TEN$ION, by contrast [to $0$], hews a little too close to the fake-gangster thing to be nearly as fun.

It’s no surprise that the romantic tunes are shunted to the second half of the record. As they go, they go well.

[Lee is a] maturing craftsman. [Mar 2005, p.92]

Lasers works best when the grabby hooks, electro beats, and conscious rap rants are all turned down a notch.

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

Sonically, Morissette has hit a peak. [Jun 2004, p.109]

Maybe this is what living in France does to you. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Listening to the man find his voice is the only “thrill” here, as familiar (if hardly marquee-level) Nirvana staples like “Been a Son,” “Scoff,” “Sappy,” and “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” all appear sans finished lyrics, or sung in too-high or too-low range-testing cadences like a very bored kid performing for a live studio audience of stuffed animals.

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

Makes like the spawn of Hole and Hatebreed. [Sep 2004, p.120]

This album would be better without Scott screaming about absolute nonsense. [Sep 2004, p.119]

A collection of enigmatic indie-rock tunes. [Nov 2004, p.119]

The Swedish quartet--best known for "Jerk It Out," featured in an iPod ad a few years ago--also churns out concise, addictive tunes that wrap fierce emotions in soaring old-fashioned '60s garage pop.

With tighter, mercifully shorter songs, like the Slayer-meets-slash trasher 'Almost Easy,' they're now defiling America's youth with more substance than style. [Nov 2007, p.114]

Wiz has a decent feel for hooks and occasionally does some interesting things with melody. But it’s simply not enough to retain interest.

Their debut suffers from Morello's uneven arrangements, which vacillate between rousing hardcore funk and predictable hard-rock crunch.

Producer Mick Jones does his best to juice up these almost-songs. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Clinging to the guest stars is crucial to getting through this thing--pros like Courtney Noelle provide basic hooks where the headliner's own horrible mantras ("I got so much," "Fall asleep") fail completely.

Here's the Crystal Method with a not-so-fresh batch of rave-rock jock jams seemingly designed to advertise a car you can no longer afford.

On cuts like "How Do I Maintain Pt. 1," the rhythmic interplay gets weighed down by its own excess, but the more expansive clouds of synth exhaust in wordless bookends "Run" and "Reintegration Time" offer more rewarding highs.

The music privileges texture over catchiness. [Jun 2007, p.97]

This is a low-spark affair. [Nov 2004, p.112]

The title of Gomez's seventh studio album reflects the low-key, easy-flowing attitude these boyish Brits have maintained since winning the U.K.'s coveted Mercury Prize with their 1998 debut.

The New Classic establishes the Australian artist as a competent rapper with a decent ear for hooks, but that's about it.

They sound like they can't be bothered. [Oct 2004, p.120]

Kittie still spew the alternately golden-throated and throat-shredding thrash of their 2000 debut, Spit. [Dec 2001, p.154]

On this speedy live best-of, loads of smirky, self-deprecating one-liners about boobies, boners, and crooked wieners can't conceal the music's winning wistfulness. [12/2000, p.222]

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]

Rise Up doesn't always meet the occasion, but it's Cypress' most consistently listenable album in 15 years.

Turgid even for the genre, Artwork will make you hate yourself for singing along with tricky standouts like 'Empty With You.'

Unburdened by Kanye's melancholia or Eminem's vertiginousness, Roth is perfectly likable, and perfectly bland.

It's rarely as lively as 2007's Last Light, but the interplay of organ, cello, and acoustic guitar on "Brooklyn Fawn" has a genuinely comforting warmth.

There’s plenty of sublime to go with the ridiculous, as well.

Buried under reverb, distortion, and computer st-st-stutter, our pop astronaut mostly wastes the forward-thinking production with cringeworthy lines.

Guetta can't match the inexhaustible bliss of his Kelly Rowland–aided 2009 disco smash "When Love Takes Over," but he can make 50 Cent seem like an edgy Daft Punk fanboy, which is not an insubstantial trick.

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.

Part of what made the Strokes so exciting was the flair they brought to the old trick of sounding hot while looking cool. On his solo debut, bassist Nikolai Fraiture never manages either.

While Transplants' self-titled debut caught the trio at that moment when the third-beer buzz kicks in... the new record seems to have picked up several pints and bong hits later, when shit starts to get grisly. [Aug 2005, p.96]

As an artistic statement, Stripped is all over the place--it's a move toward hip-hop, it's a move toward rock, it's ghetto, it's Disney. [Dec 2002, p.137]

Their gutsy spirit, while not "soul" exactly, does allow the band to dodge flippant dismissals of poseurhood. [Jan 2005, p.90]

This slippery debut from Odd Future's Syd the Kyd and Matt Martians embarks on a journey into Twilight Zone pop, with a lovelorn story arc that transitions from giddy crushing to it's-over melancholia.

Their Discodeine debut is surprisingly devoid of frothy sensationalism.

You don't really hear that stylistic growth, though, on this slab of down-tuned chug-and-glug, which finds the band returning to the grim recriminations of early tunes like "Mudshovel" and "Suffocate."

P.O.D. too often fall back on vanilla "bang boogie." [Feb 2006, p.85]

Spheres does just what they need it to do: land two or three easily digestible mega-jams to punch up the next concert setlist. ... The rest is, well, the rest. Four of the 12 tracks are interludes or faceless dance instrumentals. ... There’s just very little anchoring these songs. No sense of purpose, cohesion or emotional reckoning.

On every track, the mad-libs are paired with stylistically diverse arrangements--and invariably plodding tempos. The album’s lone sugar spike is “Dumb Blonde,” a rehashed “Girlfriend” that features a phoned-in Nicki Minaj guest verse midway through and, for some reason, a pre-chorus melody yanked from Lipps, Inc.’s “Funky Town.” In spite of everything, Head Above Water offers one brief moment where Lavigne’s emotional alchemy assumes a bolder musical form that’s properly befitting of her powerhouse vocals and enduring authenticity: the opening stunner of a title track.

What disappoints most about Full Speed though is how despite the slick sheen, its lasting impression is characterized by a lack of ambition or awareness.

They've returned to the frantic music of original heroes Gang of Four, banging out songs that vibrate with exactly the tense energy they'd mislaid. [Jun 2006, p.83]

With ridiculous Auto-Tuned hooks, filthy lyrics ("Bustin' on your ass / Can't believe I said that / Never been a racist / I left her with a wet back"), and jittery beats from Young L and the Cataracts, it's worth putting your name on the guest list.

T.R.U. Story contains few surprises, and one less once you realize that its own opening line--"Cut the top off, call it Amber Rose"--isn't threatening decapitation.

It’s a better album than 2012’s conflicted, twilit Four, but Okereke’s new grace awaits an engine as powerful as the one enjoyed by his old gracelessness.

Sound[s] like a band that's discovered how to enjoy itself again. [Aug 2006, p.85]

A couple of songs succeed on their own terms, like "Finally Begin"--destined for a rom-com trailer--but most float unmemorably down the highway of not-quite-modern rock.

Instead of the poppy makeover many anticipated, the Mobb's seventh album is a curious blend of gunz-money anthems, G-Unit-ized sex romps, and visions of the great beyond.

So faceless that it'll make you hanker for Dirty Vegas deep cuts. [Oct 2006, p.96]

For their previous temporary-reunion album, 2003's Strays, these dark alt gods created a superslick din seemingly designed for radio, but definitely not your heart.

Sometimes he veers too close to his source material and surrenders to sap... but mostly this U.K.-chart-topping magpie makes good with bountiful tunes and Broadway vocal dazzle that could slay even the High School Musical crowd. [May 2007, p.88]

While there are still a couple of Jam-like snarlers on album two, the aping of Oasis’ more bloated days sinks things quickly.

The good news is that they haven't completely lost their nerve; they still play their bombastic brat-rock like it's the apotheosis of Western pop culture. Sadly, this is also the bad news. [Aug 2002, p.113]

On Excuse My French, he's outshone and undervalued.

The results are hit-or-miss.

He's relying on the same sad melodies. And they're still quite effective. [Oct 2006, p.96]

I-Empire still makes you wonder what constituency DeLonge hopes to attract with such an anti-fun platform. [Dec 2007, p.112]

This album is closer to 1998's whitechocolatespaceegg: mature and complicated. [Oct 2005, p.136]

Payable on Death's heaviest tracks... easily outcrunch the competition. [Dec 2003, p.124]

This far less satisfying collection of gussied-up outtakes and posthumously completed tracks shifts the focus back to the packaging that progressively dehumanized Jackson.

Where the album fails to eclipse its predecessor, and where it fails to match the band’s new Brooklyn buddies, is in Marcus Mumford’s vanilla songwriting.

The record is 13 tracks long, sounds nice sometimes, and features Ty$, Juicy J, Project Pat, Curren$y, Chevy Woods, and Nicki Minaj, so it doesn't overstay its welcome and has decent taste in guests.

The music, such as it is, is a river of fat-free, dirt-free, melody-free jazz Olestra. [Feb 2002, p.112]

The Donnas have never seemed less enthused; none of the 14 tracks contains a melody as catchy or a beat as pumping as those on "Spend the Night" or "Gold Medal." [Oct 2007, p.99]

Most everything here is played too fast and mixed too loud, the live instrumentation doesn't swing, and the vocals often suggest karaoke Kylie Minogue. But the songwriting remains period-perfect and consistently well crafted.

A better-than-decent, ultimately pointless live set. [Jun 2006, p.82]

The middle of the road was always their destiny, it seems, and they arrive with blatantly pleasant but character-free ditties to accompany you while shopping for a smart new Ben Sherman shirt, though those ditties likely will be forgotten the moment 
you exit the store.

Their chops aren't superhuman, and groupie-trouble ballads drown Cormac Neeson's high wail. But when they up the tempos, they kick it.

Overall, Dimension has some solid moments and no outright duds, but it works better as the basis for a playlist than as a start-to-finish album.

It's hard to know if Madden's complaints seem so tame because the band's music is less zippy, or whether he's just taking the easiest path to the teen masses. [Nov 2004, p.109]

So, it hurts to say it, but the duo's newest collection, Communicate, isn't that great. And the problem is simple: the flow is screwy.... the album, while not without a few stellar moments, is ultimately a let-down.

While Young's compositions occasionally flirt with the nuanced melodicism of Jimmy Tamborello or Jona Bechtolt, he rarely lets even the slightest risky idea emerge.

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.

Witness is an album full of bizarre choices--both the DJ Mustard and Hot Chip-produced tracks are, for some reason, ballads--that has the inherent appeal of a spectacular failure, but that’s about it.

The feel-good vibe... mak[es] you feel crappy for not being as upbeat as India. [Aug 2006, p.80]

Devotees from Matisyahu's jam-scene days might balk, but fans of the Black Eyed Peas/Jack Johnson collabo "Gone Going" will rejoice.

The 'Sailor can often sound a little too elfin even by the standards of the early '70s orchestral folk rock they love. [Jan 2004, p.100]

These guys once flailed like a future-prog version of Slipknot (whose Shawn Crahan served as executive producer on L.D. 50), but now their doomy riff-o-rama comes equipped with mellow-bellow butt-rock choruses.

Snoop's sing-song flow might seem ideal for pop-reggae, but he disappears into the background of his own album.

Here, his three sidemen elevate [DeLonge's] emo tendencies to something grander and more timelessly romantic--though somewhat less exciting. [Jul 2006, p.82]

There are unique nods to the band's Latin-
American heritage -- an acoustic flourish here, a manic, Mars Volta–style polyrhythmic breakdown there -- but they're too 
few and far between.

As usual, his willingness to please gives the disc its fast-food kick. [Oct 2004, p.113]

It's sad to see the rocker side that Lynne has unveiled in her live sets turned into histrionic failures like "Trust Me," "Star Broker," and "Jesus On A Greyhound." [Dec 2001, p.154]

A good time, if not a terribly memorable one.

Occasionally, you wish Peñate would just calm down already -- even the ballads feel a little rushed -- but his ordinarybloke vocals and eager hooks never fail to please.

But it's not Eve 6's purely commercial aspirations that makes them so horrid...

For all its sonic sizzle, Prodigy's fourth album feels frustrated. [Oct 2004, p.113]

He's trying to remind you that he's still tough, though these lines mostly just conjure images of Travis Bickle in the mirror: a guy alone and clueless, snarling at imagined enemies that can't talk back.

Bring on the Comets is ultimately a bland regression. [Sep 2007, p.138]99

While we're used to Common in the role of poetic prophet or self-righteous rhyme slayer, Universal Mind Control is primarily a rhythmic celebration, paying tribute to Afrika Bambaataa and Jonzun Crew jams.

There’s no question that Jess Glynne is a very good singer, but her debut proves her best work thus far is on songs that aren’t even hers.