Where's the band's personality? Promises glimmer everywhere, as when off-kilter instrumental breaks start stabbing away at "18th Street," but the entire album eventually drifts past without delivering anything as sonically-or emotionally-provocative.

Although only adequate run-throughs of the studio-album tracks, Stage Whispers' live performances do underscore a continuity between songs from both 5:55 and IRM that otherwise wasn't apparent. Stage Whispers' new offerings, on the other hand, are consistently interesting.

Polished, tuneful, and utterly unmemorable.

This Pleasure is known, but in the end it overstays its welcome.

In Preliminaires, the Stooge King has put together a perfect soundtrack for a short, doomy stay in the Hotel Lautréamont.

This music is more about ambiance, with the luscious haze recalling a mood rather than shaping something distinctive. Has anything ever been so perfectly gorgeous and perfectly inconsequential all at once?

See The Light has an airy feel that is more suited not only to actual dancefloor dancing (rather than the thump-until-blackout oblivion of most current electro) but to the gentle torch-song pull of Ruiz's emotive bleat.

The Cost... captures them at their best.

Wilson may be most famous for his own good-time rock-and-roll hits, but in underselling the Gershwins he's neglected his own very sophisticated and currently under-utilized capabilities.

Ode to Ochrasy is a little more energized, but Mando Diao still aren’t breaking fresh ground.

Featuring actor Rhys Ifans, who's purported to be SFA's original singer from way, way back, the Peth (Welsh for "thing") make what sounds like psychedelic rock recorded in a pub, all claustrophobic and ear-ringingly fantastic, after the pile-up of pints has turned drunkenness into a not-so-silent lucidity.

The collection itself is haphazard; what's worse is that the individual tracks build and remain suspended in mid air by very thin and awkward threads, rarely growing into full-fledged arrangements.

When it's not ripping off Panic, Love Drunk seems to be catering to other mainstream audiences and the hipster crowd.... But once you get past all that, you'll find a few solid pop-rock tunes here.

Apparitions is a solid debut that both emulates the band's contemporaries and revisits a once influential genre that most of that peer group have all but abandoned.

Respectable, serious, accomplished and... no fun.

Returning after 11 years of officially not existing, what's left of ATR could've focused their energies on kicking lots of ass. Instead, they indulge spoken-wordy, freshman-year non-profundities that mostly siphon energy from the get-up-and-f*ck-some-shit-up ethos present on a few okay tracks like "Activate" and "Codebreaker."

Idea of Happiness never tries to re-imagine the concept of the summer album or, at the very least, the genre of synthpop.

The Return of Mr. Zone 6 is an album pared down to the elements Gucci knows best - sinister beats fueled by snare pellets and twisted, carnival-like synths, deadpanned prioritization of cash over women, and collaboration with a slew of Brick Squad compatriots and friends (we hear everyone from Birdman to Master P to Waka Flocka Flame, many times over).

Kasabian can’t do anything besides snarl, a limitation that’s starting to show after only two albums.

Bleeding Rainbow provide tunes to which one could satisfactorily gaze at his or her shoes during any point of the year.

What Spiritual, Mental, Physical documents is a group kicking around possibilities that could go somewhere great, but as they appear here, only a handful of these half-cooked ideas deserve an audience.

In spite of its self-depreciating title, this odds-and-sods collection of the usual B-sides and other spare tracks lives up to some of the best material the Las Vegas foursome have delivered.

Craft Spells certainly live up to their name on this six-song EP, with the charm of its effortless, pixie-light production and the warm, plangent harp sounds of their major-key melodies.

Freedom’s Road addresses his pet topics — hard work and small-town life, not to mention freedom and the road — in catchy-enough tunes built with rootsy guitar licks, boot-scooting beats, and the occasional splash of spaghetti-western strings.

It's nice to be reminded that the world is shit and we're all gonna die. Editors have mastered the form.

Two-Way Mirror produces a handsome cacophony as is, but cutting away some of the gunk would have made it sweeter.

Everything about Free Dimensional is cheesy--from the mousey bedroom beats to the predictable synth lines to O'Regan's (hard) Soft Cell vocal delivery to the awkward, bumbling raps. Regardless, several songs are stunning.

Too often on The Evolution she’s looking over her shoulder, too self-conscious to be a real seductress.