Fist isn't quite a God punch, but it hits with legit impact.

Watch the Throne is far too good to condemn them thus, but not good enough to erase the possibility.

When it works best, as on the now globally ubiquitous “Hello” or the show-stopping “All I Ask” (featuring a rending, diva-appropriate performance for the ages), 25 delivers the kind of timeless vibes people have come to expect from Adele, even though the first-person narratives in her songs often still feel oddly generic.

McKeown's Marc Bolan-influenced rhymes and party-time shouts are always wryly slapdash, but the weaving bass line and expansive structure of 'Situation' indicate that 1990s still retain some of the members' arty ambitions.

The strength of this follow-up is not the defiant antiestablishment fist-pumping (though there's plenty), but the tunes.

But primally satisfying as it is, the band's meat-and- taters thrash leaves one hungry for some Mastodon- style lateral thinking.

The self-infatuation on this album is less attempted-clever and more ambient, a body-posi constant that gives the plethora of tasty palm-muted figures and colorful production settings a semblance of gravity even if it becomes the favorite of the “Yaaas queen”-abusing straight Facebook friend you had to unfollow.

The Guilty Office recalls its predecessors, with better engineering focusing the details.

The Antlers still summon widescreen, dramatic moments when their moody tangents cohere, but too many songs sacrifice substance for prettiness, gliding by forgettably.

Dilated Peoples continue to hold down hip-hop's middle ground with inoffensive mic purism and sophisticated production a la mid-'90s DJ Premier. [Dec 2001, p.158]

So, no, Marr isn't exactly reinventing rock here--he already did that. The Messenger feels more like a tribute to his youth, to his home, and to all the musicians he's worked with over the past three decades.

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

Minus the mock-heroic guitars, frontman Tjinder Singh's globalist critiques lose some of their pop-political punch.

They return to what made them one of the '80s most reliable rift-heavy outfits. [Oct 2007, p.99]

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

Byrne and Clark rarely interact vocally, sometimes suggesting two solo outings spliced together; and the grooves have an anonymous vibe.

As always, the Crows are too indebted to the sounds of the past to truly signify in the present. [Aug 2002, p.114]

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]

Lynch handles most everything else here--vocals, guitar, writing, production--creating soundscapes that are dark, unsettling, and often confusing.

We Are Born accentuates Sia's goofy party-girl side: Produced by Lily Allen's mate Greg Kurstin, it's full of up-tempo electro-pop jams that sound like Amy Winehouse covering Toni Basil's Mickey.

In small doses these acoustic dirges and country-rock laments--played at tempos that make Crazy Horse sound like Slayer--pass by indistinctly, but over time, the slow-blooming guitar solos and age-old folkie melodies of tracks like 'Bowery' and 'Trouble in Mind' reveal their sturdy, dignified strengths.

It's a sober cruise down the white line between timelessness and nostalgia. [May 2007, p.90]

Western Xterminator ventures further from the '90s opiate-blues legacy of Trux, sounding more exploratory than RTX's debut. [Mar 2007, p.98]

The only offensive thing about this English electro-rock outfit's debut is how blatantly they rip off Justice ripping off Daft Punk.

Their more subdued follow-up doesn't dirty things up much, but it does give some character to the quartet's airtight groovemaking.

Folds is incapable of mediocrity, but Way to Normal comes way too close.

Solid and well crafted. [Nov 2007, p.135]

This odds-and-ends comp is unusually straightforward.