Every now and then, he can still crank out his signature sweeping production or drop a line that stops you in your tracks. But no minor edit or revamped version of Donda 2 can conceal the album’s inherent flaw: It is presented as a revolutionary work but it is decidedly a non-event.

Although songs like “King of Hearts,” a pummeling Eurodance stomper, or “Castle in the Sky,” another pummeling Eurodance stomper, might allude to urgency in their lyrics and music, they still feel totally anemic and bereft of passion.

This record is the SoHo-boutique equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner: it tastes all right, but good luck staying awake 'til dessert.

For now, though, Kimbra's status as "That singer from the Gotye song" woefully underserves her full potential, but so does The Golden Echo.

Though Time is never less than competent, its biggest problem is an unfortunate lack of personality.

Pacific Daydream, in spite of its name, mostly just gives you a feeling of being nowhere.

End Titles rewards just about any amount of listening investment equally, and it completely lacks sharp edges.

I'm sure defenders of the band will champion Mars Volta as a keeper of the prog-rock flame, but The Bedlam in Goliath renders the term meaningless--the result couldn't be more averse to actual progress in rock music.

Pale Communion only toys with the building blocks, revealing influences that were already apparent but refusing to invigorate them alongside each other.

A 19-minute EP bookended with the Billy Ray Cyrus remix and the original version of “Old Town Road”--he opens himself up to the criticism that “Old Town Road” bypassed. Each new song on 7 is an attempt at stumbling into another lighthearted hit. ... For the entirety of 7, it’s unclear if Lil Nas X actually likes music.

When it isn't a high school poetry recital, Lustre often feels like a disappearing act-- an attempt to put on a few musical disguises to see if anyone likes them better than the musician beneath.

The Return is supposedly a Kool Keith album, but four of the 14 tracks are skits, two mangle his vocals so the producers can show off their DJing, and one is a Princess Superstar song with Keith on the hook.

On Carnation, he tries and fails to be something other than himself.

There’s rarely any stylistic flair to his vocals anymore; so often, he’s doing a milquetoast rap-sing that makes him sound like everyone else in the Atlanta mainstream rap circuit.

le there are bits of great humor and wordplay scattered throughout (occasionally spat out in dizzying double time), the fogged-over choruses, tough-guy posturing ("In Gotti We Trust"), and spurts of disquieting misogyny ("Scrape") feel like too much padding.

He relies on inane songwriting concepts, rote misogyny, and feelingless flexing. The lyrics are puerile and half-baked.

Four years later, though, all Blonde Redhead has to show for its lengthy studio hiatus is another too-obvious bauble.

They're sounding less and less relatable, leaving us pining not just for the days of a little grunge trio from Seattle, but for the relentlessly catchy and charismatic Dave Grohl of the Foos' still-fantastic self-titled debut and the better half of "The Colour and the Shape."

A bloated and expensive version of the rap he’s always made but without that signature effortlessness.

The Adventures of Bobby Ray is a curiously lonely affair, the sound of a singular talent being drowned in a tidal wave of cheerful banality.

Even the songs here that show flashes of congealing eventually end up falling apart into a watery mess.

The Vision seems to be exactly what Joker wants: UK pop R&B of the vainest and most vacuous possible variety.

Loewenstein's problems seem to spring from a penchant for textbook hard rock and an almost astonishing lack of range, failings that are amplified by his choice to record all of At Sixes and Sevens' instrumentation himself.

A mellow, slightly sub-decent album delivered at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, bare-bones arrangements, train songs, and good intentions are no shortcut to supposed authenticity, and still less are they a guarantor of overall quality.

Once Upon a Time in the West is pretty dull itself.

Most of Weathervanes is serviceable modern rock, so it will find an appreciative audience despite its egregious derivativeness and a lyricist who seems like he'd use the word "inebriated" to talk about how drunk he got last night.

Kittenz and Thee Glitz is Housecat watered down by trivia and outside egos.