Consistency is not Yo Majesty’s strong suit, and Futuristically suffers from an uneven and unfocused approach. Despite this there is plenty to enjoy here.

We have an airy, understated collage that acts more as a stopgap teaser to keep the spotlight on the young lad from London, before something more cohesive and fully-realized can be recorded.

The album, weighed down by a few awkward romance tracks and a well-meaning but ill-fitting MLK tribute, drags in the second half, and there’s no one moment to parallel the odd ache of 'Doctor’s Avocate.' But it’s once again more than the sum of its parts.

The overall result is pleasant yet hardly exceptional.

It just goes to show that on a DJ Khaled album, you can't be Eddie Van Halen. You've got to be David Lee Roth.

Sam Champion’s sophomore album, Heavenly Bender, is a worthy rollick.

Down to the minute details, epic pop should center on creating a tiny, vibrant world that begins and ends within the space of the song, and Eggs’ best songs truly achieve this aim.

X isn’t the comeback album some may have been hoping for, but it is a welcome return for Minogue.

Although the album is listenable and even uplifting at times, no songs readily stand out as particularly important or poignant in the way that “Keep Yourself Warm” or “Old Old Fashioned” from The Midnight Organ Fight do.

The album has plenty of stirring moments, but it falls short of being truly engulfing with its sound.

It’s a noise-rock album you can play without annoying your friends, but it won’t aggravate the Tortoise worshipers in your group, either.

METZ is, in short, an almost-amazing album, an album of extremely well built and executed rock songs undone by a production that all too often calls attention to itself.

Maybe it's because we've come to expect these guys to knock us out with each album, but Smother can't help but feel like a misstep.

The Con is a mostly mature collection of solid songs.

If you like rock tunes with sharp melodies and earworm choruses, Researching the Blues isn't likely to give you anything to complain about. It's an album that feels, at its best, effortless. Other moments, however, feel too effortless, and as a result there are some missed opportunities.

Without the threat of squalls of feedback (like on Palo Alto) or serious climaxes (like on Rook), most of Golden Archipelago ends up as beautiful as the cover of the album, but with as little context.

Although Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy has the dizzy invigoration and winning enthusiasm of an excellent first album, it also suffers from a kind of first-disc immaturity, an urge to pack everything in at once and as early as possible, rendering it top-heavy and inconsistent.

The good thing is that for any misstep here, there's a success that overshadows it. But for those of us waiting for him to really knock another out of the park the way he did on The Animal Years, it might be a let down to realize So Runs the World Away isn't that.

In a vacuum, Hats off to the Buskers exists as a charming, innocuous piece of work, perfectly fine for mass appeal; in the real world, Falconer and company are gonna have to grin and bear just a few more Arctic Monkeys references.

The album conjures up equal measures of frustration and dejection, especially as it bears all the hallmarks of a band growing in stature, who may have just delivered on all that untapped potential on a finely honed fourth or fifth record.

Rossi's music doesn't offer some great payoff, but the nice thing is that it suggests that we should keep listening because there will be one down the line.

There's a lot more discipline present on the band's second album, Leave No Trace, but it's not clear if that's an encouraging development.

The remixes that constitute the second disc are less intriguing than the B-sides, but none of them are horrible.

Lust gives them the most emotionally substantive material they’ve ever had to work with, and yet there’s still that sense of detached restraint.

Each song here, when attention is paid, is gut wrenching, honest and unabashedly sad while maintaining a sense of resigned acceptance... The arrangements and production, however, tend to drown out Perfume Genius's ability to juggle his subject matter, leaving songs that just don't quite break your heart.

Unfortunately, there are moments on Busting Visions where Zeus succumb to the weight of their considerable forefathers.

A handful of these delicious earworms deserve to be on the radio. The mismanaged sequencing of Konkylie robs its melodic impact, but the ability to write a great tune is definitely with these Saints.

Fol Chen's debut, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, is end-to-end melodrama and that's fine; so far, they're doing it right. Instead of the kind of melodrama that produces sugar and hooks, Fol Chen appears to opt for storybook.

There's still plenty to like about the insular production and engaging melodies of Wild One, but I can't help but think North Highlands have a lot more to offer that doesn't always show up here.

This album is a detour from the straightforwardness of Per Second, which means that comparatively it also often feels disjointed and uncomfortable.

The album sticks very much to the template of ambient keyboard pop and an atmosphere of disappointment that past Lali Puna and Notwist albums traded in. That said, it's effective in what it sets out to accomplish and has a silent ambition that is fairly admirable.

Mark Kozelek is surely a distinct voice, and a dynamic guitar player, but there's a difference between playing solo and playing to yourself. And he stumbles over that line just enough to hold this album back from greatness.

The songs blur into one another, edited to form a metal-machine grind of music that, while certainly exhausting--there’s even a disclaimer on the album: “Do not attempt to listen to all at once” -- maintains a kind of lurid appeal in its dogged attempts to capture a three-year journey within the constraints of a double LP.

Malice N Wonderland is not, by and large, very ambitious.

Despite the band’s mechanical leanings, they’ve always been able to let emotion seep through the swell and walls of distortion and static; it’s a trait the band shares in common with few of their louder (current) contemporaries. But the opening half of the album is not powerful enough to convince the listener of much of anything.

It's poppy, it's quirky, but it's also shrouded in forebodingness and unease. When the group achieves that sort of balance, AttentionPlease is close to perfect. The album fails when there is too much dance, too much party.

Beal's lyrics proves to be the major sticking point for an album that is quite successful. Most of these tracks follow the kind of topsy turvy logic of a Kaufman film.

This is a solid record, at times sparse and moody, at times lush and hopeful, but always chill. Very, very chill.

For all the creativity, there's a certain fire that's missing. The jagged energy that set White Denim apart from so many others has been rounded out, replaced with a relaxed streak and lots of noodling that wears down by D's end.

It’s a step forward chronologically but a step backward in overall album success.

Interpol's third LP sounds more or less like the last two, and that's its biggest problem.

Balf Quarry, their first album for Drag City, isn’t going to put a halt to those Sonic Youth comparisons. They’ve steadfastly stuck with the sound created on the Boss album for most of this venture.

Even if they are more refined, they may still sound very much like what Blackshaw has given us before.

It's deeply dreamy pop, not unlike Beach House (with whom Lanterns share a UK label in Bella Union) or Mazzy Star, though their songwriting isn't quite up to snuff with either of those.

Though the quality on theFREEhoudini is extremely variable, fans of underground rap will likely find little to complain about, and even casual observers of the movement will be able to find several undeniably impressive songs.

If there's an item of ironic animal print clothing hanging in your closet or you know the difference between a porkpie and a derby, then chances are you'll find something to like about Hanni El Khatib's debut effort.

All of this is still quite gut-wrenching, yes, but I find Caught in the Trees to be better when it explores other themes.

We get to peer deep into McCombs's mind, but with the benefit of coming up for air once the record ends.

Truly, the heavy strings and pasteurization O'Brien has effected on the last few Springsteen albums--"The Rising," "Devil's & Dust," and now Magic, the Boss's reported return to form with the amorphous E-Street Band--has robbed Springsteen of his still-youthful energy and blue-collar credentials, something that has always been key to the believability of his sometimes overly corny manner.

By the end of the album, most of the momentum is gone, and closer "My Forevers" is really just "The Return of When I Was Twenty Nine" but sampled with the melody from "Scissors," which means that there's really only eight (and a half?) songs with good, original content.

It's these odd melanges that clench together into perfect hooks that make Ministry of Love as promising as it is.

With NY's Finest, Pete Rock, whose place in hip-hop is alread firmly cememted alongside masters like Premier, may not go beyond expectations, but he certainly meets them comfortably.

Squarepusher's wide range is bound to disappoint some listeners.

They tend to stay in their most comfortable wheelhouse -- bluesy roots rock -- but, as before, their incredible vocal harmonies carry the day.

The songs on Illusion are detailed on the whole, but remain lightly so in other aspects.

Listening to his simple melodies, uncomplicated structures and often disinterested vocals, the cool with which Jay approaches Slow Dance is unmistakable, and it is largely the single element that carries the album.

Obsession with detail is one of the most appealing qualities of his work, but it's also one of the most frustrating. Echo Party bears this out in painstaking detail.

Unfortunately, despite White Wires' earnestness, likability, and knack for hooks, WWII is an album that is threatened to be overshadowed not just by albums from all over the musical spectrum, but also by other albums on Dirtnap itself.

Rock tropes work well for them. They shouldn't be afraid to embrace that in perpetuity.

Popular Songs finds the band crafting solid indie rock that is more by-the-numbers than Yo La Tengo has been in the past.

It may all cohere together, but it doesn't all work.

The album is so cleanly produced that it sounds like they can't afford a flaw. And ironically, it's this seeming aversion to being perceived as imperfect that holds them back.

With their third album, Entertainment, they succeed best whenever they are warming up their familiar electro sound with pop elements rather than aping worldly sophistication.

In the Vines--like Raposa and his self-proclaimed "bad year"--is something rare and curious only if you’re willing to wander through the rough patches here and there and accept a subtle discord along with the harmony.

Song of the Pearl marks a nice transition for these guys, but it ends up sounding like it could have been more.

For those who maintain that vocals are the most superficial element of pop music however, Scars on Broadway will be a surprise treat.

Don't expect any club bangers or hot remixes. But the exciting part is that, in Silver, it's starting to look like we might have a true composer on our hands.

The blindingly sunny Endless Flowers is an album appropriate for the beginning of the summer, all popsicles, poppy beats and poolside parties coalescing into warm nights

Take My Breath Away is a techno album, and it will probably be listened to either by people who know what they’re getting into or anonymously at a bar on the Lower East Side.

Screaming Females are too talented for Castle Talk to be anything but a solid album. But "solid" is a word I never wanted to use for Screaming Females.

These songs are so direct that they lack the depth and texture that more sonic detail would deliver.

Class Clown Spots a UFO is a fine record, but now two records into their return, it feels like this "classic" version of Guided By Voices is following too closely to a script.

It's got some purely great pop songs on it, enough that in spots it rises out of that fan-only ghetto, even if other moments find it falling back in.

The best parts are worthy contributions to their catalog, and worth the price of admission here. But as a whole, Weather Diaries isn’t the brilliant Ride return fans might hope for. Though there’s enough here to suggest it could be a start, the preamble to the next great Ride record.

You could never truly expect a truly cohesive album from Santigold, and she's met expectations.

Together, which was recorded during a period of lengthy down time for all parties earlier this year, is the sound of five guys bro-ing down, drinking beers and recording an album. It’s not the deepest thing ever recorded, but it is a fun little record that bears no pretense of seriousness.

The Diver, in its poppiest moments or in its dingiest moments, can never quite get out of the house.

From the first notes of Everybody, the band is trying to recapture the fire of its early albums. But the band has been moving away from that style since its inception; it's not surprising that the transition back may not be as smooth as they had hoped.

Weathervanes is a darling, coherent, and certainly radio-friendly (if at times sugary) record. But on their next attempt, Freelance Whales should tone down the maudlin, veer away from Sufjan territory, subtract a few bells and whistles and grow up with the college crowd.

Even with the highlights, there remains a feeling of paralysis on Synthetica that's reflected in the uneven tracklist.

When it all comes together, as it does on the amazing singles "I Could Fall in Love with You" and "Sunday Girl," the effect is intoxicating. Music like this makes you happy to be alive. When it doesn't come together, as on "How My Eyes Adore You", the result isn't unpleasant so much as tedious.

If you enjoy church hymnals, tabernacle choirs, tunes from the Elizabethan era and all things Stratford-upon-Avon, you'll pleasantly enjoy Dr Dee's attempt at a modern interpretation of the ancient, packing a lost piece of history into 2012.

Calcination does not lack sincerity or focus, but that doesn't make it any easier to digest.

The listenability of the second-half might leave hip-hop heads indifferent, often feeling just too full of glossy pop, no matter how solid Plug 1 and Plug 2 continue to rap twenty-five years into their career.

Dudes may not be your mom's secret recipe for home-made pancakes, but the music is consistent, healthy, and in the right mood, quite delicious.

As great as these songs are, how much you love them will rest on how long a leash you're willing to give Young and Lanois with the all ringing, sometimes overbearing, noise they wrap them in.

There's nothing on Gauntlet Hair that rivals the pop-minded immediacy or the floor-stomping clamor of "I Was Thinking...," but it still manages to wade deeper into an abyss that few bands manage to come out of successfully.

The cuts that utilize Batoh's brain-pulse method are nevertheless striking pieces of electronic minimalism -- stark and compelling.

The balance of Conatus comes off a bit too formulaic and familiar; after a while, you realize it's sort of one-trick, with Danilova pairing her--admittedly stunning-voice and platitude-heavy lyrics with stomping electro beats.

This is her best album to date.

God Forgives, I Don't is slick, large, and sounds like wealth.

Usually, by the fourth album, bands of the non-willfully-experimental type have grown comfortable with their sound. Yet, the Bronx of IV is not a complacent one, shaking out the cobwebs of inactivity as opposed to settling into a groove.

The trouble here is what we know: That they're capable of more. So the question becomes how much we hold our expectations against them, and the way you answer that question will shape how you feel about their latest offering.

It's an interesting mix, but unfortunately, the album is never as much fun to listen to as it probably was for the Deal sisters to make.

They're onto something with the blistering, bluesy, punk direction, but the sound will never gel as long as the songs keep getting stretched beyond their logical breaking points. It's time to move on.

Ultimately, there's a sense of urgency that's missing throughout Honors. The Stampers can surround themselves with more instrumentation and a fuller band, but there's still not enough suspense on Honors to make it a consistently engaging listen.

Formulas churn out reliable, consistent results, but "reliable and consistent" art doesn't always inspire a passionate response.

Beautiful front to back, it's still an album that never quite asserts itself.