It’s a trad, tried, and tested sound that they truck around town, exemplified by guest appearances by Conor Deasy of The Thrills and, a little more inexplicably, Maroon 5’s bass player. It’s the middle ground bewteen these two groups which The Tyde occupy.

Ghost lacks the dynamic swing of much of their past material, content to move towards unnecessary cohesion, one that takes all the wide-pupil joy out of their songs.

Body Language isn’t so much a massive artistic leap as it is a total distillation of her sound and style.

All in all, Birth of a Prince seems more like a stepping stone to better things than a fully fledged work in its own right.

Even if [some] of it gets a little one-note, it's an addictive note.

They can’t rap. Period.

Lacking individuality, distinction and imagination, this album is over-produced, overlong and over-indulgent.

Sadly, Suit, is exactly what it purports to be: the business-side of a duo of albums. And, in the world of pop, there’s nothing worse than sounding like business as usual.

This record is packed with deceptively simple melodies -- often aping established pop forms and the singer’s usual array of influences -- that are nearly irresistible because of the detail that Momus and Talaga infuse into each of his songs.

Press Play is like an episode of My Super Sweet 16: though lavishly decorated and probably an honor to be invited to, there's a megalomaniacal presence that ensures the whole party is about glorification of ego rather than actual fun.

The album’s stagnant celebrity worship stifles their ironic, so-dumb-its-addictive intentions.

Panic Movement is far too samey and too much emphasis is put on the lyrics, which are not the Hiss' strong suit.

For completeists only.

It seems to prove a cardinal rule about art and ambition; if you paint in too many colors, you end up with mud brown. The Mars Volta could fill up whole galleries with canvases this color, and with Amputechture, have constructed another monochromatic monument to wild, uninhibited excess.

A fairly enjoyable album as long as one doesn’t saddle it with expectations of being the next Sister Lovers.

The Mix-Up doesn’t present anything innovative, nor is it any sort of triumphant career coda; it just sounds good.

Sure, there are minor ways in which Wratten moves his brainchild away from a punishing sameness, but it’s more than fair to say that the formula that Wratten has built into a veritable cottage industry of crystal clear guitar lines, staid drumming, and a bass tuned to the key of depression is as predictable as the bombastic riffage of AC/DC.

Hope of the States haven’t completely given themselves up to mediocrity yet, but they’re well on their way.

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

There’s simply no charm or subtlety on show here, and not even any cheeky, bona fide pop thrills in the vein of “Everyday I Love You Less & Less.”

And the thing is, an over-reliance on pastiche wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that a) they’re running in grooves created by the wheels of the bandwagon they’ve arrived too late to jump on and b) they tackle it all in the most hopeless, hapless, school talent show cover band style of derivation imaginable.

While Petty is to be commended for putting himself on the line in some manner for his beliefs, the spirit of music would fare better if people of his stature took a harder stance than he does here.

Give Friedberger credit for diversity, craftsmanship, and the unprecedented ability to release a double album that actually feels composed of two separate entities. The rest of it? Too much, too fast.

Expecting two brilliant albums in a row is a lot, but when flashes of This Delicate Thing We’ve Made indicate he’s more than up to delivering, you get disappointed when there’s so much well-intentioned but patience-shredding filler between the gems.

Whereas before Embrace always harboured that tendency to fuss over minutiae, to pore over every detail with such attention that betrayed self-consciousness, their fourth studio album, Out Of Nothing, finally sees them free of their own fastidiousness.

Skills most often attributed to premiere MC’s like deft wordplay, vivid storytelling, emotional resonance, salient talking points? These are few and far between on T.I. vs. T.I.P., even if the man remains an impressive technician who sounds at home on any beat you can give him.

The continual sense of aesthetic, structural and emotional conservatism constantly makes the listener feel short-changed, Singing Tom persistently pleading his own honesty and kindness and suitability and weakness.

There are no great songs to speak of on Dumb Luck, and in fact there are just a few that I would hesitatingly call “good,” or more important, “memorable.”

This record is still an example of mediocrity.

A veritable debutante ball of sad little songs.

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

The result aims for a “shitty is pretty” messthetic that is more novelty than anything else.

[Their] debut, a scrappy collection of twee garage-pop, isn’t bad. It is half-bad, though. Which isn’t to say that every song isn’t good—they’re just fine, the emphasis on ambivalence.

Patience is far too long to hold my attention, and nowhere near as consistent as either Older or Listen without Prejudice Vol.1, but there are moments here which surpass the strongest songs on either of those previous classics.

RJD2 has made an record that simply doesn’t play to his strengths.

Crucially, he shows all the sides of his personality, making this one of hip-hop’s most well-rounded albums of recent vintage.

Just go buy an album that isn’t this one.

Devil’s Workshop is not awful, but its steady flow of roots rock near-misses is, at the very least, disheartening.

Threes is their most average album yet, sounding similar to their two previous full-lengths but lacking the confrontational loudness of Wiretap Scars or the precision of Porcelain.

Release Therapy may not be the mature Ludacris record it purports itself to be, but that isn’t to say it doesn’t have some jaw-dropping confessional moments.

There are moments of brilliance, no doubt, scattered handsomely throughout this album, but the overall effect is one of frustration, and not simply the frustration associated with great musicians struggling to come up with interesting ideas, but the frustration we all experience with music as a whole.

Kill the instrumentals and one or two filler tracks and you've got one of the best EPs of the year.

The clear, crisp production and epic atmospheres are a huge departure from the sisters’ previous two albums... But otherwise things are ridiculously the same.

The solipsism and trite accounts of benders from the first album are still there, but the music has gone exceedingly soft.

Uneven by and large, and below what we all know R.’s capable of, this one mostly shoots blanks.

A much smoother ride and more cohesive entity.

Timeless falls awkwardly between Buena Vista Social Club and Santana’s latter-day Rolodex albums, deftly combining multi-culti good intentions with the bathos of a great artist aiming squarely at commercial revival.

Despite some clunkers, Dirty Dancing delivers.

For once, Madonna has stumbled not because she reached too far, but because she didn't reach far enough.

While the idea of delving into the cars of local wrecking yards and their contents is an interesting one, the music that emerges from it is noticeably weak, in comparison to other works in the genre.

So Amazin’ isn’t quite pop and it isn’t quite rebellion--it’s straight-up high school.

When (and I mean, when) he raps, he's barely conscious.

You best spend your time listening to older Xzibit joints and wait around for the next one to buy new.

There are dozens of bands that do this kind of stuff better, including Wheat themselves.

A Drink And A Quick Decision is a pill every bit as sweet as its predecessor, mining similar terrain to achieve equally sexy results.

Hole’s original précis was to become something like Sonic Youth crossed with Fleetwood Mac, and America’s Sweetheart is the closest she’s come to creating that vision.

They make two kinds of albums. File Riot City Blues under "Shite."

For as honest and beguiling as Foster's almost feminine falsetto might be, the themes being touched upon and, more importantly, the way in which Forster dabs at them so simply... causes this otherwise fine artistic expression to be slandered significantly.

What The Future Embrace lacks in terms of consistency, it makes up for with the feeling that Corgan has turned a corner, that his return to musical credibility is well underway, and isn’t nearly as inconceivable as it was one year ago.

I Created Disco is a fun and mostly very listenable pop record which satisfies the modest ambitions it sets for itself.

It begins to wilt with tedium as it continues, as the drum machines and synthesizers give way to unimaginative organic instrumentation and bland, stale melodies.

Let’s Just Be is as poppy and willfully idiosyncratic as Arthur’s older work, but is both more conventionally arranged and more loose-limbed than ever before.

It’s all just too "over-" - overcooked, overheated, whatever you want to call it.

Each of their albums so far has been misleading because none of them have really caught what Embrace are about properly, who they are. This New Day, warts and all, finally does that.

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.

Lies for the Liars is a funny, befuddling, and altogether unexpectedly enjoyable record.

The problems on the album don’t stem from creativity or intellect, but from execution.

Stellastarr* pushes its new grasp of tension and release, and the album shows their increased sense of cohesion.

She sounds like she’s adopting characters and singing their songs, rather than her own. And, for a record with the name Autobiography, it seems like no bigger criticism could be leveled.

There isn’t an ounce of life in Curtis.

No one listens to Gwen Stefani to hear her rap. Or sing a sentimental power ballad. In fact, if there’s a Gwen song that can’t be described by putting two (or more) genres together, I’d suggest skipping it altogether.

The problem with D12 isn’t that all of them are crap, its just that they’re not given enough room to breath and prove themselves to be better than average.

On Schizophrenic Chasez attempts to reanimate early-80s electro, disco and new wave back into pop.

Mostly consists of generic rock, the sparkling production wiping clean any trace of roughness or originality in the group’s sound.

In some ways is a step backwards towards their rockist, meat-and-potatoes roots, and in other ways is a quantum leap into the unknown.

He sounds ragged, out of tune in places. He simply doesn't sing as well as he used to.

By making a bad album that also tries so assiduously to distance themselves from the backpacker movement that they unintentionally pioneered, they may have cut off their most fervent and loyal supporters and the chance of gaining a mainstream audience.

We find Jewel going through the motions rather than providing us with a noteworthy movement and in the end these songs here are less artistic pronouncements and more the conclusion of a specific product line.

The baggy beats and techno touches that occasionally made their eponymous debut seem slightly forced and naïve are stripped away, O’Brien’s production giving the band a more expensive, professional sound, just as massive and frenetic as the wilful teenage strafing they used to create, but with infinitely more control.

There’s an obvious self-assurance on AWOBMOLG that’s been increasingly evident on his recent EP releases; a sense of things coming together and evolving into a sound that seems unhurried, unprompted and, best of all, natural.

Hotel Paper treads the line between rushed brilliance and rushed dross.

A couple of times on Uncle Dysfunktional the Mondays break out of their past and attempt to come to grips with more contemporary forms, but it’s less than convincing.

Portraying the state of pop as a series of predictable formulae long since exhausted by corporate superstructure, Human After All more than lives up to its name, rendering a metaphor for failure on the grandest yet simultaneously most personal of terms.

The boys deliver the same sort of agreeable Britpop they've made their name on, wisely realizing that ambition's really not for everyone.

There’s no such dirty, beautiful reality on his new album, just grand empty gestures backed by production polish and symphonic schmaltz.

This is by no means a bad album, but to my ears, it’s worse; it’s mediocre.

If an army of songwriters and million-dollar producers can make Paris Hilton listenable, even for only 38 minutes, then no one else with a major-label budget behind them has any excuse.

Barlow has stripped away the beats that made it interesting and blurred the line between this band and his others.

God love her, but Faith and her handlers just can’t seem to tell the difference between good and bad songs.

By track three, something awful is apparent.

Kittie's most fully-realised and, for non-metalheads, approachable album yet.

After hearing the crap people have said about this album I’m bummed that people are so quick to reject what doesn’t fit their immediate logic. It’s ironic that folks would get off on shredding an album that’s about trying to be kind and honest at the same time.

It is a measure of Albion’s strengths that it can make itself heard above the crumpy distortion and shrill feedback generated by its author.

The good news is things pick up, eventually. The bad news is the album ends just as it starts getting interesting.

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

A big confused mess.

In attempting to show all of the things she has been doing since we heard her last, Aguilera lessens the impact of the better songs on the record. Instead, in between ten to twelve mediocre/good songs, we have eight to ten songs that would be better served as B-sides.

Morningwood does a great job at imitating, and they have spirit. But their spirit does not translate well to good listening, nor does it provoke the underwear-dancing and air guitar it hopes to achieve.