Mountaintops is a decent pop record, and will surely add a few fan favorites to the live set, but for a duo that did so much with just two instruments, they too often do less with more here.

The other moments here retread instead of reform, so while the trio's stubborn vision for their music is abmirable, its limitations become glaringly clear as you get to the record's end.

Most of these songs would make for a devastating end to an emotionally charged, disturbed album. But ten songs like that in a row?

Legendary Weapons is fine enough for diehards, but doesn't reduce the general desire for an actual Wu-Tang album.

With Howl of the Lonely Crowd, Comet Gain will likely continue to lack recognition.

Like fellow hook king/smooth soul singer Nate Dogg, Brown takes most of his solo record and spreads some watered-down slick R&B all over the dance floor and fucks up everyone's game.

There isn't a song here that truly rises above the rest, and nothing here is as offensive as anything you'd hear at a stop on the Warped Tour.

For the most part this album is devoid of those special moments--no big choruses, no unexpected climaxes. Just 11 consistent tracks to perhaps one day rediscover, individually, while idly browsing your iPod's shuffle.

Ultimately, We All Belong hints at the band's innocuousness. Nothing here offends, but there's nothing anywhere near compelling, either.

Those who were taken with the band before will likely believe this album lives up to last year’s blog-induced hype. However, everyone else will probably think that Everything Goes Wrong is, well, no fun.

This record improves on the band's earlier work and might even score them a stateside breakthrough.

This is a carefree release that is meant for our "reptilian" brain.

The album is nothing like a career-killer, but it is a career-worrier.

Attack Decay Sustain Release sets a dance-friendly party mood and sustains it over the course of forty minutes, but it does not explore new territory.

Like the subjects of these songs, the music itself wanders.

Symphony may have more of a cinematic steadiness and flow, but the absence of songs as hauntingly memorable as "Cherry Blossom Girl" or "Surfing on a Rocket" does not make for a better work.

On their appropriately (and doomily) titled third album, Oceans Will Rise, Montreal band The Stills address the end of the world in the only way they know how--with marginally catchy, heart-on-sleeve ballads that never hook up with their aspirations.

"Blackout" seemed like it signaled a more club-orientated path for Spears, like Madonna or Kylie Minogue, but Circus is a hodgepodge of pop themes that never really finds a face.

As a band whose biggest source of praise so far has been its unpretentiousness, The Shaky Hands may be better off with a little more bombast. If only they had the skill to put it together for more than a flash.

So while this new set of Civil War-era songs is an often beautiful listen, they end up obscuring Kenniff's musical vision rather than illuminating it.

Despite the impressive stylistic voices and rich production, there's ultimately something hollow around the project.

This album isn't on par with the Sadies' searing early material or recent similar country-rock albums from the likes of Oakley Hall or Okkervil River.

More so than the debut's, these songs fare like standup comedy on repeated listens: Once the punch lines are spoiled, who wants to listen to a joke again?

The result is a schizo split between album and single: While you’ve got ten tracks that other bands have done bigger and better before, you’ve still got one that’s untouchably singular enough you want to root for the guys, even when they seem to be fighting their own best interests.

Who Killed Harry Houdini? is beset by lukewarm, heart-on-sleeve ballads that spoil the album and sub-form slices of pop that never take off.

The skills Barthel and Carter possess at creating this kind of sound with just a keyboard and guitar, as well as the two bandmate's longtime personal chemistry, points to a promising future. Professionally, however, Eyelid Moves is something of a stumble out of the gate.

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

The Seventh Seal is perhaps the most stale, thoroughly unremarkable album of 2009, and confirms a sad fact: Some comebacks are better left unexecuted.

¿Cómo Te Llama? is composed almost entirely of the same kind of songs that made "Yours to Keep" such a lopsided affair.

Ultimately, though, this is a definite misfire in an otherwise impeccable career.

The album, sweet as it sounds, is so polite that to keep from offending listeners it stops short of saying anything to them.

The lyrics meander, often failing to offer so much as a hooky line or even a coherent narrative.

Unfortunately the album as a whole, modulo a few bright sections, fails to come to life.

The Vision shows that thus far Joker works better pushing out erratic singles than within the format of a full-length.

Tamborello's textural sensibilities remain, but his ability to supercharge glitch into something intoxicating and luminous seems to have dipped out the back.

The Black Kids may only have one trick, but as long as they only pull it at a house party, it’s the only one they’ll need.

All too often Shadow Temple falls short and is flat out boring when it should be actively engaging. It took Rama 14 years to rise to the throne and bring peace and harmony. The band members need to do more than this if they want to if they want to outperform their namesake.

Taken as a whole Shy Pursuit feels like a flat amalgamation of post-millennial indie-pop tropes clean-cut from the quirks and charms of their creators.

These mid-tempo songs sap some of the group's natural energy from Dracula.

Despite these head-scratching derailments, 200 Tons of Bad Luck brings the gloom in Biblical doses.

Cotton Jones is comfortable, but that comfort can be tiresome.

The production is ultra-clean and the lyrics are delivered with a precision that is not to be scoffed at. But mostly what lasts is the self-pity and anger, which is at least enough to warrant our attention.

For every standout near the beginning of the album-most notably the catchy girl group-aping "All Kinds of Guns"-there's a sorta-tedious ballad near the end.

California Wives' music is soft and pleasant and fully formed and vague. Their lyrics are ciphers.

It’s certainly punk, but it does not rock. At less than a 30-minute running time, it’s revealing that much of Frauhaus! is quite tedious. The future may hold great things for Wetdog, but for now their appeal doesn’t reach much further than diehard genre adherents.

To extend the title’s metaphor, Golden Delicious has the taste, but none of the bite.

Instrumental mastery can provide for some fireworks (particularly on the opening triptych), but spending six minutes in service of sprawling songs with no substance (like most of the album’s middle third) doesn’t do anyone any favors.

The Spirit of Apollo is what happens when you pack 40 guest appearances onto a single album and expect their charisma alone to make something intriguing. It’s a huge gamble, and one The Spirit of Apollo lost.

Ultimately Songbird feels a bit rushed, and when you have as gifted a songwriter as Adams working with as gifted a songwriter as the Red-Headed Stranger, it's a bit of a letdown to ponder what they could have done.

On Off to Business, he accomplishes another step toward canonization, making a late-period album that removes any semblance of what made him great in the first place and is a largely uninspired trip down memory lane.

It ultimately lacks cohesiveness and direction to evolve into something truly outstanding, but still remains intriguing enough to possibly earn points with the more adventurous listeners.

The ideas it presents of consequence and scars, and the deep pathos with which they are conveyed, are often compelling, but the songs themselves work better here when they sand down the fangs a bit, a concession Stewart is rarely willing to make.

As with any Teddy Bears release, this is all meant to be a sort of pastiche; lots of genre jumping, lots of smooth transitions, lots of hooky goodness mixed with a plethora of guest stars and vocalists.

The playing on the album is strong throughout, and unfortunately the lyrics don’t quite pass muster. Though Hood acquits himself nicely, none of the songs rank near the top of his considerable artistic output.

Unmap is the definition of a vanity project, except there’s not much vanity in doing an electronic record that is inferior to the original music either group has made on their own.

Transcendent tracks like 'Your English is Good' and 'In a Cave' indicate that there’s still room to grow on subsequent Tokyo Police Club releases. But for now, the band seems to have lost its mojo.

At 15 tracks clocking in at 57 minutes, it shouldn’t feel as lengthy as it does. But certain cuts tend to drag, be it because of the inconsistent production, Moye’s sometimes phoned-in rapping, or both.

Jeff Bridges is all quiet and sepia-toned, dripping like molasses in dollops of hammy pedal steel, placid acoustic guitars, and Bridges' cracked vocal chords.

The problem is that the whole album ends up sounding like any other in the singing-songwriting surfer genre. The songs bleed into one another without much distinction musically.

In keeping with this trope, Talking favors spare, shuffling jazz arrangements: the perfect complement to a powerful, emotive voice and heartbreaking lyrics, neither of which make a strong showing on this album.

There's not a truly objectionable moment on the album, but neither are there many memorable ones, making it an album as difficult to genuinely like as to dislike.

Although the album is undoubtedly a more polished production than is "Invitation Songs," the percussion is obfuscated by a watery and murky mix.

No one will ever get sick of Love Songs--they're an essential product of the thing we call the human condition. But it's easy to get sick of these.

Bloc Party once came with something to prove, and the conviction necessary to prove it. Four takes the audience's interest for granted, and refuses to step out of line to draw more interest. So much for a revolution.

The EP does have some great moments, and ironically it's when Blake drops the dubset and channels his classical piano roots.

It may be the weakest album in their catalog.

Valentina spends much of the time spinning in circles instead of plodding onward.

With no clear-cut standout like "Nice Train" or "Dolphin Center," the record fights to find its footing on slacker-rock ground and never quite gets there.

It's like they rented studio time in the red room from Twin Peaks.

It trades the organ liquidating power of Crack the Skye for a collection of songs that sound as much like a B-sides compilation as a new LP.

These are just the outcast songs with edges too elusive to polish. And while you're unlikely to fall completely in love with them, it's comforting to know that Lekman felt similarly.

There are great pop songs on Tape Club, and it does remind us there is life after the hype-dam bursts, but most of us are better off picking up Let It Sway to see what Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are all about.

After nearly seven years, to churn out an album with three highlights and eight overblown odes (among them, 'Here It Goes,' 'Carry You,' and the forced empowerment of the title track) is disappointing.

The ambition to put out a decent club album is a laudable effort, but Thunderheist falls into many of the same pitfalls that a lot of the genre's output does.

Johansson simply lacks the intensity to stay afloat in Waits's whirlpools of ear-drummed madness.

The album's second half is still woefully lacking, one big mess of boredom and monotony.

Foxx shows some real talent on this album, and he doesn't embarrass himself - except for when he embarrasses himself.

The Rapture has made a safe record.

Dressy Bessy is a one-trick pony, and twelve songs of the same fuzzed-out retro-rock riffs are too much for one person to take at once.

Shows off the group’s ability to transform into a neo-classic Brit-pop band, lush layers and dark undertones intact.

Unfortunately with No Witch, there just isn't enough excitement to hold the listener's attention for long. And while the group is to be commended for their artistic efforts, it could benefit from a more aggressive fusion of sounds on its next album.

She seems to be lost among her new surroundings, pulling in old styles and dated arrangements to seemingly express her dissatisfaction and confusion with where music is going.

As a stand-alone collection though, it's vexingly stunted, and padded out with a few unnecessary additions to fill out its barely 30-minute run time.

As a document to a breakup, it's all a bit middling and lifeless. Sadness is one thing, but it's spring for Noah and the Whale. Where's the color?

Adventures in Your Own Backyard is about as confirmatory of an artist's status quo as an album can be; it takes Watson's style in no new directions, preferring instead to bask in its own childlike exuberance and to demonstrate all the trappings of ambition but little in the way of earning it.

A Hundred Miles Off needs a single or a hook to balance its trebly extremes, and Leithauser's good-ol'-boy tenor has lost some of its edge, tripping too easily into the whiny nether regions.

Everything finally does come to a rewarding payoff with the ringing lone guitar work at the end of "Triangular Pyramid," but the long drive to get there is rather boring.

The choice tracks, the tracks that redeem an otherwise eternally frustrating album are 'Cannibals' and 'Modern Dislocation.'

This album is so ripe with hubristic self regard and musical monotony that most of its worth gets crossed out.

Somebody’s Miracle is a collection of pleasantly catchy, if unremarkable, pop songs.

Unfortunately, Richards doesn't play to her strengths often enough. Too much of Light of X slips out of straightforward and into simple.

It's unfair to saddle Dead Confederate with the burden of the entire Athens tradition, or look for it to be anything other than a band making a record. But Sugar would have been much more interesting if these guys had focused on that instead of trying to be five or six bands at once.

While the definable hooks are definitely more present than on most metal records, that doesn't necessarily make a better, or even more accessible album.

When the members of Mastodon decided to make an audiophile's wet dream of a metal album, they abandoned the vein-bulging spontaneity of their former selves.

So while it sounds pleasant throughout, and sometimes awfully beautiful, it won't stick with you as long as it could after the album's final notes fade.

[The songs] demand reconstruction that can only come from multiple listens. Unfortunately, the initial impact of the record is so muted that only an artist as challenging and road-tested as Beck warrants such effort.

Sia's voice can be affected, and when the songwriting sags and the production becomes more generic toward the middle of the album, she struggles to keep the listener's attention.

There isn't a bad song on the record, but neither is there a particularly good one.