A Love Extreme giddily steals from and collides with a kaleidoscope of genres, all without a trace of modern guilt.

The songs on Goodnight Unknown are well crafted and it’s clear that Barlow still has quite a bit of passion for making music, but the spark of genuine creativity is not there.

Weathervanes is a darling, coherent, and certainly radio-friendly (if at times sugary) record. But on their next attempt, Freelance Whales should tone down the maudlin, veer away from Sufjan territory, subtract a few bells and whistles and grow up with the college crowd.

While some songs appear to have a cleaner polish (the pleasantly danceable "XXXO" and the epic "Tell Me Why") than others (the freewheeling "Born Free" and the ultra-compressed "Space"), every song is structured like a concise pop song with just a few rough edges.

A few tracks here sound less like fully developed songs and more like a college-age kid tinkering with a four-track, but overall, Williams hits more than he misses.

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.

There’s an emotional heft here that wasn’t present before.

Other posses succeeded because all members contributed to a central sensibility and ethos that made the whole greater that the sum of its parts. G.O.O.D. Music just obscures the greatness already there.

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.

Listening to New Chain, there's no reason now to think that Small Black can't put that fine touch to making an album with a tight balance between their drowsier sensibilities and their hookier, head-nodding ones.

As good as some of the tracks are, it's just discouraging to think how solid the record could've been if it had been just ten tracks of more fleshed-out material.

The perfectly pleasant Traffic and Weather is inarguably diminished returns.

Shout Out Louds have long been a case for the positives of going singles-only, and they probably keep that reputation here. But by a minor degree, Work is Shout Out Louds' finest album-length statement.

With nothing wasted, it leaves you wanting nothing more.

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.

Even if almost every song here sounds like something someone else has already done, there's still originality to be found.

Living Thing isn’t easy listening, it functions best on headphones, and it doesn’t contain an obvious single. But music should be challenging.

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

There’s no telling if Ludacris will ever be given the level of respect he desires, but this help proves that he deserves it.

Like a good mixtape, the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack works less as a primetime rock album and more as an entry point to some great work that those on the margin may have missed. And for what it's worth, it's the best soundtrack Cera has ever been associated with.

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.

As Olivier's lyrical content matures along with the rest of the band's elements, Midnight Movies could be ready to move into primetime.

Born Again Revisited is brimming with catchy choruses, expert song craft, and a few honest-to-goodness fist-pumping anthems. And this time around, your eardrums remain intact.

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."

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

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

Roadkill Overcoat is a thorny album, one that doesn't give itself over easy, and definitely not on first listen.

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