An enjoyable yet essentially average release that plays it very safe, sticking close to preconceptions and relative “rules” of electro/synth pop without straying too far from the groundwork set down by the figures from another era it quotes and, to some degree, replicates.

jj struck a subtle and surprising balance with their debut, but this time around, they've withdrawn, letting their techniques dangle in the air, starving for justification. The effort is weaker for it.

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.

Albarn’s thirst for musical adventure is commendable, but unless you’re obsessed with his every move or have been dreaming of the day a former Brit pop king fuses the sensibilities of Eastern opera and Western pop, Monkey just doesn’t warrant your full attention.

His flow never deviates from that of Doggystyle, but the production on his hits demonstrates an effort to evolve with the times.

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.

The final product is an album marked by the unique signatures of its creators that ultimately fails to play to any of their strengths.

Crafting a "singular" sound is as idealistic as the next musical virtue, but this album--the band’s debut--is glaringly commonplace.

The lyrics on To The 5 Boroughs are, with a few exceptions, a dismal failure.

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.

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.

Either too sugary or too bitter and complacent, Normal Happiness is a strictly a family affair.

Unfortunately, the goodwill that Eminem builds up with these engrossing and macabre Mathers family confessions are too often torn down by his tedious turns as a goofy court jester.

Three 6 Mafia’s aspiration to evolve seems to have manifested itself on Last 2 Walk, from production to sound to lyrics. Having taken their novel sound to its lofty limits, it is time for the group to change and progress towards another musical frontier. However, their aspirations of progressing by melding Hollywood and the hood have largely failed.

Eno’s continuation of his flag-bearing series is about as ignorable as it has always been with waning levels on the side of interest.

In the end, it’s the vague, shapeless, and undefined nature of the fancies her protagonists chase that partly undermines the album’s substance, since without any clear delimitation of their supposedly particular aspirations it’s a little hard to sympathize with her characters and see in them anything more than cowardly, flighty children who ought to grow up.

The collages he’s created are undoubtedly lovely, but as they stand, the songs sound more like attractive opportunities for great musicality than confident realizations of it.

The record can at times feel static and repetitious, revisiting the same structural devices numerous times and using a lot of the same timbres and ambient sounds on every track.

Easy to dismiss, but possible to take seriously if so inclined.

Ultimately, Galactic Melt is like a good bartender: approachable without being overbearing, reminding you of past buddies while keeping a slight but not uncomfortable distance&hellip and fading into context, so that when you wake up the next day there's nothing more than a pleasant gap in your memory.

Completists will appreciate the ability to experience the Art Cologne installation in the convenience of their own home, but everyone else should have no trouble finding more compelling examples of this theme, from the most difficult noise music to the most pleasant synth-pop.

Some of these beats are really interesting and unique, almost flawlessly incorporating subtle elements of jazz, folk, psychedelia, and the boogie-woogie rhythm of J Dilla, whose two appearances on the album are characteristically powerful. Too often, though, DOOM and his guests offer inconsistent, barely-there performances.

Paradise is the best attempt (yet) to cohere a deeply incoherent artist.

The Perishers' second full-length album is, well, rather bland.

On 20/20, the Timberlake/Timbaland team seems content to set up a basic (and more often than not, bland) hook, repeat it ad infinitum, and tack on some superfluous bits until the desired, bloated end product comes into being.

Outside of the few moments of innovation, though, very little will strike one as all that inspired.

I don’t think there’s any doubt Wavvves consistently delivers wonderful ideas, and those keeping a close watch on the West Coast underground will have to continue to include this kid in their daily musings until he actually provides material worth the blog-storm.

Amid the minor missteps and business-as-usual pleasantries, though, there is one winner of a track. Album opener “Wiggmann” finds Japanther supplementing their pop craftsmanship with an equal measure of ingenuity.