As silly as the songs on an A.merican D.ream are, it is Gerner’s wincingly theatrical vocals that really take the album into the realm of unintentional comedy.

Gardens & Villa’s self-conscious, spindling attempts at regression and societal contemplation are admirable and occasionally catchy, but there are so many other albums--Reflektor, Kid A, even the oft-maligned, ahead-of-its-time Metal Machine Music--that navigate the intricacies of technology and society more compellingly and less heavy-handedly that you can’t help but write it off as another brick in the firewall.

Boarding House Reach is a long, bewildering slog studded with these moments, which seem to be directly antagonizing you.

Jordi bounces between smeary electropop haze, wobbles of tropical house, a forgettable Stevie Nicks appearance. It’s too cluttered to sink into, too limp for catharsis.

Good as it is to have these dudes back, their reunion sounds disappointingly anticlimactic.

The record grows soggy with Veirs' over-reliance on nautical themes.

Sounds overproduced and underdeveloped.

'Relator' aside, there's little about this duo's chemistry that lives up to Matt and Kim, let alone Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra.

Like the other white rapper he will never escape comparisons to, Cage exhausts the patience of even his faithful followers at times, and Depart From Me almost reads like a plea to whoever might be left checking for him in 2009.

Beyond a few other fleeting moments of experimentalism on ERYS—the second half of “K,” when the buzzing of an electric razor slowly morphs into a heaving trap beat, or “Fire Dept,” a decent ode to the fast and distorted energy of SoCal punk—it’s mostly a slog, the sound of an artist with a blurry vision and too many resources at his disposal.

Following those pleasantly modest, Paste-worthy beginnings, however, Adams draws the blinds entirely and Cardinology starts sliding into self-indulgent banality of a sort so pinched and uninviting it makes Conor Oberst seem like Will Rogers.

Strangely, all the missing elements and nostalgia-grabs that make the first half of Endless Wire such a sad listen organize themselves into a form that is faintly exciting for the second part.

Rave Age makes you wish you were listening to other songs.

Wantonly skipping between sounds with a dilettante zeal, Wolves in the Throne Room seem woefully under equipped for this music.

If you listen to EA2 it seems like the goal isn’t for the album to be divisive or even loved—just for it not to be hated.

Musically, it’s the grittiest-sounding track on the album, with eddies and distortion clotting the guitar licks and evoking the more destitute vistas of San Francisco. Lyrically, however, the song sounds entirely disingenuous.

Bianchi's not much for such subtleties, emotional or rhetorical, which may suggest he'll have as much lovelorn electro-symphonic melodrama to recount on future albums as on those past and present.

Babymetal are still at their best when they hover around their initial idea—harnessing the energy of metal and J-Pop into high-flying hybrids. ... Otherwise, Metal Galaxy teems with embarrassing gimmickry.

Give Me the Future is almost perverse in its inability or unwillingness to develop its premise beyond the most basic and obvious elements.

I Am Gemini is Cursive's weakest record by a disheartening margin.

There are a lot of reasons this album doesn't gel, not least that Liam Gallagher now sounds like a singing anti-smoking campaign, and the brash, snotty arrogance that once sold "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and "Champagne Supernova" is crushed out by his gruffness.

Before, it seemed like these beautiful free spirits were just cranking out great happy-sad songs, one of which happened to sneak into a Target commercial. Now it seems like they're trying to make music for a Target commercial.

Younger Now blends pop-rock and pablum country fare that is so restrained, so thinly produced, it seems like her lovably goofy personality was hobbled throughout the recording process.

The album is straightforward, but often so much so that it can seem as if there’s nothing below the surface.

At least OX 2010 doesn't feel entirely like one MC stranded in his own malaise. The beats are serviceable, with some unostentatious boom-bap from the likes of Kount Fif, Harry Fraud, and Ayatollah. And the guest verses range from complementary mediocrity (Cappadonna treading water on "I Don't Care") to complete upstagings (Guilty Simpson going berserk on "The Verdict").

Despite the frequent overtures to grandeur, spectacle, and machismo, these songs are limp and flabby.

The sound and songs of [Aden's fourth album, Topsiders]... are no different whatsoever from the band's already homogenous and uncharacteristic previous three.

On Gung Ho-- much like 1996's Gone Again and 1999's Peace and Noise-- Patti and the band aren't exactly bad, but they hardly rock like they did back in '77.... when you listen to Gung Ho and forget about myth, legacy, mystique and all that crap, you have to wonder-- does Patti Smith really matter anymore?