It suffers from a lack of identity.

You Forgot It In People is a tremendously accomplished album, magnificently achieving its goal of creating bonafide pop music and doing so with admirable style.

Clearly, Gold Chains has a lot to say and a lot to prove, and possesses the means to do so. What this requires is some focus.

Zoo Psychology is a phenomenal 20-minute experience, if only for its sheer insanity. The songs aren’t consistently strong enough for it to be remembered too long down the road, but it does make for a thrilling listen.

What really makes Hawley stand out from just about every other contemporary solo artist is his modernization of the classic, silky pop sound and his adjustment of it to fit into today’s world.

Fire’s not something we’ll remember for long, but it is a surprisingly good album, with highlights that simply need to be heard.

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

Do you have any idea how dull it is listening to someone being calm and content?

Anyone that expects the pulsating You Guys Kill Me would be better off sitting this one out, but Elliot has pulled off a tricky feat here: stripping down his sound to more orthodox "rock" instrumentation, without losing his edge.

Being Ridden is not a great album, because these kinds rarely are. Kidwell’s vision is born of confusion and disarray, so it’s only natural that his art would follow suit.

Slideling eschews all of McCulloch's recognizable quirks and endearing pretensions, replacing them with slick generic “mature” songs and arrangements that make Coldplay sound adventurous.

You may not get to sing along, but this is not ambient music; it is immersive and involving.

One of the best and most refreshing albums released in a long time.

The main, fundamental problem with this album is that as good as the melodies are, it really does fall flat in trying to get you to feel anything.

Little new or exciting is added to the mix that can’t be found in different forms on their previous two albums. Instead, the album works as a consolidation of strengths from earlier works.

Perhaps the greatest expansion in Herren's sound is the range of emotion conveyed in One Word Extinguisher.

A dull compromise of artistic intent and marketability.

True, Think Tank is flawed. There are many, many things wrong with this album.... But the record’s peaks are extraordinary.

Capable punk rock with a slightly skuzzy, yet unmistakably pop edge.

This album is an incredible disappointment- right when Wire was beginning to build up momentum; there’s not even enough new material here to fill a third EP, and the recontextualizing of the Read & Burn songs hardly makes it more worthwhile.

She doesn’t attempt to emulate the pedantic attention to detail of Kevin Shields, largely avoiding the dreamlike wooziness of Loveless, but rather builds on the cathartic emotional impact that feedback and noise can lend to melancholic melodies.

The entropic quality of the ‘yellow’ Pole has undergone a ‘rehab’ of sorts, resulting in a cleaner and reinvigorated sound.

The slight progression of the group here is discernible with a better understanding of balancing the musical peaks and troughs.

A fantastic revelation.

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

It's a mixed bag, to be sure, but even Autechre's clichés are more interesting than nearly everything else you'll hear this year.

Like many comedy albums, it delivers initial laughs, with few surprises for continual listening.

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.