While Millions of Brazilians is easily the most potent and concentrated effort Dianogah has yet to produce, it still lacks tonal variation.

All of Denali consists solely of minor-key electric angst, with languid orchestration and predictable compositions. No crescendos, barely discernable choruses, a dearth of interesting dynamics. The result is stagnancy, kids, and it kills the album.

Where [Winners Never Quit] moved with confidence and conviction of purpose, Control wallows in an amoral netherworld of overamped midtempo ballads and incomplete thoughts.

Though some might say that Armstrong's music is powerfully evocative and serene, such people hate music and all its subtle possibilities and intricacies.

Many tracks come off as retreads or ideas freeze-dried for consumption at the trio's famous exhaustingly intense live shows.

Sure, it's nowhere near his incredible run of the seventies, but it is probably his best album since 1992's Harvest Moon.

On succeeds not in spite of its simplicity, but because of it.

An infectious collection of grooves that proudly utilizes the traditional vocabulary of rock and roll.

Perhaps the Blues Explosion is aware of the garage revival, and looking to claim some kind of Neil Young-esque patriarchal crown. If so, the dozen tracks of Plastic Fang fail miserably, giving off the appearance of a 35 year-old accountant hanging around the old frat house on Homecoming weekend.

An album that emerges as a solid, infectious effort, but eventually collapses under its own weight, unable to keep all its stylistic efforts coherent.

Without sufficient songwriting versatility, things can get pretty mediocre and, well, boring by the end of a ten-song album.

A pleasant, atmospheric diversion.

So then, what is the excuse for a typically elitist music nerd to bow to Andrew WK's blistering tard-rock? That's right, folks: there isn't one.

Now, this is a pretty straightforward album, so the possibilities do exhaust themselves somewhat by the end; there's only so much that can be done with this sort of visceral, no-frills rock.

By co-opting and debasing punk-disco's vitality and sincerity and thereby rendering the style accessible to the botox-and-bulimia set, Jackson betrays the visions of those whose ecstatically powerful music he lavishly degrades.

Their best album to date-- a bold claim to the upper echelon of rock.

There's invention and heart in these tunes, and the range is impressive.

The beats are just fine, but they lack the risk or innovation that could potentially make them truly engaging.

The album is about a quarter filler, but the songs that hit on Too Late to Die Young make the tedium worth sitting out.

A band that displays a fine grasp of orchestral pop and baroque studio flourishes on some tracks should be delivering something better than Souljacker.

While Rap-Metal 101 drums bang away in the background, the basslines are replaced by chugging guitar riffs reminiscent of your high school hardcore band. What remains, though, is the exceptional quality of Pharrell's voice, which, unlike the bass sound, doesn't lose its intensity due to repeated radio exposure.

Although its best moments don't reach quite the altitudes of his prior releases, Skyscraper National Park, as a whole, is the most complete and coherent album in Hayden's catalog, a delightful listen from track one through track eleven.

All the clichés from French pop and house music collected in one shiny package.

Buzzkunst doesn't exactly offer any revelatory music, but it certainly is good, sometimes even great.

Buffalo Daughter produce exceptional-sounding tracks that cover a wide spectrum of genres, texture and mood; they perform well on a variety of instruments, and their voices blend nicely most of the time. But they don't write great songs-- too often, they don't even write good ones.

In the process of recording another incredible album, he's discovered that light is most visible when it's flickering alone in the dark.

Slightly-too-frequent derivative moments can be mostly forgiven thanks to heaping helpings of youthful earnestness.

Walking with Thee is neither an album of triumph nor of disappointment.