The moody effects and oblique lyrical affectations quickly wear thin. [May 2007, p.88]

Despite these fine individual performances, Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt overall is an interminable slog.

Velocifero's grinding soundscapes (honed in part by Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails) are easy to admire.... Too bad there's rarely much of anything going on below the surface.

Stripped of cheap but effective lo-fi tricks, Mysterious Phonk is meandering and moronic.

While all that harmony is good for revving your sugar motor, no conflict means no relief, just repeated shots of childlike cheer with no chaser. [Mar 2007, p.94]

This band has never made an out-and-out bad album, but now it has made an uninspired one.

This disconnect between Jesus Piece's gambit and its execution, between Game's intention and the raps served up by his guests, results in the headliner being reduced to a mere spectator on too much of his own album.

The resulting cavalcade of "decent bits" seldom leaves an imprint in your memory, let alone your heart. [Nov 2001, p.130]

There's a lot of Conor the Character Actor in these folk-rock set pieces. [Nov 2006, p.96]

The Pale Emperor plods inoffensively from start to finish with moderate gloom and a similar level of hooks.

This is a concept/protest record about Monsanto, and unless your blood boils as intensely about the issue as Young’s, the protest element of that is handled so clumsily that it sinks the album entirely.

Compared to the band's clever early hits, the songwriting too often lapses into clunkiness.

aside from the nicely scuffed 'Dirt on Your New Shoes,' a general lack of spark or lyrical acuity makes even the album's catchiest songs of predestination ('The Ancient Commonsense of Things'), passive-aggression ('Don't Hide Away'), and whimsy ('Cue the Elephants') register as little more than charming diversions.

As with latter efforts Jar of Flies and Alice in Chains, Black's most tender moments ('Private Hell') are its most essential. And while William DuVall is a serviceable Staley impressionist, this comeback would register with more purpose had guitarist Jerry Cantrell assumed the vocal lead.

It’s a record full of fits and starts, baffling successes and giggly failures.

While Temple's hermaphroditic alto endures the costume changes, the songs often don't, and the couple of undeniably great tracks -- like the rigid, kinetic "Collector" -- get lost in the parade of influences.

Key elements--shy vocals, shimmery guitar--remain from the Kadanes' previous band, slow-core pioneers Bedhead, though Matt now actually enunciates the band's diary entries.

Almost every musical style imaginable is crushed into this three-and-a-half minute, something-for-everyone product... But No Doubt's newfound introspection is a tad hard to swallow-

Except for standouts “Barbie Dreams,” “Good Form,” and “Chun-Li,” Queen is full of songs that Nicki has more or less done previously and in better ways. It’s not that Nicki has become a worse rapper (“Lara been Croft” jokes aside) or that the production is bad, it’s that everything here is only adequate--nothing pops, no chances are taken, and there isn’t any notable magic in these records.

Any distinction between "Dry Your Eyes" (which sneers, "Don't pretend to cry") and "The Revelator" (which offers moral support in hard times) is erased by the band's numbing grandiosity.

Vermont residents Matt Valentine and Erika Elder exhibit signs of creeping dementia on Drone Trailer. With his piercing whine and wheezy harmonica, Valentine suggests a damaged, decomposing clone of acoustic Neil Young.

He's got many peaceful, breezy songs about peaceful, easy feelings but lacks the hooks to hang 'em on. [Jun 2003, p.109]

Between Pitts' unrelieved misery and the tepid music, Pythons makes a bitter, unsatisfying brew. Imbibe at your own risk.

Frontman Adam Lazzara's temper tantrums sound more sore- than full-throated, but they still freeze blood for short stretches, while the revolving choruses are as enormous and polished as Boeings.

A mod-rock mix that's somewhere--no, everywhere--between Matchbox Twenty and 'So.' [Apr 2001, p.154]

...melds Billy Joel and James Taylor... [Apr 2001, p.161]

With contributions from various of-the-moment producers (TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, Santigold's John Hill), the Brooklyn boho's major-label debut is a painfully hip slice of style-mag electro-soul.

While his guitar remains ulceric, songs such as 'The Ballad of Charley Harper' stew rather than combust.

The production retreats into his comfort zone. But it is also really just a breakup album, and a really mopey one at that.

On his second agit-folk album under the Nightwatchman persona, Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello incorporates electric instrumentation and foregrounds his sonorously ponderous baritone, aspiring to, if not attaining, the gravity of Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, and Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen.

Despite some truly awful lyrics--"Don't make me get mad and Barack O-bomb-ya" is particularly wince-worthy--both Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith sound reenergized, boosted by spirited cameos from Redman, Method Man, and Keith Murray.

The former Fugee throws hip-hop, reggae, synth pop, and heavy metal into his trademark melting pot with little worry that the results might not blend. [Jan 2008, p.98]

Hipsters will hate it, but that's partly the point. Admitting he was "born and raised an Internet hate machine," Deadmau5 knows the power of provocation.

Aneurysm drumming and Offsprung power chords mimic the tiffs of teenage L-U-V. [Nov 2001, p.129]

One possible surprise is how little of Super Collider actually thrashes.

Fleetwood Mac connected with listeners because their perfect songs enclosed personal imperfections--they created an illusion of glossy best-coast living, then punctured that illusion with brutal truth. Hardly anyone on Just Tell Me That You Want Me summons that friction.

The riffs have gotten sharper and more jagged as the punch lines have grown duller and less imaginative. Minus his smart-alecky cheek, it's increasingly difficult for McKeown to hold your interest.

Hawthorne Heights shun nuance altogether. Quiet equals depth; loud equals catharsis. And never the twain shall meet. [Mar 2006, p.94]

As a whole, though, Careless World is simply mediocre.

The erstwhile Moldy Peaches wears out his welcome at 20 tracks, each one unrelated to the last and haphazardly abandoned around the one-and-a-half minute mark. [Apr 2008, p.98]

When they stay focused and sweet (as on the sparingly orchestral 'Berlin Heart'), they soar. But when Lightburn adds spoken-word bits and überwanky guitar solos ('Lights Off'), ending with an 11-minute, church-inspired requiem ('Saviour'), you may be ready to follow his former band members out the door.

It's never sonically engaging enough to stand out amid a rack of backpacks. [Dec 2007, p.112]

Lacking lyrics as memorable as 2006's "Meds," Battle for the Sun is heavier but duller, with the gap between Molko's spindly melodies and the fatter, newly Americanized riffs widening.

That penchant for swollen, cathedral­size arrangements--particularly on Coldplay­like cuts 'Late of Camera' and 'In a Look'--is a weakness, but hopefully, Enigk will learn to shake it off in favor of leaner renditions of his winning, winsome tunes.

You're being pulled close, but thoughtlessly, reflexively. And you only feel further away.

Modern Rituals feels like an encouraging first draft, waiting for the distinctive touches that would complete it.

Though McBean, who also leads Vancouver spliff-rockers Black Mountain, invites a slew of guests with diverse musical associations (Jackie-O Motherfucker, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Whiskeytown), the album still yawns with homogeneous campfire acoustics.

>>> succeeds about half the time, but too often the band sounds conflicted between marching forward as the old Beak> and committing to a new direction.

Sliding away from his Marc Bolan fixation, Vandervelde sounds more like a subpar Lindsey Buckingham (there's even a cocaine lyric on 'Someone Like You'), offering shlocky '70s AM pop rock on drifting, overlong tunes like 'Need for Now.'

At his most excitable ('No Direction'), yearning frontman Steve Schiltz aims for the stadium's back row, Bono-style, though the dogged pursuit of spiritual uplift generates more fatigue than enlightenment.

Amazingly enough, she does sound almost human. [Jan 2002, p.108]

Only in the fire-hydrant-ready title cut, where an around-the-way girl reminisces about bodegas in Bed-Stuy, does Coppola seem like more than a confessional folkie playing funky dress-up.

Dido's third solo album reveals an unyielding fear of intimacy, her mellow trip-pop (coproduced by Jon Brion) buckling underneath sadness and alienation.

Shards of Come With Me suggest Crow has more to offer the metal gods than the intermittently awesome sludgefests served up here.

Innocence Reaches is lighter than last year’s appropriately titled Aureate Gloom, but it’s less fun than it thinks it is, and in pursuing a more “current,” electronic-inspired sound, it’s lost the psychedelic charms of a better post-peak Of Montreal album like, say, 2013’s lousy with sylvianbriar.

Variety has never been Audioslave's strong suit. [Sep 2006, p.102]

But what that album [Knowle West Boy] had in abundance--loud guitars, noisy electronics, new ideas--this comparatively minimal one lacks.

Rise Against's strident anti-ignorance messages have coursed through several albums of tightly wound, good-intentions punk.

None of the songs on the Black Album are as garish, horrifying, or catchy as “Beverly Hills,” nor as totally committed to a one-dimensional concept as those of the White Album. By contrast, the Black Album sounds scattered, as if the comedy is beginning to lose definition.

Herren's stream of consciousness favors laptop techniques and restless exploration, and the results are Ampexian's modestly satisfying minute-long grooves, which seemingly end as soon as they get started.

Ultimately, it's the stuff of a common nightmare--creepily thrilling, but not worth reliving.

It’s no more mixtape-like than anything else they’ve done, but Drift feels unusually scattered despite its lean runtime.

Relying on sturdy-legged piano chords ('I've Seen Enough'), boogie rock ('Mexican Dogs'), and caffeinated backbeats to boost Willett's narratives, Loyalty to Loyalty is rarely subtle.

Masters of the Burial lacks the character to be more than the sum of its lovely parts: fiddles, regret, and a pretty voice.

Mainly they noodle through indeterminate world-music jams that’d feel equally ignorable at mud festivals and at ethnic restaurants.

Whether they're trying to obscure the songs' perceived flaws or make some sort of dazzling artistic statement, the band opts for grandiose production (courtesy of Jacknife Lee) and sprawling arrangements--cue the orchestra and the choir--that blunt the effect of Lightbody's deceptively strong songwriting.

This is a pivot, this record, and a shrewd one, but "shrewd" and "boring" are not mutually exclusive.

Houglass blatantly resembles sedate, later-day Depeche. [Nov 2007, p.118]

Van Weezer continues that trajectory with its hard-rock/metal ethos, but it seldom feels like anything beyond a novelty.

There's charm in its corniness. [Feb 2007, p.82]

There are traces of reverb and chicken-scratch guitar, but the band's drill-press instro-rock lacks thegenre's spacial dislocation and sense of thematic possibility. [Feb 2008, p.92]

Before I Self Destruct starts with 50 Cent literally growling, and it ends, on 'Could've Been You,' with Kelly crooning about sniffing his own excrement. Both sound equally laughable.

Truth subverts metal's natural will to power with dreamy, ambient passages that are never as sublime as the band clearly thinks they are. [Dec 2006, p.98]

Where her past albums felt messy but painfully sincere, Younger Now comes off as safe and overly sanitized, with the frisson that made Cyrus a star all but entirely blasted away. ... Still, the album has some plainly good songs.

This is a cold, calculated record lacking in personality, though it certainly tries to deliver something that Scott is incapable of.

The fan service can only go so far, though. With each successive spin, the LP’s post-reunion giddiness recedes, revealing the overarching déja vu as a crutch.

Diplo and Co. threw everything at the wall and turned around, pretending it stuck when all that’s really left is the splatter from undercooked leftovers.

It's well within the Boss' right to try and freshen up old material, especially 18 albums in, but this one lacks a through-line beyond the distracting (and occasionally straight-up embarrassing) Morello.

Interpol sounds both strangely distant and overly familiar, like a band struggling to remember who they are.

Music tailor-made for the world's hippest elevators. [Nov. 2000, p.200]

A sweaty, first-take orgy that sometimes suggests Tom Waits fronting the Stones, only clumsier. [May 2007, p.84]

Overall, The Bridge has a very Reagan-era vibe, and not just due to appearances by KRS-One and Big Daddy Kane.

Th Peas keep it exuberantly funky.

Vanderslice is tortured and diffuse even by Death Cab standards. [Sep 2005, p.109]

Moments of transcendence occasionally emerge from the murk, but not often enough.

Bridges' country-fried drawl gets wonky (see the shuffling "Blue Car"), but when the pieces come together -- as on laid-back, folksy charmers like "Everything but Love" and "Maybe I Missed the Point" -- the result is as comfortable and unpretentious as the Dude's bathrobe.

Grainger's solo efforts are more restrained than DFA 1979's sweaty frenzy, and ultimately, his blues-frilled rock would be pretty pallid if not for the playfully sarcastic undercurrents.

764-Hero faithfully, almost methodically practices the dying art of melodic rock songs with no particular point to them.

Sometimes [his] acoustic finger-plucking moves past half-angst into something boozier, but his solo debut is boxed wine at best. [May 2006, p.91]

It's a solid formula--trouble is, anything resembling emotional complexity gets blasted away by the heavy-metal howitzer of Don Gilmore's production. [Oct 2002, p.117]

By no stretch of the imagination is Beerbongs & Bentleys a good album, but it’s admirable in its commitment to its strangely singular dirtbag vision of L.A. luxury. It isn’t consistent enough to mold Post Malone fully into the Soundcloud rap version of Ed Sheeran, but it will certainly allow him to stick around for at least a few more years.

Ghost drowns in Spacemen 3-like drone, feedback, and reverb until the tunes congeal into a deliberately muddy, impenetrable trance. [June 2008, p.104]

He's brilliant when juxtaposing rhythmic brutality against euphonious familiarity; but here, he seems exhausted by the former and ashamed of the latter.

For now, we’re stuck with a record that’s both intentionally and unintentionally frustrating: A record about self-loathing where the actual remorse is absent, where its creator would insist that’s the point.

The album flounders during their attempts at arty funk. [Jan 2007, p.92]

The Hazards of Love feels like a gambit, with the Decemberists betting that increased bombast and literary aspiration will make up for decreased attention to pop craft. It's a hazardous bet that yields spectacular sparks but ultimately asks for much more than it's willing to give.

A blatant stab for radio... [Aug 2001, p.134]

Green Naugahyde is all rubbery, aggro Bootsy, picking up where 1999's nü-metal-chasing Antipop left off.