On the one hand, no 3 can sound frustrating unfinished. It seems as though something substantially more satisfying would have been attained had the band just stuck with it for a while longer. On the other, it's an enjoyable enough distraction not without its merits. Just don't think of it as the proper progression from no 2.

Baby 81 is a wicked crystallization of all the sounds on the first album, tightened up and brightened up and even louder and more textured.

With Fight Softly they seem so out of sync, so bland and so disappointing.

Arm’s Way represents a step forward from "Return to the Sea" creatively if not as an artistic whole.

The odd bits and bobs typical of the 7-inch and B-side world manage to make Advance Base Battery Life a little more interesting than Owen Ashworth's previous work.

They display a loose, gritty feel that ought to please metal fans as well as those who still think this is Crow’s version of Spinal Tap.

Until he learns to translate the raw, confessional edge of his music to his work in the genre, the results will always be as unsatisfying as III/IV.

Yeasayer's only triumph here is perfecting a niche they've already seemed to master.

Having blown out and polished away all of the music's industrial grit, Eisold reveals himself to be little more than a meticulously researched, clinical New Order cover act.

This new direction doesn't feel like a 180-degree response to the noodly fusion sounds of It's All Around You so much as a natural desire to light out for new territory.

Ropechain is sometimes frustrating bordering on indulgent, but it also depicts, without censorship, Adamson’s unique process and point of view.

For those interested in a group that still finds ways to take Krautrock down several roads, Circles more than succeeds.

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

In reality, Technicolor Health is a remarkably eclectic, dynamic album even in its use of rather obvious launching points.

The fact that Warm Slime doesn't quite measure up to the band's lofty previous releases is hardly the point. Thee Oh Sees are already careening down another road at 100 miles per hour, and you best keep up.

It is totally listenable and, to relay a personal anecdote, sounded highly appropriate at a recent social gathering.

Broken Ear Record... seems to embrace a certain sense of pop influence, albeit far beneath the manic din of sonic exploration for which the band is known.

Vanity Is Forever is understated and bare, an oxygen-deprived world with only super-sized synths and O'Connor's bleak narratives.

While Fantasm Planes aims to capture the ante-versions of Iradelphic songs as drifting minimalist collages, it's a tough sell after such a fully realized album.

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

Male Bonding have stayed on course, but their sound remains as virile as it was.

Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire is another record that hones and refines what it means to be Eels. Mark Oliver Everett continues his daring and heart-baring, and we continue to be the better for it.

"Cartoon Motion" was a nice moment for Mika, but this second album does not improve or advance what he did before. In fact, he seems to have regressed through his venture into childhood on The Boy Who Knew Too Much.

The conceit of The Dirtbombs covering dance music is genius.

If you don’t mind the lack of edge or grunginess--which is to say, if you like your danger safe--bring extra artillery. You could spend serious time deconstructing this album.

Their sound doesn’t deconstruct or reconstruct anything; it just kicks some tail.

Rockwell is a promising debut, and she’ll be wise to stick to the road less traveled on future excursions.

Odyssey is a little late and a touch weaker than its previous counterpart.

We can quibble about intent and expression, but in the end you will have to succumb to the heart, body and soul, and your brain might be left behind.

Even in a crowded field this summer, chockfull of musical juggernaunts releasing albums, Pigeons will likely catch people's attention. And those people will be glad it did.

Parish is having fun on this album, and the musicians he’s bonded with enjoy the ride as well.

Ultimately, Harris appears to have simply swapped one formula for another, and if there’s to be a Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 he will need to discover at least a few new tricks. ... [But] there are encouraging signs here that the Harris of old hasn’t been entirely lost for good.

You can't knock the songs, but it's hard to swallow whole.

Most of the songs on Ester are like partially frozen ice cubes tossed into a drink on a warm day: they work for a little while, but they never turn into something truly solid, and end up dissolving pretty quickly.

Immaculate production and carefully conceived themes are sure to make your nerd-tent a lot bigger, but is the space worth it if you push out even one well-penned ditty?

Dance Mother leaves many unanswered questions. But a safe bet is that Telepathe have more tricks up their sleeves.

Unlike the Ranconteurs' sophomore slump, Sea of Cowards doesn't suffer from lack of inspiration. It's simply a matter of a lackluster songwriting effort as the product of deserved success, which in some respects is a worse misstep.

If the sound of being eaten alive is something you would like to hear, by all means, shake a leg to Burned Mind.

The biggest problem with Red is that as obvious as Datarock's aesthetic is, it's still boring, and it doesn't stick to the tracks at all.

Theirs is music brimming over with passion first explored, then exploded.

There aren't any real missteps, but neither is How We Operate a step forward.

Irving's penned a batch of songs that can hold your interest in short bursts but will never inspire arguments. And that's damnation for pop music.

Spottily effective gangster posturing.

Invitation Songs is as compelling and likeable as their combined past projects were hard and edgy, as if they've been doing Nick Drake covers all along. That's no small feat.

In others' hands, this could be maudlin or self-indulgent, but Hauschka's attention to detail is his strongest characteristic.

Sure, the albums is filled with grand, sweeping sonic statements, but they seem to come from a place in extremely close proximity to the art-rock icon's heart. That's why it works.

The Lemonheads is a harmless, melodic album that brings familiar material to longtime fans and new audiences alike.

Takes could have used a few more experiments of this nature, because while his versions of the Breeders’ 'Invisible Man' and Yo La Tengo’s 'Tears Are in Your Eyes' are tasteful enough, there’s no real sense of adventure, no real feeling that these songs needed to be covered in this way, no real attempt at making this anything other than a stopgap between records.

The best tracks here still feature his distinct blend of surrealist poetry, but the music does not even meet it halfway.

Buck the World doesn't quite match his 2004 debut.

These original songs have been influenced in many ways by what's come before (what isn't?), but they're inventive, catchy, and kick-ass enough to stand on their own.

Kelis is one of the mainstream's most exciting artists right now, and she continues to defy expectations with Kelis Was Here.

More than their previous efforts, this album exhibits the depth and experience that they have gained from such collaborations.

Though Manchester Orchestra’s dedication points to the possibility of good things in the future, Mean Everything to Nothing falls largely flat.

Dissolver is easily Iran’s most cohesive album-length statement, and it proves that there is more to the band than idle four-track trickery.

Another collection of songs that can be stamped with the compliment of being incomparable.

Largely forgettable.

Like the band members themselves, Alpinisms is full of promise and obvious talent but would benefit from a more clearly defined direction.

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.

War unfolds less like a cohesive concept album (though a rock-opera would be a likely future addition to the group's discography) as much as a series of telenovela vignettes.

The songs are better, the guest performers more exciting and enthused, and the production varied enough to highlight the differences between each track (which wasn’t always the case on the previous album).

Kind of like Brooklyn, which wants you to think it doesn't care what you think, The Babies are impressively adept at making it look easy, at making it look like they're not trying too hard. The truth is that there's as much skill and passion going into this slumming side-project than most full-time bands could hope for.

Gone is most of the musical adventurousness that redeemed the most seemingly cliché moments of the debut.

On La La Land, however, Plants and Animals abandon most of the qualities that made the band distinct in favor of conforming to more contemporary indie trends.

For those readers familiar with Whitman, rest assured that this record only strengthens his hold on the contemporary experimental electronic scene.

What got lost in the record’s cacophonic crash was, again, what mattered--the songs--and in Berlin: Live, stripped of Reed and Ezrin’s overproduction, the bleakly radiant song cycle about doomed junkie love is allowed to flourish.

The rock was catchy, but it’s the slow stuff that flips you on your axis with its depth.

The album certainly has its moments, but on the whole it's bogged down by too much middling material.

By the time the country twang of “Ain’t No Easy Way” hits with a massive drum-and-harmonica stomp, thoughts of Howl being a “Hey, let’s try this” album vanish, and the music becomes the entrancing jaunt of a band not necessarily finding itself, per se, but at least writing the best songs of its career.

One of the most likeable albums of the year.

Much of With a Cape and a Cane is plagued with over-the-top dance wankery and a bit too much recycled influence.

Widow City is a fascinating album. Unfortunately, sometimes it's more fascinating than it is listenable.

Axes... has three distinct sections. The first is quite inspired, the second is mostly interminable, and the third is just inventive enough to rescue the whole venture.

Phosphene Dream's real achievement is that it takes the band's earlier murderous attitude and makes it impossibly bland. It might be the first time you fall asleep during an album with copious references to toxic gas, hauntings, death, blood, and killing.

On the whole, the jams and spaced-out scuzz rock of circa-Sweet Sixteen Royal Trux might most closely represent the vibe of Black Bananas' debut.

Timberlake's second solo record is dark and dirty to begin and smooth and sexy to finish. With only a few awkward cameo tracks to damage its reputation, this is going to be the soundtrack of the next few months.

In the hands of a lesser band, Six could be depressive and trudging. But Jenkins and Nathaniel build this hellish world only to fill it with sweat-soaked fight songs against all those demons and devils. And in the end, they sound like they just might have survived.

Archive acts as this brief glimpse into the evolution of a celebrated songwriter and a band, yet with the quality and the high level of music geekery required, it's obvious that this one's intended for the superfans.

This is an album that proves that Stars are fully themselves, confident in their genre experimentation and fearless in the emotions they express.

B'Day is a joyous uptempo album full of vibrant vocals, fierce production, and boundless energy. The only complaint is that it's over too soon.

The hooks often lack a singular focus, and there's a significant amount of fun to be had while working in a studio that's better off left on the cutting room floor.

A sprawler is always a dangerous gambit for a band. It can easily trip over the line from cracked genius into failed experiment, as The Evening Descends does.

The Orchard is the sound of Ra Ra Riot hitting for the middle, delivering 10 tracks of deliberate orchestral-tinged indie-pop that'll hit you in your 2007-era blog-rock pleasure center.

One Nation may not demand repeated spins, but its lack of form and formality is refreshing.

It's difficult to generalize about an album like Manifest!. For every flat moment or forgettable song there soars an incredibly high peak, the kind of song you keep on repeat for a solid hour. And even this binary critical formula fails; some songs succeed and stumble at the same time.

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.

Snoop sounds exceptionally comfortable, perhaps even reinvigorated.

Atlantis is a shining example of pop music in the 21st century should be.

Some of it works--'Southern California' 's honey-harmony’d and piano-led wistful look at the history of the Beach Boys in specific and SoCal in general is rather touching. But the rest of the album, especially the overwrought spoken-word interludes, remains a series of harmonized thuds and (however pretty) blank-eyed lobotomy-pop.

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

Kid Sis has elected to keep things simple--so when the album works, it becomes clear that it really works.

This Addiction is interesting and ultimately noteworthy because it finds a way to continue on with the band’s winning schematics while tweaking the blueprints in such a way that it's almost hard to notice that you’ve been duped by all the seeming predictability.

Millan's first solo effort is solid, but it feels like more of an experiment than anything.

The Joe Budden on Padded Room, however, is focused and hungry, spinning dense, psychological yarns that build for dozens and dozens of bars. Budden scratched and clawed for his second chance, and he hasn’t squandered it.

Novak and company are capable of writing great hooks and snotty lyrics, which prevents this album from being a total waste. This time around, it just seems like they got a little too tied up with exemplifying some sort of glam-rock, don't-care-about-anything attitude.

Black Mesa ventures deep into individuality but it's ultimately a fever dream that's more accessible to the man who created it rather than to an audience.

Despite the somewhat dubious timing of Heavy Rocks' release, there are still some awesome songs to be found here, and the album as a whole acts a great sampler platter of all of Boris' strengths.

The album has no song that truly feels like a single, and thus no particularly strong cuts ground the album.