On Oczy Mlody they play out like a teenager trying to write a paper while he is high. The lyrics range from vaguely inspiring to cringe inducing, but just like their underrated At War With the Mystics, the record finishes with three strong tracks in a row.

Forcefield a passable, fun album.

Despite its outward bustle and injections of colour throughout, the album’s personality is also disappointingly tentative and placid.

This is the third Pains record in a row that has enough memorable songs to play almost like a career-spanning Best Of collection.

If allowed a spot in your rotation, its placidity could nudge you into taking the scenic routes a little more often. And that alone is worthy of some (appropriately muted) applause.

Overall, In Cold Blood is a pleasant listen in small doses, functioning better in manageable chunks than as a whole forty-minute work.

Beach Fossils have delivered an album of shimmering guitars and an ebulliently bouncy rhythm that is simply a beautiful listen.

Harry Styles is fun listening and will rightly soundtrack many a summer. But after demanding to be treated as a capital-A Artist, Harry Styles finds himself atop a pedestal without anything to say.

In The Wild won’t ruffle feathers, but it’s rarely less than enjoyable.

Everything musical seems startlingly familiar, and not in the paying-homage-to-the-denizens-of-rock-past way the album’s conceit might have you imagine.

Supreme Cuts know how to construct a track, but if it’s staying power they’re after, they’ll need to develop a more original sense of what their music is, what it can do, and the places it can go.

While Space Project ultimately feels more like a noble failure than an attempted Record Store Day cash-in, its general lack of wonderment adds little to the imaginative legacy of Carl Sagan and the Voyager Golden Record.

On Naomi, the Cave Singers don’t really fail at anything; however, save for a couple of moments, they don’t offer up anything all that memorable either.

The fun here is manufactured beyond belief, sometimes for better, but more often for worse.

Apocalypse Soon struggles to keeps things interesting over its modest seventeen minute run.

Julian has been leading us here since First Impressions of Earth, he has finally made his no-fi, bonkers masterpiece.

On Green Language, we witness risks. We listen anxiously as Rustie bets a Brinks truck on his emotional wherewithal, and that bet pays out exponentially.

EVOL is the first time we begin to hear the ostensible rigidity in Future's formula revealing itself.

At its best, Rebel Heart has an ease, and a long absent softness, qualities sorely missed since her last masterwork Music. For every godawful moment, which come and go with a sad frequency on Rebel Heart, there are glimmers of virtuosity buried within the overworked mess.

Despite its numerous shortcomings though, it’s a difficult album to completely dislike--largely because of its wistful, nostalgia-inducing melodies. But it’s impossible not to expect better from the former Oasis mastermind.

Mastermind passes by as a single, indistinguishable blur. To the credit of Ross and his many co-producers, the experience is rarely leaden and often engaging.

Unfortunately, apart from the delicious pop dance tunes of “Spirit” and “Unhold,” Apar fails to make any real waves.

The elements are still there, but they aren’t fused in a way consistent with the hopes of those who foresaw The Strokes being the best rock band of our tim

While Time isn’t a massive overhaul, Bear in Heaven tweaked where they needed to, and picked up a pretty neat trick along the way. The more you listen to these songs, the more they linger.

The only issue is that some tracks are slightly overlong, and the trio of short interludes feel unnecessary--threatening to pull you out of the moment and stifle the gradually escalating sense of euphoria. This is a small complaint, however, given the consistently infectious hooks and melodies, and the manner in which it brilliantly and wistfully evokes rose-tinted memories of the lost Golden Age of dance.

In trying so desperately to be universal, they’ve ended up with their most stiflingly insular album yet.

The real embarrassment is that more than the work of his peers or his idols, mostly Pharrell’s just ripping off himself to seriously diminished returns.

As Tesfaye notes on “Reminder”, The Weeknd has inspired a lot of imitators. Instead of moving forward on Starboy, he ends up sounding like one of them.