Monomania is certainly a strong effort on its own merits, and more importantly, they’ve avoided making their deflating “diminishing returns” record.

He's an excellent pop craftsman who knows how to turn the power up for maximum effect.

Gordian is never boring, and none of the songs drag on past the point of entropy. That every listener might bring their own meaning to each song is an provocative approach on Nicolae's part--but it'd be better if the songs made their own purpose just as clear.

The goofball virtuosity of these tracks is fun if not especially memorable. Where Everybody Loves Sausages hits hardest is when the Melvins assert their personality on the material, rather than vice versa.

Fabric 69's most impressive quality--especially given the tough stuff involved in its composition--is how luxuriously listenable it is.

Sub Verses proves we shouldn't take Akron/Family for granted; their restlessness is rare.

Triumphant as the return itself has been, the records themselves have really only skirted triumph. English Little League is no different.

At times, these songs go on for a bit too long. A bigger obstacle is their lack of variety. But ultimately, these complaints are for an album packed with huge hooks, which all sound great when you play them really loud.

For all of Thr!!!er’s reliable pleasures, the requisite cover-image riff on the triple-bang logo is the boldest idea here, which makes for an awfully modest record to hold up against the pop-canon cornerstone for which it was named.

It’s Laura Stevenson’s third album, and the third that leaves you feeling warmly disposed but unconvinced, gamely professing your interest to see what she does next time around.

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.

Iggy's delivery is too wry to exude rage, the songs rarely rise above a mid-tempo chug, and Mackay's jovial sax blurts are way more roadhouse than Funhouse.

The music is more unmemorable than bad, though occasionally Gonzalez's inexperience, which seems to limit what Trapanese can do as well, shows.

Perhaps Baba Yaga might’ve been more digestible if it had lost two or three songs. But for Futurebirds, the rough spots are kind of the whole point.

Like 90s pop stars turned 10s pop sophisticates Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé, Charli XCX stamps her personality across the entire project, and True Romance suggests she'll be worth following for a while.

It’s no slight to say nothing on Ultramarine matches its opening triad--not much does. The remainder of it is solid, though it shows a band still using established pop framework in lieu of a personality.

Sky Burial will likely land as one of the year’s great breakthroughs for a heavy act.

While improving on the sheer sound of Ghost Blonde on nearly every level, No Joy are still more suggestive than declarative.

Too much of it is an ill-advised cultural safari that’s too weird to fly but too monied to fail. But where it succeeds, Reincarnated forces you to forget the principal ridiculousness of the enterprise, and that is no small feat.

For the curious listener, the definitive nature of Illumination Ritual can cut both ways, as Appleseed Cast demonstrate their capabilities without having too many definitive strengths come to the fore, consolidating a decade and a half of intriguing, and occasionally compelling experimentation into a manageable 45 minutes.

Ultimately, Junip keep their distance, offering a comforting hand on your shoulder rather than a full and unreserved embrace.

The flaw here is that all these songs together are too much to absorb, but Miller probes deeply without ever coming off as sappy, skillfully weaving through breakups, self-loathing, skipping school, and poor decisions without sticking to his own sadsack introspection.

[V feels] both transitional and incubatory.

Mars is too amiable a vocalist to express pure disillusionment, but he’s great at communicating discomfort. Bankrupt! doesn’t so much ruefully reflect upon Phoenix’s whirlwind, globe-trotting lifestyle as drop you right in the middle of it.

The album shows that Grubbs’ music and his relationship to pop convention remains as distanced, fitfully frustrating, and stubbornly idiosyncratic as ever.

The perfectly pleasant Rat Farm [feels] strangely wanting.

Too often it sounds as though Beam is less interested in defining a new sound and more concerned with distancing himself from an old one.

That A Quiet Darkness doesn’t offer much in the way of immediate pleasure shouldn’t be entirely to its detriment, but this album doesn’t grow on you; it wears on you.