The dressing is a little different this time around; a few more jokes, a couple catchy tunes (this is most definitely not the worst Weezer album ever), but once again Weezer are content with churning out sugary pop tunes that go down easy and unimpressively.

The album features a great number of their best songs to date, a couple expected stinkers, and some expected and unexpected lyricism.

Magnetic generally lacks the catchiness and vitality of past efforts, as the band tries in vein to reinvent the wheel but fails to accomplish anything as impressive as ‘Iris’, ‘Here is Gone’, ‘Black Balloon’, ‘Let Love In’, [insert hit single here].

As with many records that share Wake Up’s exuberant qualities, the individual tracks are largely hit-or-miss.

Obviously, Atlantic did not rape Lupe into releasing a soulless, automated, corporate record. The real irony is that Lupe's fans demanded this garbage be released.

Carry On is not a bad album, nor is it a good one.

Weapons feels so full, so intentional, that it's hard not to get dragged into the chorus of people that will doubtless lock arms to these songs live.

The disappointingly flat production was applied to a set of tracks that more often present themselves as sketches rather than fully fleshed songs. Moreover, this LP just gently passes you by, revealing itself to be devoid of any truly memorable songs.

Avenged Sevenfold is "City of Evil" minus the cool parts, more of Shadows, a circus, and an occasional female singer that’s supposed to make it all sound innovative.

When an emcee sounds interrupted or unbalanced by the guitar and most of the music appears to be ripped from a bedroom jam session, it’s painfully obvious; Street Sweeper Social Club would better benefit society by performing said namesake operation.

The London five’s debut effort is hampered by uninspired, unmemorable songwriting and a baby-proofed approach to recording and composing that ensures anything that could be described as edgy or life-affirming is, at best, lost in translation.

Whatever's On Your Mind fails to leave much of a lasting impression aside from the hooks and the impressive way the band can make a straightforward pop tune sonically adventurous.

The faults of Bouquet lie not in the genre lane-switch, but in the artist’s seeming disdain for her own talent, which by-and-large goes unutilised here in favour of an exceptionally flavourless, dirt-road bland, pop country excursion.

With a good production, some of these tracks could have been saved, but by all accounts, Let the Bad Times Roll is the worst album The Offspring have ever made.

The Used have taken the best elements of their previous releases, refined them and delivered the strongest album of their career.

Listen to the guest performances if you dare; just tune out the pedestrian rapping.

Scars & Stories may be nothing more than a pleasant retread of The Fray's established style, but it does a commendable job of delivering quality in lieu of novelty.

Minor complaints aside, pound for pound and song for song, Unbreakable may just be the best pop album of the year so far.

There’s something for everyone, and OCS do well to cater to a crowd who are afraid of falling with the rest of us into the future.

Any halfway interesting endeavor is either quickly discarded or frustratingly bereft of further exploration and expansion.

MSTRKRFT and Keeler have never been ones for half measures. Operator’s overall refusal to do just that, its inexorable 808 death march through a digital hell, makes it MSTRKRFT’s best album yet, not to mention an impressive approximation of DFA1979’s live show, in spirit if not in sound.

The unfortunate harm that has come with Portnoy's dismissal is that the drum sections are now entirely bland and lack any real power. This combined with the band's decision to include three ballads are really the only things wrong with A Dramatic Turn of Events.

Sadly, ‘Coloratura’ is not enough to save the LP from being a mess. In the end, you can’t even say you are disappointed anymore. This is who Coldplay are now, producing the most casual music for the most casual listeners possible.

Imagine the worst Good Charlotte song repeating “I fell in love with an emo girl” as a chorus. ... If anything, the more trap-infused tracks gracing the record’s back half fare better, solely because they aren’t direct copies of some of the most well-known pop punk songs of all time. Moreover, the extremely overblown production doesn’t achieve the same maximalism here, making for a comparatively listenable bunch of songs. Key word: comparatively.

To summarise, Man of the Woods is an astoundingly poor, inconsistent, and sloppily constructed outing from an artist whose defining feature has been his ability to cleanly reinvent his image.

These slightly above average hooks/melodies deserve better. I deserve better. So tell me it’s over.

The Brink is less immediate than all of the band's prior releases and is indeed a grower when given time to settle.

Arcade Fire seems incapable of crafting tracks now in which one solid musical element isn’t let down by another poor one. As a longtime fan, the resulting calamity has been like being unable to look away from a car crash.