Summer Sun, while constantly very good, is never creative, inspiring or great. [Editor's Note: Score listed is an average of three separate reviews/scores by this publication: 56, 60, 68]

The disappointments just keep on coming.

Like a leather whip encased in a spun sugar cage, it is simultaneously deeply sexy yet innocent. And it’s that push-pull tension that keeps this album yanked together tighter than a PVC miniskirt.

In The Reins is intelligent but natural, different but not queer.

The result may be, in a manner of speaking, the most consistent Atmosphere album to date. That is, You Can’t Imagine is consistently okay.

Natural is their prettiest album; in spots it's almost pastoral.

For an album about all the bad things that can happen to us, it sounds pretty damn good.

This new sense of excursion comes with its costs, and like many of their predecessors, it robs this Toronto band’s tunefulness in the name of unnecessary experimentation.

The album certainly holds enough strong melodies and well-written songs to elevate it above the majority of Harrison’s uneven solo career, but is somewhat brought down by Lynne’s posthumous production.

Its unity keeps it solid, but it also keeps Dents and Shells free of surprises.

Tracyanne Campbell has a glassy, gorgeous voice, but it’s also a curiously inexpressive one. When she’s left to carry less than strong songs alone, they suffer as a result.

No period of Ferry's extraordinary career goes untouched on Frantic, easily his most rewarding solo work since Roxy's disbandment in 1983.

Shouldn't he be trying something a bit more ambitious by now?

Sullivan and Cox are attentive enough to make room for understated fiddler Claudia Mogel, who keeps the band’s country flame burning when they flail and strut. None of this, though, is enough to strip the album of a staleness and fatigue

The group's consistent artistic statement with little flexibility for change or innovation upon an already distinctive sound is their own greatest strength and enemy, leaving them unable to win over new listeners with a directional change.

The Eraser is a triumph.

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

Blemish is not sadness or happiness; it is strange observation and relapse.

The Heat compares favorably to PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, offering the same NYCentric references (“9-11 baby boom”), gruff, understated guitar work and narrative aptitude. These are Malin’s stories from the city and they don’t disappoint.

Meaty and encompassing, Future Crayon rarely misses, even if it fails to measure up to the band’s sublime full-lengths.

The Breakthrough is easily Blige’s finest full-length since ‘99’s Mary.

There is a contingent of hip-hop fans who have been impatiently waiting at least since Madvillainy for a record rooted in tradition that offers something just a bit more skewed and challenging. Abandoned Language is that album.

Clor’s singer and main-man Barry Dobbin unfortunately posses the kind of high, straining voice that grates to the point of making you want to punch him on the nose, and when combined with the incessant business of the band’s undoubtedly clever and accomplished music it makes this eponymous debut feel like an effort to listen to.

Where Jurado differs from someone like Jason Molina is in the vibrancy of the actual music.

Yes, it’s a concept album, but it’s not crap. Actually, Scarlet’s Walk is very suitable for an artist with Amos’ capacity for spewing drama from her intense and highly articulated words.

The songs here are full of life, moving freely, focused without being bare and controlled without being uptight.

It quickly becomes apparent there is a lacking element in many of the tracks on the album. Memorable melodies. What remains are non-descript tracks that feature synthesizer melodies that go nowhere and cribbed samples from records.

Buckner’s interest here is in a wallowing mouthful of atmosphere—dominant drums, throbbing guitar, and a fair amount of piano. This has always been the case, but the compositions are seamlessly edited and cleanly brought from instrument to recording.