Unexceptional and devoid of charm, The Tourniquet is, on the whole, disposable.

[His] vocals don't have the same strength or range they did just two years ago on You Are the Quarry.

This is almost selfishly indulgent, and unless you haven't heard the previously released "Dr. Marten's Blues," you have very little to learn from the rest of the album.

Howling Bells fall into the same trap that kills most sorta-weird rock bands when they try to write a more popular sophomore album: Everything sounds bigger, but everything is easily more forgettable.

Less than half of the eighteen tracks are worthwhile additions to Sean Paul's catalogue.

Such Fun is the type of record Annuals were always going to make: a slick opus, epic both in sound and messiness, that just never comes together.

Though it’s soothing at times, A Few Steps More doesn’t really boast any kind of bumps, and it’s difficult to discern one track from the next.

No Mercy is a valley, not a peak, in a career that has seen plenty of both.

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.

An album that lacks the band’s trademark ebb and flow, Strange Geometry is just plain inferior to the Clientele’s previous work.

Even if Anti-Flag’s hearts are in the right place, Bright Lights of America is too vague to be impactful.

The fun is gone. On The Invisible Deck, the Rogers Sisters sound like just another band.

Things jump back and forth from there, and never seem to build to very much. Shadow may want to cross back.

But even at its toe-tapping best, this quintet from Newcastle can’t convey a sense of passion.

Most of Asleep at Heaven’s Gate is forgettable, uninspired, middle-of-the-road indie pop.

Unfriendly and alienating.

Cults is mostly just an album of girl-group signifier piled on top of girl group-signifier.

Ultimately Dalek's fragmented drone makes [rapper] dalek's tired wordplay obsolete, thereby redeeming Abandoned Languages.

The record comes off as hokey.

Fire & Water contains too much artifice to swallow.

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.

Great musicianship does not a great album make, particularly when the singer is so out of his league.

Once you get past the initial, pleasing familiarity, though, In the Clear becomes a decidedly middling listening experience.

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

While White Crosses has a few stellar songs, it lets down as a complete record. Anarchy will have to wait a little longer.

Mostly, Hysterical is lost in a hazy cloud that is more Dan Bejar than it is David Byrne.

In My Mind has several potential hit singles, but taken as a whole it falls dramatically short.

The Tarnished Gold is often nebulous and obtuse, trading in atmospherics more than the countrified terra firma of the band's past.

If you are able to ignore the lyrics, you'll be rewarded: the choruses on Meds are catchy.

This approach has certainly made Shaw’s music more palatable, but his tinkering in the studio (he’s an accomplished tech head; just check out this interview and try to stay awake) has mostly drained his music of any emotional resonance.

Much of Awake Is the New Sleep feels labored, lyrically and musically.

Fast Man Raider Man isn't your father's Frank Black; it's Frank Black for your father.

On Neighborhoods, blink-182 took [Dude Ranch/Enema of the State/Take Off Your Pants And Jacket's] sonic template, updated it, and made an album where they tried to understand what it means to be a member of blink-182.

They choose to remain well within their comfort zone, rendering Slaughterhouse a largely unsatisfying experience.

The band's shortcomings only become apparent when looking at the album as a whole; its repetition of the same sunshine formula loses it flare right around the third track, when the record's pace begins to slow.

Things improve considerably when the pair abandons the preening street-cred game; Moffat and Middleton seem finally to realize that if they're going to make a love record they might as well not half-ass it.

With about half the tracks on this record falling short, Skinner would seem to be teetering on the edge of irrelevance. But even the failed tracks here sound interesting, and if he's lost his way somewhat thematically, it's all in the name of searching for his new voice.

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

Them Crooked Vultures sounds more like an awkward attempt to introduce classic hard-rock rhythmic synergy into a Queens of the Stone age album, an effort that proves remarkably disappointing.

Much of the record lacks the magnetism that the handful of highlights boasts.

In between the dead-horse beatings, the Mael brothers pull off some brilliant one-liners and explore uncharted thematic territory, which suggests that Hello Young Lovers could have been truly great if the Maels wanted it to be.

There's enough here to justify a listen, but with LL's considerable talents, a little more was expected.

They're an insipid, uninspired mess right now, but the Hives aren't done as much as they are confused.

You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Yourself Into is not a record to take seriously, and I suppose on some level it succeeds in reveling in that, even if it wasn’t the intention of the band.

The album lacks the central focus that defined Yorn's earlier work, at times feeling like a grab-bag of style and sound.

Despite Rogove’s contribution and support from the likes of the Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti among others, Surfing illuminates the problems that have dogged Banhart since the jump: He can make really great pieces of ‘60s folk and pop homage, but has terrible self-editing skills and has trouble avoiding lameness, sad attempts at humor and bad taste.

Only Place doesn't say or feel much, which would be fine if it didn't sound like it was trying so hard to say or feel a lot.

The flashes of the old Rapture are far too few, but when they're there, In The Grace of Your Love proves that the Rapture have lived long enough to outrun their hype.

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.

Clark never seems able to strip away all the orchestration to show true emotion on Marry Me.

Had there maybe been a more analytical approach to creating shamelessly tricked-out pop songs, maybe some of Brings on the Comets would sound more successful.

At its best, Recording a Tape still sounds like little more than the product of a few precocious marching-band dropouts, an empty warehouse, and good intentions.

Peeping Tom's almost exclusively synth-oriented songs (save the occasional bass and guitar) are ostensibly intended to highlight Patton's voice. This only accentuates his overwrought yet indifferent performances, however.

Spirals downstream into dreary non-sequiturs faster than the glue addict who lives four blocks from me.

On the whole Infinite Arms is an album buried under the weight of its own sound. It's hard to know how this album could have sounded with less ham-handed production, but as it stands the mix here feels like some sleight of hand.

The guitar work is clean and atmospheric, the vocals light and poppy and the rhythms playful to reflective, but we've been here before.

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.

Songs and Other Things' mid-tempo pop feels tossed-off, like Verlaine couldn't have been bothered to do more between walking the dog and a few dart games.

An awkward, uneven record that comes over like something they made in a week instead of something that was continually pushed back for more than a year.

Tracks such as "Boner" and "Peanut Dreams," stripped of any excitement, are nothing more than highly polished and easily forgettable songs to ignore at a swanky upstairs club.

There is not much on Here With Me that surprises or overwhelms, but that is not Jennifer O’Connor’s brief.

Anything that was either subtle or complicated has been erased to provide ready-made heart-on-sleeve love songs.

Lullabies is ultimately a demanding, schizophrenic, lopsided album. At its best, it's an elaboration on what Queens have become known for -- distinct, droning, melodic, heavy guitar rock. At its worst it's futile, go-nowhere studio sludge.

Wigflip feels like the type of thing Madlib could churn out on any given lazy Sunday afternoon.

After nearly a half-decade of records, Johnson still hasn’t learned anything about time signatures or experimentation, but at least he knows what he does best and sticks to it.

The songs on Without Feathers are fine, really, and for the most part pretty well-crafted, but there just doesn't seem to be a good reason to listen to them.

Richard Butler is a personal and, at times, beautiful album, but sadly not enough to qualify it as a success.

In the end, though, this is an unnecessary album that only clutters Folds's discography.

This is rut music and The Mars Volta are still stuck in it; even if they’ve managed to avoiding digging themselves any deeper with Goliath’s frenetic lateral slides into pseudo bedlam, momentum is only momentum if you’re going somewhere.

Lonely Island are among the funniest musical comedians around. But without video, their songs are more "A Night at the Roxbury" than "Wayne’s World."

It's more or less a corporate-rock distillation of nu-rave, three years too late.

With such a young, singular talent, it’s a shame to hear him aping other styles when he clearly is full of a wealth of unexplored talent.

Only a few moments stand out.

Where past Decemberists albums rewarded delving deeply into the milieu The Decemberists had created, Hazards of Love fails to provide much worth that probing.

By the time the final tracks roll around and Gardner and Hammel still haven't changed their sound much, their lovey-dovey frivolity gets old.

The album flows seamlessly from song to song, but the overall feel is sedated.

His tried-and-true lo-fi routine is still there, and die-hard Pipe fans will probably gobble up this release, but these thirteen smoggy ballads are like that week-old liter of Grape Fanta: you know, flat.

Turin Brakes’ expansive and more daring previous work held an encouraging arc that promised risks and excitement, but JackInABox, while a pleasant listen, fails to cash in on that potential, and is unfortunately a step back for the talented duo.

Aside from those two songs ["Florida" and "Pull The Curtains"], however, there aren't many highpoints.

Hello Sadness offers the lumbering and deflated version of Los Campesinos!, hiding away their most alluring energy in favor of glum inactivity.

Bianchi doesn’t seem to be traveling down any new paths.

Last Light contains fine songwriting and production and collaborations, but it offers little new.

The songs on this album all sound the same, and there are a lot of them.

Despite White Bread Black Beer's undeniable beauty, it feels largely out of place as a product of the contemporary spectrum of music.

On the whole, Anxiety lacks the addictive quality of its predecessor, and it's certainly less musically interesting.

Plays more like a gimmick than a remix album.

I'll keep conceding to Jenny Lewis's voice any day. It's amazing. It could bring the rafters of any church down. But the material it takes up on Rabbit Fur Coat is boring.

Miller has the voice to support the songs and the talent to write a whole sturdy catalog of them. But with the bravado and confidence he’s shown in the past, the problem is one of volume. With so much to say, much of Rhett Miller feels muted.

Her melodies sound tired and her deliveries sound rushed.

His offbeat interpretations of tough-guy hip-hop cliches often make for great listening, but on We Are Young Money, Weezy decides that he can’t be bothered to display such originality.

Luda has officially entered his "transition stage" as an artist. I hope it will produce better records than this uneven offering.

More carnival claustrophobia than world tour.

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.

Although these songs of attempted triumph comprise the band’s strongest material yet, they still lack the originality that will shed them of the “underrated” label they’ve worn for the last decade.

It's hard to figure out what exactly the concept is behind this concept album.

Although the band hasn’t really strayed from its cutesy indie-pop formula, the qualities that made Death Cab stand out aren’t present this time around.

More often than not it just comes off as either needlessly melodramatic or watered down to a state of vanilla

OX 2010 lacks a clear vision and focus.