So eager are Klaxons to prove they're not one-trick "new ravers" that they fall into contemporary dance-rock conventions.

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.

On Disappearance, Lytle yet again hits that perfect balance of gentle storytelling and hard, dark emotion.

Metric fails to touch on anything profound.

Five American Portraits will not earn the band new fans, most likely, and may only inspire a spin or two from experienced fans. But this is a record that has its merits, mostly due to its odd, hypnotic concept and benign perversity.

Another Country, whether in rock or country mode, is an album built on the voice of its artist.

Mission Control is a collection of catchy, raucous tunes. There’s little innovation here, but that’s not what these guys are about.

In small doses, Animal Lover acts as the perfect antidote to a musical landscape often cluttered by acts too timid to truly challenge their audiences.

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.

The writing, arrangement, and pacing is deliberate enough to create a sensible package yet light enough to invite a listener in.

The album gains little from the effects heaped upon it, but Teenager is able to escape being totally buried under them.

With its out-of-this-world visions and lines like “Floating off the edge of the ocean/Out into the galaxy,” Dystopia gives listeners the urge to escape to distant lands.

Boston Spaceships is his most accomplished musical vehicle working right now, and Let it Beard is one of the finest releases in his endless discography. Period.

Under the Blacklight is at once more ethereal that anything Rilo Kiley has ever managed previously.

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.

The EP feels more like a work in progress with aspirations of something greater than the ultimate collaborative effort that so many said this would be.

A disappointingly amateurish performance.

The second half of Good Evening picks up and runs right off, with the hooks hiding under all the reverb and fuzz starting to scratch at the surface with a fair amount of urgency.

Tightened and more focused, Just To Feel Anything wouldn't entirely jar the listener out of their headphones. Still, it shines when you hold it up to the light.

On the whole, Together smartly meshes thick orchestration with their lean energy really well, picking up where Challengers left off and improving in a lot of ways.

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.