To say that the album is over-produced is an understatement; you could bounce a quarter off of most of these songs.

Their search for large-scale anthems and keenness to replicate a formula that doesn’t come naturally to them leaves them sounding boxed in, and imbuing Heart of Nowhere with all the grace and flexibility of four concrete pillars.

Another Country just isn't nearly as consistently satisfying as Merritt's earlier offerings.

Native To is packed with well-executed, hummable stuff, but it wears thin quickly.

Mostly, From the Desk of Mr. Lady comes off like sub-standard material that didn't make it on to last year's full-length.

Unfortunately, the strings and horns rarely do much more than add a thin layer of dressing to the rather plain lettuce of the songs beneath.

Future is YACHT's would-be critique of our pre-dystopian, post-Internet culture, but it rarely comes off as more than a charismatic cover band singing us yesterday's news.

It's just that it feels so characterless and anonymous.

It would be a tall order to expect them to rival Frost's raw power, but these remixes don't unearth much fascinating stuff, and the EP turns out (mostly) competent but wan.

Although Cordae can be an engaging writer, on songs like “Momma’s Hood” his delivery is as dry as a teenager forced to read in class. “Jean-Michel” shows his competence as a rapper, but the song sounds like it’s reaching to be a classic ’90s rap interlude and landing at a Big Sean freestyle from L.A. Leakers.

A handful of tracks on Volume X are decent placeholders that do nothing to expand or appreciably reinforce the band’s aesthetic, but “Ice Fortress” stands out to represent everything Trans Am does right.

It's a soundtrack to a '70s made-for-TV movie, but a damn fine one.... But ultimately, Pelo is a triumph of average-- a zero-sum game. The few noteworthy tracks are negated by the bombs. For every standout, rare as they are, there are embarrassing nadirs like "Tom of Finland (An Homage)."

Hozier calls the album’s sound “eclectic,” but disjointed is more apt.

It's hard to actually consider Welcome a bad album, mostly because it has this inexplicable likability: It's bizarrely comic without coming across as cheap irony, and it's pretty clear Pants lays down these semi-instrumental jams because he wants to have fun and make noise with some once-expensive, now-dated (and, subsequently, currently underheard) musical machinery.

While ††† may be on the same scale as Deftones, they’re not a replacement, and it stands to reason that Moreno can ascend to the heights of their previous work. But on †††, it’s like he never had wings.

The album's laissez-faire production fails to anchor its quaint, melody-allergic songs. In turn, Elverum's retiring vocals float to the top, which is a horrible place for them.

[The album has] overproduced but underwritten pieces that seek to create atmosphere but mostly leave empty spaces that the Hundred in the Hands aren't sure how to fill.

Love and Distance is fucking cheesy.

It sounds good--Brown's detached, wispy/gritty voice is pleasing as ever, and I like a pop string arrangement as much as the next guy--but it doesn't add up to much in the end.

Unfortunately, too many of the songs highlight Starfucker's shortcomings, leaving them introspective, detached, and even timid. If this three-piece can learn to have as much fun in the studio as they do onstage, these fuckers might actually become stars.

In 1997, this kind of thing--crisp, echoing guitars, provincial strings, existential moodiness--actually sounded kind of exciting. Just over a decade later, though, the exact same recipe, prepared exactly the same way, conjures up new dominant aftertastes: false profundity, compositional laziness, and outsized egos.

While the band has certainly grown musically, it also seems less patient and focused; much of the record feels like a hastily recorded jam session with a few superfluous electro-bobbles floating above the fray.

TRON: Legacy Reconfigured succeeds as much as most remix projects do, which is to say about 50% of the time, and without Daft Punk's name attached to the project it's doubtful it would have attracted much attention.

A light but pervasive dusting of flanger effects and wavy-tuned synths makes the melodies sound cloudy and unfocused. Even the singles don't especially stand out.

What makes Reveal so disappointing is that the additions to the classic R.E.M. sound are all merely superficial. The increased reliance on burbling, jittering synthesizers actually makes the album a less engaging listen, turning many of its songs into messy sonic muddles.

Non-offensive, near-benign, and as if custom-built for the provocations of doing something else, Simulcast, like many Tycho works, is a reliably egoless experience, an art that approaches productivity-enhancing apparatus.

Banks could certainly go places--but Goddess doesn't, and instead seems content to wallow in the same depressive rut for an exhausting 59 minutes.

At times this sunny, heart-on-sleeve temperament seems harmless and even quite endearing. More often it simply grates: he’s too precious, too twee.