On most of Keep Your Dreams, Canyons are trying too hard to be everything all the time. It's obvious they have all the tools they'll need, but it'll be a little longer before they build something really worthwhile.

His songs are built around solid hooks and show enough dynamism to keep the listener from hitting the ‘next’ button, but when the album is through playing, there’s no pressing need to hit ‘play’ again.

The release’s awkward format and patronizing presentation are among the least of its poor qualities: Even for the heads, Kaleidoscope offers very little not already heard elsewhere. ... In addition to the previously mentioned Chainsmokers pair-up, there is the very ungainly Big Sean feature “Miracles (Something Special),” which, wearing more than a few embarrassing, auto-generated reverential name-drops.

This album is no disaster, no Moonbeams and Bluejeans, but the benign flatness here suggests the ineffable whatever that made The Fall fascinating has fallen away, and it looks very far gone.

It isn’t life-changing, genre-defining, seizure-inducing, or any other clever hyphenated compounds, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable, rewarding listen.

As Damaged Bug, John Dwyer exposes new horror, though perhaps that’s not quite it. Perhaps horror is hyperbolic. Perhaps as Damaged Bug, Dwyer exposes anxiety as ambience. Inescapable static.

The key to The Dodos isn’t their lyrics, but their melodies. And on Time to Die, they’re strong and sufficient.

The Fiery Furnaces have delivered another great American novel via guitars, drums, bells, and whistles.

It may not be exciting, per se, but it speaks to the ultimate appeal of Work (work, work); even in its drugged-up, mournful state, it holds your gaze.

There's something inherently adolescent about an EP that veers sharply from genre to genre, each song an island, completely separate from those that precede and those that follow.

He has always played it warm and safe, but in this album, he is playing it warmer and safer than ever....Lukewarm this album is, indeed.

The Outsider screams to be downloaded in sections by fans of specific genres.

The listener is unfulfilled at the album's end. We learn nothing new about Sole, who's the only character on the album.... There's nothing to grip on to. All the lyrics are observations twisted into weak witticisms.

None of the other songs are as instantly arresting, aside from “Plenty of Girls in the Sea,” which proves to be just as fruitless and repetitive as the aforementioned single.

There’s enough pulling power to draw you in, just not enough to get you hooked.

Boils with energy, excitement, and a passion to experiment.

For a solo artist obsessed album-in and album-out with delivering a product alien to the mothership, this move represents a regression, a willingness to tread ground he's covered, almost note-for-note.

Introducing Brilliant Colors doesn’t go so far as to challenge this tradition, but it throws in enough wrenches to make it an exciting addition to the catalog.

During some of the more composed moments, the album manages to shine out in semi desolate wonder; but most of the time, Monsoon sounds too much like the Jonathan Richman two-piece band from There's Something About Mary to outrun the malaise of mediocrity that blankets it.

Crazy Clown Time isn't a groundbreaking work in the way that Lynch's films are, but that's not to say that there's not a lot of darkling pleasure for the intrepid and the curious.

I have done my best to place the album, as a series of utterances, in its agony and vacuity.

Contains a set of willingly - and often tedious - half-finished songs, forming a clumsy collage (cover art reference) that is actually more coherent and better enjoyed when contextualized within the band's 34-year trajectory.

Some will rank it among other gimcrack releases, like Dylan & the Dead. Still others will categorize it as an oddity, like Self Portrait. It’s all and none of these.

It's end-of-summer music.

If anything, it's nothing: a dark, expensive, teenager programmed, radio-friendly, MTV-destined nothing.

While that combination [hip-hop beat, industrial trudge, start-stop synth] yields some moments of blissful jitteriness and pop rejiggering, Mr. Impossible never gets too far past being big, dumb, and unquantifiably creepy.

It isn't life music, unless you live in a camp permutation of Gold's Gym. The Air-like, Gary Numan-lite instrumentals popping up between the songs with hit potential are way lighter than air. I don't mind 'em, but also don't love 'em.

The tracks are disaffected exercises in barren repetition and arrhythmic progressions that feel truly tossed off (improvised would be an insult to people who are actually accomplished at that) and indulgently "arty" in the worst sense of the word.

Rosie Thomas is just a little too ordinary.

Only about a third enjoyable.

On Neighborhood Watch, their delivery is stale and unimpressive, much like the overproduced Expansion Team.

Eclipse is not a record for everyone, and Twin Shadow’s older fans probably are justified in their dismissals. But in terms of emotional texture, Eclipse represents a return to form.

Each CD is crammed to a full 50 minutes with some of the most heinous crimes against good taste since Wham's "Wham Rap! '86." [Joint review of both discs.]

Each offering here is meter-perfect and crafted instinctively to flat-out destroy the boundaries of rock music.

While Mars Volta distinguished its high-volume concept and freak-out-the-neighbors formula with its apocalyptic wails and catastrophic soundscapes, Sparta has developed a middle-of-the-road rock entity, seldom swaying away from its new and unimproved sound structure.

Wolf gets lost in tepid mumbling, the musical equivalent of the guy at the end of the bar staring forlornly into his whiskey.

At the end of the day, Kevin Barnes is really trying to make good pop. Paralytic Stalks is just that, bombast and all.

But as difficult as it may be to overlook the flaws on this record, May somewhat redeems himself with, heaven forbid, mere quaintness.

This is what ultimately makes Alphabutt a top-notch kids record: that it was recorded by a woman so in love with her kid and with being a mother that you’d happily let her babysit for your wonderful little creature.

Only toward the end of the record does BJTM finally let up, delivering a couple relaxed and half-realized shoegaze jams (“Super Fucked” and “Our Time”) that come close to being good. Sadly, it is all for naught.

Amputechture, though not near as spam-handed as Frances, is a bumpy ride, registering somewhere between the latter and debut full-length De-Loused in the Comatorium.

Emperor's Nightingale takes that smoky Stereo MCs sound to the stadium much more effectively than their previous attempts.

Keep things simple, reminded by older folks of a time when it was totally acceptable to admit being part of the KISS Army.

Musically, the album mines its entire aesthetic from a bargain bin of classicist hip-hop clichés.

It feels as if Smith is drawing from long-gone, innocent, pre-fame events in his life, but as they recede, his stance becomes more wistful and increasingly confused. The music, unfortunately, follows suit.

Never mind the cultural appropriation bollocks, here's ethnotronic industrial pop.

Many of the tracks are begging to be played live in full force, as most of them, to be sure, sound unfulfilled here on CD.

Despite its positives, the album falls far short of the impressive musical peaks of Kelly’s discography.

I would stress that this conglomerate of half-baked songs should in no way reflect on the rest of Cursive's canon -- there is a reason most of these songs have gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated.

Mirror Eye is just as solid in its own pop culture reductionism as Moon Safari or Before The Dawn Heals Us. It’s just that the hooks here are more textural than musical.

While far from easy listening, the mechanics of NYC sound positively pastoral, and the interplay between Reid and Hebden, formerly spastic and indebted to the free-est of jazz, is now melodic, the give and pull of the rhythmic forces against the melodic textures gentler, and the songs more likely to cause subtle head-bobbing and confused stares.

Sometimes, like on the outstanding "Wrecking Ball," the emotion calcifies into catchy, mature hooks, propelled forth by Cyrus' oft-underestimated vocal heft. Then again, the breakup also produced "FU," a dismally adolescent electro-soul duet with French Montana.

While the overall record is much more song-centered and even features honest-to-goodness vocals on many of the tracks, he's still basically stockpiling scraps from his childhood.

Scattergood’s voice is the star, but it can be utterly distracting, a vessel for an expressive, prolific writer who may be too afraid of the revision process.

Unfortunately, there's not much here to distinguish Ruins from the group's previous work, and too few of these compositions stick once the album is done.

Living Room Songs succeeds specifically because Arnalds does not try to build it into a masterwork.

A Girl Cried Red replaces Nokia’s NYC authenticity for her inauthentic take on a genre that struggles to maintain itself.

You can’t fault the band’s energy or enthusiasm, but You and I doesn’t bring enough of its own ideas to the table to make it essential listening.

You can add this record to the pile of fun, entertaining albums that is sure to get people moving at any party, although it offers little else.

Expektoration offers a strong tracklist, heavy with fan favorites (opener "Hoe Cakes," "Accordion," "Rhymes Like Dimes") and peppered with rarities ("People Places & Things," "Change the Beat"), but it's not the type of strength you can't feel from going back to the originals.

There are a number of songs with enough stuff to listen to many times, but there isn’t anything grand enough to linger in the mind like an inamorata.

It lacks an authorial voice. Since no one made this album, no vision binds it together with its identity--it doesn’t cohere.

ARTPOP wants to hide that it doesn’t have much to say.

No matter how you want to face it, the secret is out: pop isn't Friedberger's bag.

Unfortunately, what starts off like clockwork ends up as predictable as the inevitable passage of time.

Because the album risks so much in its all-in politics, the songs on their own are more difficult to judge. For that reason, the album is enjoyable almost solely in small doses.

T.I. vs T.I.P. is mercifully light on the requisite skits illustrating its dichotomy, but you almost wish there were more of them to explain the album’s weird alchemy of simultaneously overwrought and undercooked production and flaccid, self-absorbed lyricism.

It doesn’t require the patience or emotional/intellectual involvement that albums I typically listen to require. The cool thing, though, is that it does have quite a bit of redeeming value.

Pared down and stripped to its primal rudiments, the latest Timberlake saga could have been something truly epic; instead, it just feels unnecessarily immense.

Dumb Luck is an album that desperately tries to be spontaneous and carefree but eventually ends up sounding stunted and alienating.

One Plus One is One sounds like an attempt to make a more serious statement, but with little substance invested in it. The result is Badly Drawn Boy's first boring album.

The playful experimentalism and inherently subversive nature of Dead Petz is enjoyable (in a sickly-sweet way) throughout, yet it’s experimentation is akin to playing absent-mindedly with a shitty synthesizer iPhone app.

If you've been pining for a fresh take on the libidinous funk of yesteryear, or looking to go back to prurient, carefree days of teenage infatuation, the National Trust is for you, ooo, ooo, yeahhhhhhh.

Through it all, Green’s show tune-y vocals are at center stage, and though the compositions are often too busy and can detract from his rolling lyrical intricacies, Sixes and Sevens is a very good record, if still a step short of great.

The problems start with the production, which feels empty and stolid, the guitar plunking around like it has nowhere important to go and the drums tap-tap-tapping out mundane, aimless little shuffle rhythms.

All of Us, Together doesn't feel right as the first full-length statement being made by an artist of this caliber, but it definitely serves as an appealingly breezy 45 minutes of summer dance music.

If only conviction had been more successfully transposed onto their music, the band could have produced a follow-up that would not have had to contend with standing in its predecessor's large, looming shadow.

The entire album is too claustrophobic for its own good.

Most of the songs here aren't even good enough to be considered for a knockoff commercial targeted at the "indie-inclined" twenty-something demographic.

It’s not that 31 Knots aren’t succeeding in flexing their musical chops--they just don’t know where to take them.

The Appleseed Cast have finally managed to get things back on track, which will hopefully influence revisionists to give these guys their proper dues.

Folk devotees may have a little more patience for the proceedings here, but I find it doubtful that Seconds will come as much of a revelation to anyone.

A disappointment, maybe, but that’s to be expected – and shouldn’t we prefer that he want to give us something new?

Jackie doesn’t often transcend its own well-established boundaries, and it doesn’t flow as ***Flawlessly as TMT favorites Beyoncé or 1989 (much of Jackie’s most interesting moments occur in its first half), yet it is a solid alternative for those craving that rare and varied pop gem that warrants repeated listens.

Ultimately, Inherit is neither a great nor terrible album. Although it certainly sounds like it was a hell of a lotta fun to record, I don’t think even die-hard fans will get overly excited about it.

Unfortunately, There’s Me and There’s You is a precipitate more than a catalyst, a document far less persuasive than a documentary about its own creation would be.

Since half of experiencing Tangerine Reef comes from experiencing the visuals it accompanies, it’s hard for me to really vibe with this album as a complete thing. Really it feels less than that, like a side table, a bed frame, or a pierced hole in an ear with no earring in it.

Taken in small bites, there are great moments here, but you're unlikely to clean your plate and ask for seconds for all 14 courses. I for one will be hanging out for dessert, but I don't imagine I'll be invited for dinner again.

The Orwells and the very much earnest Disgraceland will be invigorating solace for anyone who gets a kick out of deadbeat rock musicians and the illusions they provide of refuge and reprieve.

The more lukewarm segments of Ghosthorse weigh its worth down like saddlebags filled with iron, particularly the trip-hop confessional sections. But even these lesser moments contribute to a greater good when all is said and done, adding up to a slightly cinematic experience best witnessed with full attention fixed on the little details.

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/cocorosie-grey-oceans

Ostentatious as it is, there’s no denying that Magna Carta… Holy Grail is filled to the brim with satisfying, big-budget production.... It’s just a shame that Jay-Z doesn’t rap ‘em for all they’re worth.

We know he's capable of better. Whether it ever comes together on a Carter release is anybody's guess, but the prognosis isn't good.

The album’s an impressive document of Barrett’s talent, but I don’t hear the hooks that similar acts like Belle & Sebastian built their name on. Without them, The Pica Beats remain an also-ran.

There’s little doubt that, despite the odd slip into the saccharine and the set’s lack of anything notably outré or innovative, they do this with conviction and integrity, to the extent where Limits of Desire will receive plenty of service from the lovestruck and jaded alike over the span of this hopefully torrid summer.

It’s the change in an almost overall sound--when acts like The Human League, OMD, Ultravox, and Depeche Mode weren’t the only ones making ample use of keyboards--and Kilfoyle captures this incredibly well while retaining a still-in-formation yet already distinct MINKS sound, much in the way many formerly post-punk bands retained their own certain darkness throughout.

It features the same schizophrenic, influenced-by-everything quality of Dre's The Love Below, but where people were able to overlook the many boring-to-terrible tracks while skipping to "Hey Ya" or "Roses," The New Danger fails to feature as strong a centerpiece.

There aren't a great deal of people making chill this good any more.