There's not a truly objectionable moment on the album, but neither are there many memorable ones, making it an album as difficult to genuinely like as to dislike.

Although the album is undoubtedly a more polished production than is "Invitation Songs," the percussion is obfuscated by a watery and murky mix.

No one will ever get sick of Love Songs--they're an essential product of the thing we call the human condition. But it's easy to get sick of these.

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.

The EP does have some great moments, and ironically it's when Blake drops the dubset and channels his classical piano roots.

It may be the weakest album in their catalog.

Valentina spends much of the time spinning in circles instead of plodding onward.

With no clear-cut standout like "Nice Train" or "Dolphin Center," the record fights to find its footing on slacker-rock ground and never quite gets there.

It's like they rented studio time in the red room from Twin Peaks.

It trades the organ liquidating power of Crack the Skye for a collection of songs that sound as much like a B-sides compilation as a new LP.

These are just the outcast songs with edges too elusive to polish. And while you're unlikely to fall completely in love with them, it's comforting to know that Lekman felt similarly.

There are great pop songs on Tape Club, and it does remind us there is life after the hype-dam bursts, but most of us are better off picking up Let It Sway to see what Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are all about.

After nearly seven years, to churn out an album with three highlights and eight overblown odes (among them, 'Here It Goes,' 'Carry You,' and the forced empowerment of the title track) is disappointing.

The ambition to put out a decent club album is a laudable effort, but Thunderheist falls into many of the same pitfalls that a lot of the genre's output does.

Johansson simply lacks the intensity to stay afloat in Waits's whirlpools of ear-drummed madness.

The album's second half is still woefully lacking, one big mess of boredom and monotony.

Foxx shows some real talent on this album, and he doesn't embarrass himself - except for when he embarrasses himself.

The Rapture has made a safe record.

Dressy Bessy is a one-trick pony, and twelve songs of the same fuzzed-out retro-rock riffs are too much for one person to take at once.

Shows off the group’s ability to transform into a neo-classic Brit-pop band, lush layers and dark undertones intact.

Unfortunately with No Witch, there just isn't enough excitement to hold the listener's attention for long. And while the group is to be commended for their artistic efforts, it could benefit from a more aggressive fusion of sounds on its next album.

She seems to be lost among her new surroundings, pulling in old styles and dated arrangements to seemingly express her dissatisfaction and confusion with where music is going.

As a stand-alone collection though, it's vexingly stunted, and padded out with a few unnecessary additions to fill out its barely 30-minute run time.

As a document to a breakup, it's all a bit middling and lifeless. Sadness is one thing, but it's spring for Noah and the Whale. Where's the color?

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.

A Hundred Miles Off needs a single or a hook to balance its trebly extremes, and Leithauser's good-ol'-boy tenor has lost some of its edge, tripping too easily into the whiny nether regions.

Everything finally does come to a rewarding payoff with the ringing lone guitar work at the end of "Triangular Pyramid," but the long drive to get there is rather boring.

The choice tracks, the tracks that redeem an otherwise eternally frustrating album are 'Cannibals' and 'Modern Dislocation.'