The album's one redeeming element is the band itself, who-- over the course of one EP and two albums-- have improved tenfold.

For an album about a doc about a book about going into the wilds of California, One Fast Move sounds awfully sleepy.

It would sound overproduced for 1998 yet seems curiously rinky-dink compared to the current pop maximalism of any continent; Scott & Rivers splits most of its time between ruthlessly utilitarian power pop and midtempo, jangly acoustic alt-rock that reimagines the break between Pinkerton and the Green Album as one where Cuomo ditched Harvard for higher education in the form of Stroke 9 or Eve 6 CDs.

Too many songs here feel like aggregations of quirky, tossed-off riffs.

Where the weight of expectation and precedence get to have a say, this feels like not just a failure, but a heartbreaker.

The EP has little textural detail; the music is not immersive, much less transcendent. It isn’t just a score to modern ennui but a work that itself feels indifferent.

If Rise of an Empire is meant to read like some kind of State of the Union address, it paints Young Money as a fractured team that’s lost its compass.

Beyond Yudin’s massive artistic debt, Cayucas’ main flaw is failing to recognize the difference between leaving something to the imagination and making the listener do all the hard work.

Fans of shivery folk music with subtle plateaus will surely find things to like, but the rest of you might find yourselves wishing the "black dog" in Selway's basement had a bit more bite. At least he let it outside.

Listening to Matinée straight through is exhausting, like being trapped in the kitchen at a college party while someone with curiously wide eyes Explains It All to you.

My biggest complaint is that De-Loused in the Comatorium just isn't fun.

Widows’ Weeds contains little in the way of electrifying suspense or carefully-hidden, internalized trinkets—only empty gestures and lazy execution. Nearly 20 years into Silversun Pickups’ existence, we see them for what they are: a little big, a little brooding, but mostly boring.

Sugar is notable as much for what's missing as for what's been honed and emphasized. Morris no longer howls like Kurt Cobain, nor does he drawl so studiously. There are no 12- or seven-minute stoner epics either; instead, the songs are shorter, more compact, punchier. Almost missing: personality.

Kicks is not the follow-up that "Cookies" deserved, but its handful of winning standout tracks also suggests that its predecessor wasn't simply a fluke.

None of her songs here are as indelible as 'Rehab' or as cutting as 'You Know I'm No Good'--and the best are co-written with Nas and Fugees collaborator Salaam Remi.

Like Coldplay's two previous albums, only more so, X&Y is bland but never offensive, listenable but not memorable.

Paper Tigers is one or two decent singles surrounded by a bunch of mediocre-or-worse filler.

As a double album, Scratch might have produced something like an elaborate mixtape with originals on one side of the Maxell and covers on the other. In execution, however, I’ll Scratch Yours plays like another artifact of the 90s, this one less fondly remembered.

Private Suit shows the band taking some risks. They continue to write catchy and cute guitar rock songs, but also experiment with backing vocals and strings, a noble ambition that raises the bar higher than "the little band that could" is able to reach.

An unhurried, casual nature is part of what makes Get There’s softer material pretty, but it could also be the thing holding Minor Alps back from writing truly great, uptempo rock songs.

Every song drips with bawdy attempts at sexually shocking the listener. But just as Vince Neil screaming "girls, girls, girls" and name-checking strip bars is unlikely to whip a woman into a frenzy of amour, the Donnas attempt to titillate and fail miserably.

The music feels wedged between weight classes--too ridiculous to be indie rock and too ponderous and generic for Top 40 pop.

One senses a massively missed opportunity, a chance for exploration blown by Jarre's insatiable need to make everything bigger, more impressive.

It’s a not a crime for a revivalist outfit like the Black Angels to occasionally lapse into flower-power corniness; if delivered with a little self-awareness, it adds to the appeal of the anachronistic package. What’s not forgivable on Indigo Meadow is the pretension.

Those at this taping presumably got their money's worth, but other than the few excised morsels that leaked after the show (a long anti-Radiohead screed and a defense of Chris Brown's attack on Rihanna), we don't know what was cut. Alas, those who pick up this record get an abbreviated, neutered version.

Get Back still finds McBean trying to tap into something risky and surprising, even if the results are the sometimes-egregious misstep of a mid-40s rock musician obsessed with the letdown of aging.

By the end of the album, Tricky returns to acting on his worst impulses, stumbling through hackneyed sonics and wincing lyrics.

It's a shame that premature commercial success has sullied Editors' creativity, because <i>An End</i> contains its share of bright spots.