At times it almost sounds as if they know they've taken their current sound as far as it can go and seem palpably frustrated they can't figure out their next move.

Baauer and the other artists meet the heavyweight expectations head-on.

Hinton has an ability, not unlike the Books when they first hit the scene 14 years ago, of making shopworn techniques in sound manipulations seem strangely fresh, and Potential is the kind of music that makes you think about what your own part in a seemingly passive musical transaction of music might mean.

While the ground it covers is startling and often picturesque, Grapefruit is an album you feel led through, rather than being left to explore or inhabit.

As put-together as Good Grief’s presentation is, and as ingratiating as its songs are, the record suffers from a distinct lack of identity.

Festival is refreshingly cohesive, exploring varied themes without drifting off-course.

By the fourth or fifth trip through Gensho, the idea begins to slip into pure gimmickry, as though this were a notion that sounded fun for old friends to try but isn't so fun to hear.

Stefani’s focus on the good times alternates with songs where she expresses cartoonish anger by awkwardly rapping and shouting non-sequiturs (“Naughty,” “Red Flag”), and neither mode plays to her strengths as a songwriter and signature vocalist. Her best songs are the ones in which she is audibly upset.

No Burden is an uncommonly warm indie rock record.

Massive Attack were always equally as good producers as they were curators; it's promising that, as much of their old sound as they've retained, they've kept this as well.

What is most impressive about The Last Panthers is the way in which Clark has taken all of this incidental music and shaped it into a flowing 48-minute suite that conjures almost as much of an imagined visual story as The Last Panthers show itself.

If there's emotional utility to be found in Epic Jammers, it's in how meditative, trancelike, and overwhelmingly positive this hour of music is.

Many of the songs here sound not just derivative but generic. Compassion still feels like the album that Lust For Youth have been working toward this whole time--it just turns out that the journey may have been more rewarding than the destination.

For the most part, the songs on Cosmic American Music slip into the ether without much to keep them earthbound.

As a guitarist, Forsyth has a clear and immediately identifiable voice. His tones and melodies are familiar yet fresh, at once embodying grace and freakiness, tradition and experimentation, the past and the present.

The bracing, sometimes violent collision of rock ‘n’ roll and dance music that’s powered Primal Scream’s best work has been melted down here into mercurial droplets--shiny and radiant, to be sure, but ultimately non-descript.

By wearing their influences on their sleeve while never slipping into gimmickry, HÆLOS are able to pull off an impressive trick, a debut record that both cements them in a genre and leaves then room to grow.

A good 80% of You and I, the latest album of the lot, consists of covers, many already released in some format.... The new material includes a version of "Grace" that is basically a fully formed demo, while "Dream of You and I" is barely even that; the title is literal, Buckley thinking aloud about a dream he had about a band’s "space jam," which inspired him to write what’d eventually become "You and I."

3001: A Laced Odyssey does an adequate job of reminding us all of Flatbush Zombies’ smart, sharp lyrics. What they lack in hit-single potential, they make up for in talent, but without a calling-card song it's hard to know what their next move is.

The Body has always been obsessed with feelings of consuming futility, and in kicking free of conventional structures and following Wolpert's lead, they've come closer than ever to their truest selves on record.

Underworld’s never had trouble getting listeners to their feet. This gorgeously love-drunk finale makes Barbara a record that can bring them to their knees.

Petrol, a looser, messier album, does a better job of communicating new ideas, and its emotional depth feels less gestural and more genuine.

Though it’s mostly a pleasant record, there’s not much from it that sticks around long after listening--for all the talk of deluge, More Rain manages to wash itself away.

The unusual dependence on space in the arrangements can make the interiors of Låpsley’s songs seem uncannily empty, glassy structures with their insides removed so all that’s left is angled crystal.... But in other instances her voice dissolves into an overabundance of negative space, and listening to the less-inspired sections of Long Way Home can feel like trying to remember something boring that happened to you once.

None of these songs would have the same effect if rushed, which is what set Big Ups apart from many of their peers.

Overall Brute is a frustrating mish-mosh of middling and artful. When it’s working, there is a certain panache in the high-powered, informationally dense musical speedballs she creates.

If Post Pop Depression’s refined execution has you missing the more unhinged Iggy of old, rest assured, he’s not going down without a fight.

Arcology, like its predecessor, is a genre study first and foremost, rearranging familiar elements according to McRyhew's own idiosyncratic vision.