Ironically, the general listening population--if they’re paying attention at all; hey, there’s a chance!--will find this to be Mercer’s most accessible, enjoyable work to date.

The songs on This Is Another Life are so well written, so finely paced, and so relatable in the sentiments and predicaments they weave together, there’s little justification in chiding the album for not making it patently clear that art alone doesn’t redeem misfortune and anguish.

So while Penny Sparkle might constitute yet another step forward on the band's musical journey, it's not one that I feel compelled to follow them on.

Putnam doesn't seem to be striving for something new, and if a new lineup isn't shaking up the formula, it’s likely that the music community shouldn't expect something new either.

With his inoffensive voice and inoffensive beats (surprisingly so, considering their producers), Bodan does, if only for a brief time, achieve something exciting and intimat

Other groups have approached the issue of originality by genre-blending; but in the case of Esben and the Witch, it is their very faith that ensures that the hollowness one feels while listening has a doubled quality, reflected not only in content but also in experience, leaving one with the ominous aftertaste of a doppelgänger encounter.

As enjoyable as it can be, Telekinesis! is only good enough to make you wish it were better.

Maybe Now or Heaven isn’t an awful record, but it’s certainly one that strips away everything I felt was compelling about the band to begin with.

It’s mostly enjoyable on a surface level or if you’re in the right mood (or under the right influence), but it doesn’t beg repeated listens.

Hello Everything is his most disappointing release yet.

It's a complicated exercise in postmodernism, and one that is surprisingly rich.

The resulting record plays like a soundtrack to a non-existent film, skeleton-framed and dramatic.

The Big Dream is but a pretty stone that withers the moment it is touched, lifted for further inspection.

Church Gone Wild/Chirpin Hard may not be exactly groundbreaking or revolutionary, but it's the kind of idiosyncratic release that reminds experimentalism to laugh when something's funny.

While I'm certain that this mode will suit Moore in his future indie folk material that is sure to come, In the Cool of the Day naturally goes from inoffensive to mildly irritating fairly quickly through repeated spins.

In the same way Radiohead took an impeccable album like OK Computer and stepped into unfamiliar territory with Kid A, Liars have sidestepped the majority of their familiar styles and broken free towards new explorations.

For a few glorious moments, our beloved Mancs have that swagger back.

Musically, there are too many things going on and too few things going on. Every track sounds more or less the same, and every track sounds like a poor heyday tribute.

A supernal set of tracks ends Preparations, movements of pure reverie that complete the album in fitting fashion.

This is yet another album destined to become background music in a trendy clothing boutique. Sadly, I have a feeling it'll have more than one Concretes record there to keep it company.

Despite what they’d like us to think, The Red Album sounds like every one of Weezer’s misfires since "The Green Album": a few songs that work and a whole slew that flounder completely.

For being as spare as it is, Zomes’ music is incredibly full while maintaining a hazy, idealistic distance.

Outta Sound shows a passionate and maturing George Evelyn that still had much to offer.

There is too much focus (or carelessness, perhaps) on his herky-jerky flows that match drum for drum, and the simple rhymes and tired messages are pathetic.

Climate Change is an album about nothing. It hears nothing, speaks nothing, and sees nothing. It could be about partying, but even that subject is given such perfunctory treatment that what’s left hardly rewards participation.

While Fluorescence may be an enjoyable record, it's certainly not a remarkable one. Hannah and Chikudate are adept at digesting diverse influences and turning them into an album that's pleasing to the ear, but few would consider it essential.

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

If one stripped away the halcyon, indistinct haze and the open-road aesthetic it furthers, you’d be left with precious little, save 10 unobtrusive, well-executed sleep aids. New Universe is its archetype--nothing more, nothing less.