Unknown Rooms is entirely built on pure rests and negative space, the nerve-racking space of silence. Everything on the album sounds and feels distant, as if the sounds are emanating from the other end of a dark eternal hallway.

It’s “Lost Boys and Girls Club,” “Cult of Love,” and “Trouble Is My Name” (“Trouble is my name/ Is it your name too?”), endless clichés in songwriting, narrative, subject, and sound.

One of the most refreshing rock albums of the year, a collection of songs that advocate a form of moshpit populism that, even if you don't quite get it immediately, will eventually win you over with big, sweaty hug after big, sweaty hug.

Press down on the ambiguities of Lust Lust Lust as much as you want, and you’ll still be trapped in a world of surfaces.

A fantastic record for Morrissey fans.

A change in demeanor accompanies this change in style, however, and it's a turn for the worse: Phoenix now gesture at being a Serious Group with Something to Say.

CrownsDown certainly achieves its obvious intent, its impeccable production, and untouchable vocal dexterity, firmly reestablishing the group as a definite talent.

Blunt’s not a master of wordplay, and he’s certainly not trying to be a good technical rapper. But his flow, his delivery, is entrancing.

Every track on Women serves a purpose to the overall stereo image, resulting in a debut that sets the bar very high.

God is Good shows a clear effort to steer their boat past the Nile, past Yemen, and into new territory.

Ciara is the singer’s most realized full-length to date and one of this year’s most thrilling pop moments.

I'm sure purists would prefer to snag the recently remastered originals as opposed to this Gift, even though those older fans would be able to appreciate this album most.

Despite their best efforts, Free Reign marks just another step in Clinic's journey to unfortunately become even more forgettable.

Listeners looking for a long-term relationship are advised to look elsewhere or lower their expectations for love.

With Dynamite Steps, Dulli has delivered the fully-realized statement of self-mythology that his fans knew he was capable of, strutting his stuff like agéd legends who've long since been internalized, making it look easier than it should be.

[A] near-carbon copy of their debut record.

Each record is made for the true believers, but this new one should at least bring a few more into the fold.

Is the Is Are, like its title, conjures up a nothingness that is suffocating, especially coupled with the way that the band sells this music as if it were some kind of spiritual exercise.

Clean and expertly rendered, it will be interesting to hear what Haley Fohr’s musical world will next inhabit, though for now, Jackie Lynn has left her mark.

Essentially, Enemy Mine is a showcase for the talent of the three artists involved. But it lacks the conviction of Frog Eyes. It lacks the focus of Sunset Rubdown.

It’s not that The Opera Circuit doesn’t sound pleasant, or that his lyrics aren’t solid; they just don’t hit me as being all that moving or even mildly engaging.

With the bag secured, Gucci has nearly limitless options to proceed, but he’s done little to show that he’s interested in them. Droptopwop is a return to form insofar as it is the high point of his post-jail music, but a plateau is a plateau nonetheless.

In the end, Opticks sounds nothing like Norway, but it's still quite a trip. Artful, spooky, groovy, human, it sounds like anywhere and nowhere on Earth.

A little more feeling would have gone a long way towards elevating The Camel’s Back into memorable territory. As it stands, whatever magic the album might have mustered has been smothered in the womb.

This album fits into the venerable history of The Ex and will make you want to dig out the old albums, too. History, as the band told us back in 1982, is what's happening now.

Even without the haunting, almost phantasmagoric washes of guitar that dominated the previous two albums and despite the newfound prominence of robust and well-rounded melodic work that was previously largely swept aside by it, Tamaryn’s new late-80s/early-90s sensitive pop still possesses something of the signature melancholia that inspired her earlier output with Shelverton.

Admittedly, it may not furnish any musical diagrams of how to move from A to B, but in its own illogical way, it succeeds in submerging us deeper into A.

With Little Honey Williams has once again assured her fanbase that she is incapable of releasing an album that is anything less than collection-worthy and wholly listenable.