If the original and inspiring Icarus Line take on itself had been continued from the beginning or, better yet, the record had been shortened, we’d have a masterpiece on our hands. As it is, a much better outing than Mono and a brilliant song in “Getting Bright at Night”.

The Grey Album isn’t much more than a well-executed novelty, nor does it illuminate some genius hidden deep within The Black Album.

You can actually hear the moment when the album turns sour.

With such a subdued and steady tone, I Dreamed We Fell Apart sometimes suffers from an overdose of languidness.

A lot of these songs blur together and become indistinguishable.

Where the Donnas offer confident exhortations and definitive declarations, Kiss And Tell is dribbling with foggy contemplation and emotional explanation.

On many of the songs here, the accompaniment sounds like an afterthought, adding to the bedroom-recording atmosphere.

It’s obvious that the group can write straight-ahead rock/pop songs, but only chooses to tease the listener with short glimpses of their ability in this regard.

Power is one more entry into an increasingly strong catalogue of widely varied danceable punk rock and should do little to disappoint fans.

The problem with this kind of record is not that it’s hard to find fault with, but that it’s hard to get excited about.

Many tracks hint at the notion that Deerhoof decided to make an entirely different album this time around, but counterbalancing these advancements are decidedly flat resurrections of past glories.

Goswell deserves praise for putting together a solid album that could appeal to both fans of her previous work and others.

For the first time it sounds like Royal City is stuck.

On The End is Near, the group seems to follow the same pattern as before, but with less than appetizing results.

Unfortunately, even when they attempt to paint a serious social commentary, they can’t seem to suppress their sophomoric potty humor.

Beam seems to have smoothed over some of his rough-hewn ruralist poetics in favor of undeveloped blandishments and sentimental homilies.

Too many tracks on It’s All Around You don’t quite measure up to the compositional quality or imagination of previous works.

From Every Sphere is frequently let down by Harcourt’s mediocre songwriting.

As accomplished as Radian's sound is, Juxtaposition has trouble conveying new ideas throughout the album.

Because of its unexpected instrumentation and fine songwriting, “on mani” is the only track on the album that can be praised as anything more than above average.

As a listening experience, The Tipping Point is a decent album, a rough transition at best and a stumble at worst.

Their musical gifts haven’t left them... and their overwrought yet empathetic lyrics signify that their bandwagon jumping is misguided rather than crass.

Maybe if this album had been released in the mid-eighties I’d be falling all over myself to praise it, but these days there’s just too much stuff around that’s surpassed the music here in originality, drive and smarts.

The Dirty South is relatively toothless in comparison to Decoration Day and the breakthrough Southern Rock Opera, rarely even building up that predictably satisfying head of steam.

It’s not mush, it’s just not quite as gleefully obvious as Mclusky Do Dallas was. But, by the same token, they’re not just treading the same ground.

The change is typically drastic, but given the uncharacteristically long period spent in the studio this time around, the sum of worthwhile material is far less impressive.

There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that this collection plays it way too safe to satisfy the über-devoted.

Music that’s easier to admire than love.

The music is still missing one crucial element—hooks. There really aren’t any of which to speak, and no amount of production skill and instrumental finesse is able to mask that.

Gone is pretty much everything they’ve learned in the last eight years or so, ditching all the progress they’ve made in favor of just making another Modest Mouse record. The results, needless to say, are disappointing.

Sadly this isn’t the same 213 who dropped the legendary demo and this isn’t the 213 album people have been waiting for.

Frequently, he’s sharp and funny - full of self-knowledge and charm. Elsewhere, he’s so devastatingly sincere that it’s almost embarrassing to listen to.

It’s all quite beautiful and inoffensive, and that in itself may be an admirable goal. But what it lacks is the experimental--or at least, improvisatory--bent of Tortoise, as well as lacking a lot of what made the last Brokeback record so great.

Sweat’s the obvious keeper for those looking for the follow-up to Nellyville.

Brett Anderson has always been the weakest link, so pointing out weak rhymes and the frequent unconvincing moments (she’s upstaged by the background vocals on the highlight “It’s So Hard”) seems cruel.

The majority of the album is comprised of covers that don’t deviate enough from the source material to validate their existence.

My problem with Stewart, his band, and the new Fabulous Muscles is that all too often his desire to provoke seems like an affectation.

For all its surprises, Creature Comforts marks one of the first times Black Dice has sounded like a band in transition, and consequently lacks much of the serendipitous splendor of their previous efforts.

A one-paced affair, enamoured with drawn-out ambient intros, crystalline guitars layered with reverb, four-note rumbles for basslines, choruses that go on forever and occasional, half-hearted stabs at “groove”. Meaning that it sounds EXACTLY as you would expect U2 to sound.

The Kills' sludgy punk-blues doesn't contain many pop melodies or catchy choruses.

An uneven record that came out a few years too late.

Feels like Interpol-by-numbers.

The fascinating thing about Gwen Stefani’s record is not how different it sounds from No Doubt, but how similar it sounds to the producers that she works with and how their collaborations usually fall flat because of the rehashing of tired ideas and plodding predictability of her arrangements.

Honestly, the first few listens are the worst; Cedars grows on you to the extent that you get past its often-horrendous lyrics after a while and learn to appreciate its strongest moments.

Solarized is unlikely to win or lose Brown many fans, but the world of music would certainly be a duller place without him.

Even if this album perhaps only has one hope for a hit single, the album is much stronger and reflects that unlike many of her contemporaries, Carlton is moving forwards and towards something.

His new album isn’t quite as good as Disposable Arts, but it’s similarly engaging--he is both confident and insecure, and this incongruity defines his music.

Nice enough melodies and average tunes are repeatedly elevated by the superlative, rich and detailed production which makes Delays sound like a much better band than they actually are.

Suffers from a distinct lack of vision.

The middling adult contemporary slop, although awful, isn’t what ultimately drowns In Our Gun. That blame can fall squarely in the lap of misguided attempts at moody electronica, something the band has more successfully dabbled in previously.

The combined effect is gargantuan. It’s big, it’s fast, it’s loud, it’s got a backbeat you can’t move with a juggernaught and it’s definitely not clever.

There’s really nothing to this record.

But overall as much as the listener should be prepared to hate this record and its pretensions towards anticipating pop trends, it isn’t necessarily a failure.

Ultimately, Meltdown isn’t as dramatic a failure as its title seems to be begging me to pronounce it--in fact it isn’t really a failure at all. It’s just a crucial dip in momentum.

This clearly isn’t rave, or even a reinvention of rave. They’re an indie band with a half-decent gimmick.

Sure, there are flashes of undeniable brilliance, but most certainly not the full wattage of the awakening sun as advertised--far from the record Chasny's capable of making.

The downside of the Brakes development is the loss of the raw power that accompanied some of their more demented moments.

This is an album not entirely worthy of the patience it requires to be appreciated track by track.

But despite better production and the unbeatable chemistry of Coomes and Weiss, When the Going Gets Dark just doesn’t have as many memorable songs, nor does it spark the same kind of curious sympathy their best micro-miseries have.

Always a wee bit more clever than anyone gave them credit for, the Keys are now a pretty good Zeppelin knockoff for the indie crowd, and little more.

If all you’re looking for is more Tobin material, then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re expecting anything more, you’d best look elsewhere.

Morph the Cat is too complacent, too enamored with its own lacquered contours.

Shock Value has a disturbing amount of chemistry-set mishaps.

While lyrics have never been Mellencamp’s strongest suit, they’ve never been as clumsy and crotchety as this.

The overall lack of any real risk results in standard guitar anthem boilerplate.

A bit too predictable and lightweight.

This is a goofy record of bubblegum punk, with Queen lapping at its edges and enough good tracks to justify the smattering of empty screamfests.

There is flatness where once there was majesty; there is garbage where once there was gold.

For all its tasteful craft, aesthetic unity and knowing winks to its makers’ history, it’s simply not very interesting

So the form of vaguely electroclash pop delivered with frighteningly robotic efficiency has been mastered, but the content itself is the problem.

There’s little to differentiate Mr. Beast from Happy Songs, and less to recommend it in the face of Mogwai’s potent catalog.

It doesn’t feel right to be beating Will Oldham down for doing something that is so distinctly his own, even though he is doing it again and again to a greater or lesser extent.

It’s the sound of two very talented musicians getting their proverbial creative ya-ya’s out, temporarily sullying their good name to lay ground for something potentially even more exciting.

Hurricane Bar is totally contrived: too much “That Thing You Do” and not enough shot-from-below-the-hip bacchanalia to keep the fire stoked.

On the whole, Animal Years seems dashed off. Of course, dashed off by a clever songwriter with a helluva voice makes Animal Years a decent album.

The musical missteps wouldn’t be so bad if Broder’s voice didn’t often betray him.

The growing sense that Molina released this record last year--and will probably release it again next year--is frustrating.

Were the album as sleek and steely as “Makes Me Wonder,” we would be crowning and mitering Maroon 5 as master purveyors of white-boy funk.

['Fantasies' and 'Missed' are] mere tasty morsels amidst a mass of mid-tempo gelatin resulting from nearly arbitrary song structure ('Own Your Own Home'), bland chord progressions ("Ghost"), or one-take studio dickery ('Phonytown') that renders the closer, 'Cheaper Than Therapy,' a five-and-a-half minute afterthought.

Out of Breach isn’t without its charms, but with an opening statement as assertive, exiting, and promising as Afro Finger and Gel, it certainly feels a little disappointing.

The Fallen Leaf Pages starts strong and tails off, but even that would be more forgivable if Putnam’s writing was as distinctive as it used to be.

Not a dud, certainly not a work of cosmic art. It’s meekly above-average.

Soft Money is full of the sort of guitar riffs that mutter their notes and beats that knock about to break themselves free from dumpsters.

Starting at the midpoint, "Twosley," Maritime starts to drag.

Hello Love is certainly the most hinged of their three releases, in that it sounds the cleanest—the most streamlined both instrumentally and lyrically. Too bad what it’s saying is, more often than not, familiar to the point of being trite.

Really, though, Cabic needs more “Red Lantern Girls,” a gauzy folk workout that hides and seeks until a brutish electric guitar prods the rhythm and heads for higher ground. It is everything the rest of the album is not: aggressive, terse, and surprising.

Whatever Sam’s Town’s scant merits, the album reminds artists to be more careful about their role models—and to avoid Bono’s phone calls.

The sheer amount of misfires makes Songs for Christmas impossible to recommend to anyone but the devoted Sufjanite.

The only perfect choice here was to make an album full of ballads. It could have been a violent reworking of age-old texts. Unfortunately, there’s not enough violence here to fully rend and flay, just enough to bruise.

Unsurprisingly, everything on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is sublimated beneath Case’s vocals: music, momentum, the need for tunes.

The top half of the album is stuffed to the gills with dry Pat Benatar rips and unexciting ballads.

By no means have We Are Scientists made a great record, but it shows enough promise to make us believe that it might just be possible in the future.

This is the kind of post punk that loves The Specials and XTC rather than Wire and Joy Division.

National Anthem, is monochrome and even somewhat sterile, characteristics often overcome by Whiteman’s increasingly excellent craftsmanship.

The explorations of Security aren’t exactly shattering, but they’re refreshing.

Perhaps due to their prominence, Can Cladders works best when the strings are actually ditched.

The Reminder is rarely exciting or thrilling, and never revolutionary.

The second half of the album falls into a malaise as tempos slow and arrangements become more orthodox, placing Bloc Party closer to Coldplay than one would have thought possible two years ago.