses.

Red Fang certainly sounds good on Whales and Leeches, with the production of the Decemberists multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk again giving their instruments ample breadth and weight. But they do not match that surface with substance.