Despite the obvious beauty on display, there’s a thick veil that I just can’t seem to lift in order to fully connect with the work. Try as I might, a good portion of the record seems to roll by its picturesque scenery without causing too much of a stir, with “Capezio” and “Hanging Out” challenging the confidence of my object permanence.

Although there exist exceptions, like the gorgeous “Used” (in which Monroe drops this corker: “Used, like a house where a family lived until they died and there’s a soul in every room”), the record as a whole slithers into a sort of unsatisfying middle ground.

Afflicted in the end with a touch of offputting sameyness, LEGACY! LEGACY! nonetheless has remarkable staying power and a gracious ambition to in some small way materially improve the world of which it is an image. Aesthetic or not, that's worth something.

It’s the first track that commands serious momentum, though the closer “50/50” isn’t too shabby either. ... Its novelty burns off by the halfway mark, but there’s a strong sense that here, at least, was a direction worth doubling down on. Kudos. The rest of the record is an over-calculated mess.

A good-to-great set of songs, that would make a fire mixtape if you cut the energy-draining bores "RUNITUP" and "I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE"? A half-finished classic album, powered by reckless abandon and thrilling energy, but too scattershot to make it over the finish line? It's both, and neither, and I don't know, man. ... Call Me If You Get Lost is too busy shooting itself in the foot and calling it coming down to earth to be complete, but following along with its fragmented course down is still an exercise worth engaging in.

Heaven to a Tortured Mind eliminates the diversity and nuance of its predecessor in favour of underdeveloped avant-pop.

There's a huge promise to Fleet Foxes, one that can't be ignored, but Pecknold and the rest of the guys haven't tapped into it yet.

This Is A Photograph is an album which aims for an impressively grand vision, but rarely hits the mark. In its less grandiose moments, though, it’s frequently successful, providing the listener with a number of lovely folk tunes.

Like Radiohead and Panda Bear before Bon Iver this year, it's not a problem that Vernon hasn't created music in the same style of the last successful album: the problem is that he isn't able to make that creative jump to a new aesthetic, or direction, successfully at all.

Koi No Yokan is a passable alt-rock/metal album by a band that is capable of much more.

It's hard to slate Harps and Angels too much, because the music is actually quite good in places and it's nowhere near bad enough to be a chore to listen to.

True to both character and the album’s palette it may be, but it’s far from her strongest statement and fails to carry a set of songs that all too often need a push in the right direction.

For lack of a better word, it’s dull. The subtext of this record is rich for those firmly invested in Swift’s personal narratives but, perhaps for the first time, outright irrelevant for anyone else.

It's clearly her best album, but it's also her most frustrating, because it really drives home her potential and hints at so much greatness without ever truly delivering it.

In the end, Fucked Up aren't nearly as good as Refused were thought to be, but hey, Refused aren't even as good as they were supposed to be, so Fucked Up may yet be remembered as revolutionary.

The radical optimist in me wants to commend Magdalena Bay for channelling their myriad inspirations without referential pussyfooting, but they play their theoretically dazzling palette so straight, with such frictionless segues that the bulk of its tracklist pans out as one proverbial thing after another.

For all the razzle-dazzle of its surprise release, I’m struck by hard it is to draw a lasting overall impression from the record. It adds little to the reinvention established by Folklore and doesn’t deepen her work within this sound in particularly convincing terms. I want to credit her at least for keeping up an industrious streak, but this alone would seem patronising.

Mirror Reaper is a challenging album to listen to on multiple fronts. On the one hand, it is oppressive and deep music, wrought with heavy themes and even heavier aesthetics. On the other hand, it challenges the listener's patience with overcooked ideas that threaten to spoil what is otherwise an immaculately produced record.

The Last Will and Testament is slickly produced, conceptually sound and stronger in its first half. Unfortunately, it lacks an overall aesthetic that would see this record reach the accolades of Blackwater Park, Watershed or even Heritage while dabbling in those clear elements.

I can't help but admire the wondrous technicality of the band members, but I wonder if they could have deployed it in a more tasteful way.

The result is an album that is being asphyxiated by an extremely strong hand, and that proves to be the death of it all.

It’s reductive and doesn’t help really anyone by saying the hooks just aren’t there on the level they used to be, but it’s telling that I searched the rest of Currents in vain for anything as immediate as the crashing waterfall of multitracked vocals on the chorus to “The Moment.”

As it stands, it’s just another Vampire Weekend album, except the songs are less catchy and more sterile this time around.

eternal sunshine, at 35 minutes, doesn’t leave much of an impression, its titular statement of pretty regard for memories lost and time regained ultimately registering not as a platform for yearning nor as a vehicle for regret nor as ironic joke nor social commentary but as the broadest possible thread of aesthetic inspiration for pretty regard for such immaterial concepts as memories, time, gain, loss. The songwriting is the main culprit

Tha Carter III is scattershot, which oddly strengthens its faults, as if any lull in quality means that the next batch of producers can just reset the formula.

Post Human: Nex Gen is genuinely impressive. How does one band manage to rip off Deaf Havana, Deftones, Boston Manor, Enter Shikari, Porter Robinsonbithfimtaylorswift, Green Day, Radiohead, MGK, Iggy Pop and DreamWeaver, feature Underoath, Aurora, Lil Uzi Vert, Daryl Palumbo and Glassjaw… and be this goddamn boring?

Never Enough's tepid reheats demand some form of urgent rethink.

There are plenty of loveable moments, sure, but they tend to congeal like sand passing through your fingers.