Every strong point is matched by a weaker one, but there is never an extremity of either.

After a great start, Faded Seaside Glamour loses its way and ultimately fails to inspire.

Coming in at over an hour in length, the album drags at times and begins to wear near the last part of the tracklisting.

Hauschka has shown much promise in the past, but Foreign Landscapes buries its own experimental leanings under layers of charm and cliche: childish sentiments, cute sounds, and easy references.

There is a currentless drift to these nine doggypaddlers, what with the sloppy rhythms, plain-as-dirt vocals, and obligatory wah solos - but it's all so satisfying in its way.

His style, somewhere between Leonard Cohen and The Velvet Underground, offers little in terms of originality, and often the sappy and stoically emotional quality of the lyrics comes off as snarky.

This album is a must for Decemberists’ fans and even a fairly pleasant diversion for casuals, but Colin Meloy Sings Live! is exactly that and nothing more: a few interesting veers among a bunch of Decemberists songs stripped of their playful pretentiousness.

With The Trip, she's split the difference, crafting a modestly arranged work that showcases a variety of strengths we already knew she had.

Blood Red Shoes sound at their best when they manage to reign in their musical touch points and put them to work in their service.

In the end, the album is a collection of songs, mostly good, some indifferent, and all a hundred times more honest than, say, Rihanna. But it's all really to no transcendent purpose.

Ingenious in its conception as a soundtrack, weak and tedious as a standalone musical venture, an interminable experience despite its brevity.

All these various elements are arranged like a sleek showroom with smooth glass surfaces, a few international flourishes, maybe a pair of funky modernist chairs in the corner; it all sounds like a seamless, impersonal, cosmopolitan package.

Alpinisms is an undoubtedly singular album, setting the bar quite high for this burgeoning trio.

As much as The Garden departs from past Zero 7 albums generically, it ultimately falls into the same trap: it readily signifies pop accessibility, but fails to communicate more than a vague aura.

It’s hard to imagine a few stellar tracks and a well-flowing album being taken as a negative, but the result just isn’t enough to make these lads stick out.

There’s still enough innovation and experimentation among the banalities here to suggest that they might have a great fourth album in them.

There is something powerful about the chaos of these recordings: it evades critique in that, at its best moments, the instrument becomes a force of nature.

It's the fragmented experiments that keep Undermind from being a straightforward batch of songs, and they ultimately provide a much-needed balance.

Nary a fragment of the 10 compositions sounds even a bit out of place; new ideas are explored, and not at the expense of the listener; and, perhaps best of all, a mongrel of a talent finally lets his instincts to ROCK REALLY FUCKING HARD take over.

Some of the catchiest songs he's ever written.

They've got that sound--you'll know immediately that you'll like it, and this time around, Grooms don't screw around with your certainty.

The satisfaction at being amongst those who make it through to the other side threatens to supplant the sonic satisfaction, but there's nothing artificial about it; if anything, it's flat-out welcoming.

Each song feels like it belongs as filler between other more upbeat tracks. Isolated, some of the tracks can be enjoyable, but as an album, Paranoid Cocoon disappoints.

The album is not a total loss, however. When Bad Religion turn to more interesting subject matter, the results are more than worthwhile.

If Tegan and Sara were looking to release something which sounds like so much of the girl based rock, which can be found on TRL and on the radio waves, then they could most likely consider So Jealous a wild success.

YG’s songs about women are just clumsy from a basic storytelling standpoint, rehashing the same clichés that you’d find on a Hotep Facebook group. It stunts the flow of 4REAL 4REAL. ... But while he oftentimes plays the role of hyper-masculine rapper, he also defines his anxiety in deeply traumatic and thorough ways. He has a knack for boisterous exuberance, stressing the finer things while being relatable to regular people on every block in every town.

I admire the boldness of the album's sequencing more than I admire any of its individual tracks.

Waterfall is promising, but it’s perhaps the first Evian Christ release that hasn’t amazed me.