The most successful [alternative versions] are the ones that drastically reinvent their material, recasting, for instance, rock songs as synth-pop songs, synth-pop songs as rock songs, or busy twee-punk as slightly less busy acoustic twee-punk. But Supermoon never takes those kinds of leaps.

The problems with Jackie, a serviceable record that gets better with multiple listens, is that unlike her previous releases it's more heavily focused on paint-by-numbers Dr. Luke electro.

Release Therapy is probably Luda's best album since Back for the First Time, but it's not like that's saying much.

Unfortunately, Inherit tries to give the listener both of these great tastes at once, resulting in a combination that's less like chocolate and peanut butter, and more like toothpaste and orange juice.

There are brooding, rhythmically strong pop songs that fall halfway between the poutiness of Lana Del Rey and the hyperactive fizz of HAIM. The parts where it deviates from that template, however, are baffling.

But as clear as that opening switch to afterburners rings, much of Heavenly Bender sounds too-worn in at times, hooks still more familiar than barbed.

As a whole, Trendsetter is too wide-ranging and unfocused to scan as the proper debut she aspires for it to be. But when she does lock in, her mission couldn’t be clearer.

Guillemots cram themselves into awkward fits, and Dangerfield has to squeeze the hardest--whether he's tying himself to a straightforward ballad instead of clamoring for the rooftops, or standing up for a fight when he's so much more comfortable slipping into a dream.

If there's any difference between this album and von Bohlen's lackluster recent output, it's that this collection somehow manages to be even more tepid.

Spacesettings is liquidated, hookless, and entirely flaccid.

VHS or BETA have moved on, like so many bands this year, to pillaging the dance-friendly template of late-80s Cure.

Where overbearing arrangements don’t get in the way, a cloying sentimentality does.

So yeah, the tricks are clever; unfortunately, musically, There's Me... is an overstuffed mess.

Without Panda Bear on board, Animal Collective lose the pop edge that has resulted in their most commercially successful music, but this isn’t a project for scoring hits. It’s a meditative, hypnotic experience, and it’s not without the sense of playfulness that has driven Animal Collective throughout their career.

Start and Complete ultimately achieves what it sets out to do, which is to place a song-oriented frame around another off-the-cuff session by these four disparate talents, who will no doubt spin off in a completely different direction should About Group reconvene.

A few brilliant left turns that feel almost accidental mixed in with a sort of end-times hunger for a top-40 audience that doesn't seem to exist anymore.

Ultimately, they're at their most engaging when maintaining an ironic distance between subject matter and tone.

Ghosthorse and Stillborn tends toward lazy, meandering nothings.

In general, Talking to You sounds like an album that is gradually divorcing itself from history and geography, as the Twins learn to build on that West Coast sound to create something unique and personal. They're not there yet, but give them another tour.

Yes, Mink Car is crap. All the charms They Might Be Giants once seemed to possess have dissipated into a cloud of embarrassing awkwardness.

They've jettisoned nearly all their Strokes, Television, and other grab bag post-punk propensities, turning instead to adult alternative as a foundation for this late-20s midlife crisis. I guess if ya can't beat 'em, just quit and make soft rock!

Most of the seven tracks crammed between these fine bookends, including two undistinguished instrumentals, run together in a modal drone, lacking urgency or emotional inflection.

You can hear that weariness all throughout Play, which often finds him going back to his two favourite wells—wedding songs and “global” bangers—without much of the energy or good humor that made him so popular to begin with.

TP3 Reloaded is one of those albums where every song sounds like a radio single.

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.

We Can't Fly's stylistic knuckleballs lack just about everything we'd grown to love about Aeroplane: namely luxurious grooves and effortless cool.

There's a disarming simplicity and artlessness... with an increased emphasis on persistent pop melody over crafty wordplay.

The worst I can say about Dedication 4 is that there isn't one moment where I wouldn't rather be listening to the often mediocre originals. There are a dozen or so good punch lines scattered on D4, enough to make it fun enough for one listen