The members of the crew surrounding Eminem still need to distinguish themselves individually, but in the tradition of G-Unit/Shady's best stuff, few songs on The Re-Up have to be skipped.

[There] are only the few standouts on an album otherwise comprised of facile dance tunes with overwritten lyrics.

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.

Mux Mool has managed to produce another album as solid as it is thwarted by its limitations.

The reality is that many of these songs could easily be outtakes from "One Word," and by sharing many of the same sounds, Preparations ends up sharing a similar voice, which doesn’t excite as it once did.

After that highpoint ["Video Games"] things head downhill quickly.

Although the venue doesn’t spark an unqualified masterpiece for the grand dame of alt.country, a musky reverence seems to seep into the record, and the best moments here are among the best she’s committed to tape.

"Everything Is Under Control" is worth a download, and Saul Williams's spoken-word performance on "Mr. Nichols" is worth noting, but how much of this record has been done before and how much of it will be done again? What Coldcut mix can you say the same about?

What results instead is a solid offering full of familiar noisy-pop that with a little branching out might help the trio do something special next time around.

The most powerful moments here reimagine their sound at its best without ever retreading. The rest of it, however, glitters far too much for its own good.

Sixes & Sevens feels more like movie-hopping at an art-house multiplex, an exercise in genre formats and stolen identities.

Waiting for the Sunrise doesn’t signal the end of Vandervelde’s party, but one hopes he gets his second wind rather than becoming satisfied and heading off to bed.

Millan's first solo effort is solid, but it feels like more of an experiment than anything.

The songs could have been chosen more wisely, especially because some significant fan favorites are absent.

We know this routine well; it's comfortable and pleasing to the ears. But throw on a disc by one of the originators (Pavement) or the cream of the modern crop (Wolf Parade) and Tapes 'n Tapes is trumped hands-down.

Ultimately, Harris appears to have simply swapped one formula for another, and if there’s to be a Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 he will need to discover at least a few new tricks. ... [But] there are encouraging signs here that the Harris of old hasn’t been entirely lost for good.

Despite the missteps, the band still emanates a certain cheekiness that's rare these days, especially for a lot of oh-so-serious psych outfits.

Ultimately the album is merely a reward for sitting through a season of reality-show high jinks.

Producer Brian Eno has guided them towards more expansive instrumentation and bombastic atmosphere, but the center of the music often lacks real heaviness.

The Good Feeling Music Of...is good for a few plays and might raise a few smiles along the way.

The album has its moments, like a nice surprise bridge toward the end of the title track and the slowly building, percussive arc of “Circles.” But You Can’t Take it With You just fails to make a strong case for itself.

There is nothing awful here, but Loose never meets the dizzyingly high expectations it was saddled with.

Complaining about a lack of hooks can be painted as unrefined, but frankly Era Extraña hasn't shown me why it deserves hallowed deconstruction, it may be weightier, but there's absolutely no question which Neon Indian album has the most stick.

For better or for worse, Stephens and Tyson Vogel have thrown in their lot with that angst, and thematically, The Bloom and the Blight is less of the departure it hopes to be.

It's disturbing like a Mike Patton record, with blink-and-you'll-miss-it lyrics that serve as confrontational one-liners.

The album often ventures into the cheesiest territories of pop music, but this is Rihanna's strongest effort to date.

With Consolers of the Lonely, the Raconteurs are still content to play record-collection plunderers, but instead of ripping what they can from the '60s, they spend much of the album as twenty-first-century stand-ins for Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Oyster Cult and Three Dog Night, playing big, limp, calculated rock 'n’ roll.

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.