The band’s energy works alongside unusual arrangements and crisply recorded instruments.

Therein lies the personality crisis of Jackson Hill: The sole connecting thread for all these tunes is a band whose love for its craft just barely surpasses what a hodgepodge mess it often is.

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.

Ultimately, however, The Minus 5 is the indie-rock equivalent of Ocean's Twelve. Everyone involved is clearly having a blast, and the result for the audience is often infectious. But just as often it is distancing, like watching footage of someone else's birthday party.

As a result, Thao & Mirah is a nice side-project for two great performers, but not as revelatory as it could have been for either of them.

The songs on the Dark End of the Street EP are well-sung and nicely arranged, but they are missing that vital thing that turns a song into a necessary document of feeling and experience.

The unhinged guitar liberation the group achieves on stage can’t be touched by the inspired but ultimately uninspiring sound of Return To Form.

On We Are the Night, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons pull out all their tricks, delivering an album of euphoric psychedelic electronica, quirky guest appearances, and danceable grooves.

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.

Nothing sounds empty, nothing sounds cluttered.

Fergie is talented enough to compete with the likes of Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera, but the material on The Dutchess won't take her to those heights.

Fuck Death, compelling as it is, never quite finds the same charged feeling of purpose [as Skin of Evil].

About seven tracks in, 119 settles into a series of mid-tempo jogs that fail to really go anywhere.

Noah and the Whale try their best to make weighty songs (look no further than the paint-by-numbers description of a funeral on the limp “Death by Numbers”), but they’re better as a pop group that digs ukuleles and acoustic guitars.

On what has been for the most part an impeccably executed commercial rap album, TI again reminds us what he’s really capable of.

Yeasayer's only triumph here is perfecting a niche they've already seemed to master.

Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of effort to sift through 30 such songs to find the more immediately arresting moments. The sugar-rush aesthetic grows tiresome over the course of the record and threatens to overshadow the more sublime moments.

Unfortunately, the bad tracks merely remind us that for all Cut Your Hands Off’s brazen energy, towering sound, and melodious verse-chorus one-two punch attack, it’s the subject of the songs that ultimately bores. Which is a shame, because most of the time, these guys get everything else so damn right.

At ten tracks, Bright Ideas doesn’t have a lot of fat, but it ultimately feels like it could have been more successful on the EP format McCaughan is so fond of.

The original Pussy Cats may not be classic enough to be untouchable, but Nilsson was enough of an oddball original, and the album carries so much back story, that a remake of it just ends up being a "why bother" moment.

A thoroughly enjoyable and well-crafted album of mid-tempo soul.

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

So are The Hives stuck in a stylistic corner, or is The Black and White Album just a rocky bridge to something new and revelatory from the group? The material seems to drop hints in both directions.

Despite the jovial cover, this album comes off as almost entirely serious, which is all well and good until you hear some of the most misguided pontification ever laid down on a hip-hop track.

A case could be made that this is a newfound maturity, and without a doubt Rivers is no second-hand attempt. However, sans even a single convulsive whirlwind, Rivers is more musical wallpaper than a masterpiece.

Security Screenings is a solid record, one that will probably sound much better in the context of Prefuse 73's catalog twenty years from now than we'll ever give it credit for today.

Together, Reid and Hebden weave engaging tales without ever managing the transcendent spontaneity these kinds of collaborations sell themselves on.

Two forgettable bonus tracks tacked on to Sub Pop’s U.S. edition of Antidotes don’t help on that score. We don’t need any more of what’s already here.