It’s encouraging to hear Coldplay finally tackle something timely and weighty, even if’s taken 17 years for them to do so. Kaleidoscope’s other two offerings aren’t quite as essential, but are still worthy of taking a spot on one of the band’s seven studio efforts.

The overall effect is a more diluted sound, in keeping with the watering down of Skinner's diatribes.

Symphony may have more of a cinematic steadiness and flow, but the absence of songs as hauntingly memorable as "Cherry Blossom Girl" or "Surfing on a Rocket" does not make for a better work.

Ross is better when he's more ambitious, when he goes beyond the tired hood-rap/pop-rap divisions.

Although The Cross Of My Calling ostensibly provides an outlet for the band’s Marxist ideologies, its impeccable musicianship, arrangement and production make any political sloganeering irrelevant.

Those who enjoy the smooth sounds of inoffensive MOR will find little fault in Keane.

And though it's doubtful that any of these qualities will duplicate the success that Moby had in 1999, Last Night is a surprisingly solid and fun listen for anyone who ever gets nostalgic for MTV's Amp.

Paper Tigers proves the Caesars are capable of releasing more than one memorable track.

Time to Die by itself isn’t a bad album, necessarily, but it’s not even close to the same level as Visiter and what made Dodos different to begin with. I hope that on their fourth album, these guys return to their roots.

Thrilling prospect though it may be, the result is a disaster.

Work (work, work) sounds more like a laborious task than a bracing trip into emotional bedlam and sexual anarchy.

It's hard to view Radioactive in any context that doesn't label as it a total artistic failure, to see the totality of Yelawolf's rolling over to commercial demands as anything but truly disheartening.

For every standout near the beginning of the album-most notably the catchy girl group-aping "All Kinds of Guns"-there's a sorta-tedious ballad near the end.

The Outsider shouldn't be framed as the second coming of a masterpiece but as a stepping-stone.

If they want to match the intensity of the singer's emotional performance, the band needs to loosen things up a bit.

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.

You have to applaud these guys for jumping out on a limb with this strange trip of a record, but they probably shouldn’t take up the ‘60s-revival cause full time.

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

Glowing Mouth isn't the ultimate revelation it sets out to be, but Milagres put on a charming show.

It's unfair to saddle Dead Confederate with the burden of the entire Athens tradition, or look for it to be anything other than a band making a record. But Sugar would have been much more interesting if these guys had focused on that instead of trying to be five or six bands at once.

The Looks is prevented from achieving classic status due to its derivative nature, but its finds success in the Daft Punk formula all the same.

Metal Moon could be the soundtrack to an hour from now.

On Three's Co., Rademaker's songwriting has matured, which combined with the bigger production, makes for a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying listen.

This is a solid set of songs that’s mannered and restrained to a fault.

Yes, believe it or not, The Get Up Kids have produced the first truly surprising album of 2011.

All the Why? hallmarks are there, but the album just lacks effusive energy or emotional rawness needed to bring it all to life.

The result is album of beats and grooves, alternately plodding and engaging, punctuated by the occasional bursts of Black Dice's signature sonic playfulness.

Even with him covering just about every lyric here, this album never stagnates.