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.