There’s plenty in the way of ambition on Widow City, but little substance to back it up.

They don’t always succeed on Walk It Off, in part because producer Dave Fridmann’s oversaturated-in-both-senses-of-the-word indie-psych sound does them no favors in their attempt to establish an identifiable TNT brand.

With a slapdash track list that intersperses previously unreleased cuts with lightly retooled versions of tunes from Left Eye's import-only solo debut, Eye Legacy still feels like an after-the-fact throw-away, one that makes you wonder just what its creators were attempting to say about their dearly departed friend.

With tracks like "LUV XXX," "Beautiful," and "Lover Alot," everyone's favorite dude-looks-like-a-grandma just can't let go of that screechy horndog rock.

The music simply crawls by in a maddeningly static mid-tempo blur, going about its melancholy business on the way to nowhere.

Agebjorn seems utterly uninterested in taking Shapiro to a new place--not even a different dance floor--and though you can't blame him for drawing out a good time, it feels as if we'd been here forever.

For a gangster, Banks sure plays it safe.

As a post-Occupy album, it's less ripped-from-the-headlines and more cribbed-from-older-and-better-ideas.

Even Folds’s knack for a well-placed f-bomb has devolved into a lazy device masquerading as irreverence. His attitude may remain young at heart, but his irony’s over the hill.

Argos's unrepentant superstar imitations aside, Brilliant! Tragic! holds some well-written standouts.

Somehow, though, they forgot the crucial dollop of excitement or charisma, so we're left with an earful of directionless heartbreak and failure.

This record is a sequel to 2007’s "The Stage Names," and it shares its predecessor’s concerns: artifice, authenticity, and above all, the sniveling insincerity of hazy-eyed media zombies.

The blithe, lyrical approach is misplaced in the context of Morello’s domineering, effects-laden guitar sound.

Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.

The pointlessness is grating. XI Versions' final three songs do show signs of life--Animal Collective, Walls, and Pantha himself manage to work up a buzz--but they can't compensate for time killers by Lawrence, Carsten, and Efdemin that make inoffensiveness offensive.

WYWH is a darker, thinner, more digitized affair whose only compelling moments come courtesy of a new-found sex appeal of the disco variety.

Sounds hollow and uninspired.

Beady Eye's eagerly awaited debut represents Liam Gallagher's uninspiring foray into the spotlight without Noel, his battle-weary brother and Oasis's chief songwriter.

Bazan has, it's reported, fallen out with God and off the wagon, and those tumbles get painful airtime on his solid first solo LP, Curse Your Branches.

The Luyas do supply some exquisite instrumental ingredients--a French horn sent through pedals, an obscure zither-like contraption called the Moodswinger, and various electronic effects--but they have a tough time making anything memorable out of them. Timidity eventually renders their work tedious.

Lifeless and boring.

B.S. includes far more filler than it needed to.

Throughout, a messy æsthetic attempts to cover up pop sympathies--or simply proves that dissonance and sweetness needn't be kept in their separate corners.

It might be one of the year's worst albums, an underwritten, overarranged mess of factory-floor guitar fuzz, go-nowhere vocal melodies, limp electronic beats, and lyrical clunkers.

Though Daybreak generally fulfils that longing for the simpler days of 2001's Stay What You Are, it's ultimately hard to understand why it's taken almost three years to make such a simplistic record.

This may work as a singles record, but it lacks the depth to hold much interest.

The songs, a handful of covers and about a dozen originals, aren't terrible, but the ukulele gets really old, really quick.

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.