Songs like “Solar Power” redeem the album’s sluggishness, with a fun attitude over an upbeat track which would feel like the carefree joyous song on the album, if the rest of it wasn’t so up in the clouds. ... All the genius on Melodrama seems to have stayed there, leaving Solar Power high and dry without any flavour or journey to embark on.

The berserk, nihilistic energy that made Andrew W.K.’s name is gone. In its place is something more affirming but more ponderous. Song after song goes for big, anthemic goosebump moments, but the melodies aren’t memorable enough and the sentiment, even as sincerely as it is delivered, feels forced.

It is an interesting experiment, but realistically most listeners will struggle to get past the first couple of tracks before reaching for their trusty copy of Houdini.

The sounds present could all be attributed to any other artist and would sit fine but given they wrote a purported 200 songs for this new era, there should at least be some sonic substance to this outing. Thankfully, this new electronic palette they’re toting isn’t wholly lost. They carry it at times with at least some semblance of aplomb.

Lovato’s move to heavier music is by no means a mistake, but this reimagining of her old music feels artificial. Generic pop music is turned into formulaic rock music, lacking the substance and authenticity of her previous album.

Richard Ashcroft’s fifth solo effort ultimately feels like an unruly mess--there are lots of ideas here, but none that feel truly developed.

Outside sounds exactly like the repetitive spinning wheels on a bus (going ’round and ’round) and causes you to become restless and slightly angry of its lack of forward movement.

Come Closer is a hostage to 90s Euro-Club-isms and torn in half by the lesser devices of two highly talented individuals, a near-first in music where a collab brings out the worst in each participant.

The album is delivered as a mishmash of ideas that misfire from the get-go, missing out on the potential it built in the lead-up to its release.

To give some credit, the duo do play around with genre here, dabbling with electro, metal and hip hop across its tracks, but fail to make it cohesive.

There might well be a genuine intention on Ebert’s part to produce something of real artistic worth, but so long as he remains as verbally vapid and as musically undisciplined as he has been on this record, it’s hard to see his output having serious appeal to anybody who wants to be engaged on a level beyond mindless singalong.

With the experiments being so hit and miss you’re left looking for familiar thrills, but even when delivering these, the band sound so much like there are motions to be gone through that you just aren’t inclined to feel engaged.

While many of the right components are present, About Last Night... feels like a plate of empty calories; struggling to reach a sense of genuine empowerment on account of its overstuffed production and lyrics that are vague to the point of meaninglessness.

Donda 2 is a complex of lacklustre ambling beats twinned with sluggish energy, only occasionally piquing (“We Did It”, “Too Easy”, "Pablo"). In fact, rarely does Ye find any stride. [review is for V2.22.22 Miami version]

Most of the time, it sounds like each song has been half-written, then forgotten for a bit, then returned to with too little time to create something truly interesting, forcing Mulcahy to fill in the gaps with basically whatever will rhyme with the sketches of lyrics he had originally.

It’s good that Data Panik Etcetera knows exactly what it wants to do instead. Unfortunately, it does this with none of the edge, none of the drive, none of the sheer urgency that made them as great as they were in their prime.

For the most part The Curse of Love doesn’t offer any of the pop hooks that made early Coral albums so enjoyable.

Sacred Hearts Club is record of frustration on the listener’s part--we know they’re capable, but Foster the People have again failed to recapture the brand of youthfulness established in their hype-fuelled industry breakthrough. Equally, they fail to mature into an alternative sound with adequate craft to entice attention.

Unfortunately Girl realistically functions as little more than a jumbled hodgepodge of colorless notions, and another notch on the wall.

The songs themselves don’t shine through the production.

All Your Favorite Bands is plenty polished, but scratch the surface and there’s close to zero going on beneath it; it’s the kind of record that you’re in danger of forgetting before it’s even finished playing.

Utterly forgettable.

The outright corniness of some of the tracks--the steel drums of “Night Chef”, the softened yacht-rock of “Conceptual Mediterranean (Part 1)”--test the listener’s patience. Ultimately the purposeful superficiality of Out of Touch renders it inessential.

Nothing about Deep States feels authentically trippy, authentically dark or authentically weird. Near-on every element feels both forced and misguided, be it the performances, songwriting or the production. If in desperate need, just relisten to that Squid album instead.

Nobody needs to know the details of Lipa’s real life to lend her songs weight, but there should still be something in her performance, delivery, songwriting or production that sets them apart from platitudes, from background noise.

The album is lacklustre, and suffers for a lack of purpose and intent.

By failing to commit fully to straight pop craftsmanship or to genre-bending experimentation, the project feels lyrically bland and sonically uninspired.

Full Bleed reveals a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of black metal. It doesn’t sound like a black metal record and never gets close to sounding like it.