On Neighborhood Watch, their delivery is stale and unimpressive, much like the overproduced Expansion Team.

Eclipse is not a record for everyone, and Twin Shadow’s older fans probably are justified in their dismissals. But in terms of emotional texture, Eclipse represents a return to form.

Each CD is crammed to a full 50 minutes with some of the most heinous crimes against good taste since Wham's "Wham Rap! '86." [Joint review of both discs.]

Each offering here is meter-perfect and crafted instinctively to flat-out destroy the boundaries of rock music.

While Mars Volta distinguished its high-volume concept and freak-out-the-neighbors formula with its apocalyptic wails and catastrophic soundscapes, Sparta has developed a middle-of-the-road rock entity, seldom swaying away from its new and unimproved sound structure.

Wolf gets lost in tepid mumbling, the musical equivalent of the guy at the end of the bar staring forlornly into his whiskey.

At the end of the day, Kevin Barnes is really trying to make good pop. Paralytic Stalks is just that, bombast and all.

But as difficult as it may be to overlook the flaws on this record, May somewhat redeems himself with, heaven forbid, mere quaintness.

This is what ultimately makes Alphabutt a top-notch kids record: that it was recorded by a woman so in love with her kid and with being a mother that you’d happily let her babysit for your wonderful little creature.

Only toward the end of the record does BJTM finally let up, delivering a couple relaxed and half-realized shoegaze jams (“Super Fucked” and “Our Time”) that come close to being good. Sadly, it is all for naught.

Amputechture, though not near as spam-handed as Frances, is a bumpy ride, registering somewhere between the latter and debut full-length De-Loused in the Comatorium.

Emperor's Nightingale takes that smoky Stereo MCs sound to the stadium much more effectively than their previous attempts.

Keep things simple, reminded by older folks of a time when it was totally acceptable to admit being part of the KISS Army.

Musically, the album mines its entire aesthetic from a bargain bin of classicist hip-hop clichés.

It feels as if Smith is drawing from long-gone, innocent, pre-fame events in his life, but as they recede, his stance becomes more wistful and increasingly confused. The music, unfortunately, follows suit.

Never mind the cultural appropriation bollocks, here's ethnotronic industrial pop.

Many of the tracks are begging to be played live in full force, as most of them, to be sure, sound unfulfilled here on CD.

Despite its positives, the album falls far short of the impressive musical peaks of Kelly’s discography.

I would stress that this conglomerate of half-baked songs should in no way reflect on the rest of Cursive's canon -- there is a reason most of these songs have gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated.

Mirror Eye is just as solid in its own pop culture reductionism as Moon Safari or Before The Dawn Heals Us. It’s just that the hooks here are more textural than musical.

While far from easy listening, the mechanics of NYC sound positively pastoral, and the interplay between Reid and Hebden, formerly spastic and indebted to the free-est of jazz, is now melodic, the give and pull of the rhythmic forces against the melodic textures gentler, and the songs more likely to cause subtle head-bobbing and confused stares.

Sometimes, like on the outstanding "Wrecking Ball," the emotion calcifies into catchy, mature hooks, propelled forth by Cyrus' oft-underestimated vocal heft. Then again, the breakup also produced "FU," a dismally adolescent electro-soul duet with French Montana.

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.

Scattergood’s voice is the star, but it can be utterly distracting, a vessel for an expressive, prolific writer who may be too afraid of the revision process.

Unfortunately, there's not much here to distinguish Ruins from the group's previous work, and too few of these compositions stick once the album is done.

Living Room Songs succeeds specifically because Arnalds does not try to build it into a masterwork.

A Girl Cried Red replaces Nokia’s NYC authenticity for her inauthentic take on a genre that struggles to maintain itself.

You can’t fault the band’s energy or enthusiasm, but You and I doesn’t bring enough of its own ideas to the table to make it essential listening.