The songs on Pyramid serve admirably as precise and severe mood pieces; they are great for rocking out to while one devotes half a mind to something else.

In its many moments offering something warm and comfortable, Into the Blue Again might have been able to gain the status of one of those albums that could settle restless nerves, but this undercurrent of coldness counteracts this idea, leaving some tracks unsatisfying, passable rather than pleasing.

The album’s certainly well-produced, occasionally catchy, and at times even soothing in its simplicity, but it can also be dull and uninspired, like something I might put on when I want inoffensive background music for a relaxing social gathering.

No doubt there's an EP's-worth of gems buried here that are worth returning to, but for the most part, New Love resembles its thematic obsession: it's a strained affair.

Oblivion Hunter recaptures missing pieces of the Lightning Bolt jigsaw and reconfigures them in a new context, painting a broader picture of the band's roots while giving us the sense that it might not be a singular instance of "lost" material being pulled back from the edge of eternity.

Drake offers little here that does not retread the sonic and narrative territory of his previous work.

There are only so many times you can key into someone’s heart before they change the code, and after about 20 listens, the veneer crumbles a bit, and it’s a little too easy to see the gears turning underneath. But that’s not the most frustrating thing about the record; the most frustrating thing is that Sia has so much access to us and just doesn’t do much with it.

Elf Power have discarded many of the classic song styles that make their debut so strong, allowing a love of arena/anthem rock to mutate into a lolling interest in marches on later albums, kind of a return to old-world aesthetics that blends a potentially solid band into the grey tapestry of indie rock like so much frizzing wool.

Although Commuter is nearly musically indistinguishable from a Grandaddy record, it feels comforting to have Lytle back, to hear him working through his issues with new music.

Strange Weather, Isn't It? is undoubtedly the band's most streamlined effort to date.

It doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s not a retread. It’s just good, for you and your soul.

As far as products go, B.o.B. is, at the very least, highly marketable, if not terribly satisfying. The Adventures of Bobby Ray, like bubblegum, loses its flavor after about 15 minutes.

While definitely not an ideological Plan 9 soundtrack, it’s not an unearthly eyeful either.

I'm all for musicians not taking themselves too seriously, but with such audacious, irreverent, and yet captivating material populating the bulk of the album, it is a supreme letdown to finish on such strangely muddled notes. Still, Dead Zone Boys is worth some serious attention.

An album that is, at best, a dilution of the real experience it's trying to capture.

If the songs weren’t quality, it would be easy to write these guys off, but the tunes on Living on the Other Side are enough to make me consider charging a few tanks of gas to the credit card and seeing the ocean. And that’s saying something.

Share The Joy sees our own Vivians enter into a similar contretemps: locking horns with death and with demons (literally, on "Trying To Pretend"), they achieve a narrative victory that nonetheless remains, for the auditor, a work in progress.

This album will please Supergrass-adoring simpletons merely looking for a new album by their favorite band, but to everyone else it should be considered a major disappointment.

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

Although the construction of these songs are as stacked as on other F&O albums, this time around, the piling up of bridges, solos, and refrains only adds to House of Spirits’ tangible claustrophobia.

Strip away voices, acoustic guitars, and the lullaby-ish balladry, and you have substantial grooves, declarative beats, and mesmerizing blends of fuzzed, meandering synthesizers clanging and cooing.

If Bones is too densely packed to inspire, at least that’s a good quality for a foundation to have.

The shift in styles more readily exposes the band's strengths and weaknesses.

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.

This set of witty pop songs fits perfectly in the musical panorama of the last 15 years: there are no underground rock references, no orchestral pop sensibilities, no vacuous attempts at updating a 'decades-old' sound to modern audiences.

The album is full of familiar tropes dressed up in gold and leather, and the songs are wrapped in a plastic that stops our touch--turns it cold, numb from feeling the electricity of the body, of the night.

The lyrics mostly follow white-kid reminiscences, and it's best just to slot them in with all the rest of early-90s-mining that goes on on Old Friends, because they're forgettable.

Despite occasional flourishes, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy is an average set by a band who should be far beyond releasing anything less than stellar.