Made in China is a raw, angry album that is difficult to endure at points due to the emotionally naked lyrics, but the lo-fi, almost punky, music is a perfect fit.

Like its predecessor, 21st Century Breakdown delivers less than it promises; it’s more successful as a rock album than as a rock opera.

The further they veer from the course (like the misshapen slide guitar and honking harmonica in the stupendous single "Ain’t No Easy Way"), the more memorable the sound.

The band's attempts to diversify the tone are not always successful.

While hardly bad... the album too often sounds as if the ceaseless invention that made Nixon so vibrant has been replaced by self-consciousness of the wrong sort.

The songs left over from the original, non-Matrix album form the emotional core of Liz Phair and make it worth hearing.

While the depression accompanying a relationship breakup comes through, several tracks lose their quirkiness in the studio setting.

This is not perfect music: the observations seem to easily gained; the faster songs mere replicas of previous monuments; and no matter how graceful the notes' elisions, an unskillful denouement on many of the songs' endings.

The songs aren't bad, but there’s a loss of personality in the grooves.

This fine album contains several striking songs (notably “The Dark Is Rising” and “Nite and Fog”), but it suffers in comparison to the artistic breakthrough of its immediate predecessor.

These songs are buoyant and polished, but the lyrics range from bewildering to lame and an afternoon of Schlitz’s voice gets tiresome.

The songs are not as strong overall as on her previous albums, and the tempo neither flags nor picks up over the course of the album.

Ultimately, The Campfire Headphase shows continuity with the duo's previous recordings but fails to replicate the sheer beauty and awe-inspiring quality of past material, sounding at times like the work of very good Boards of Canada copyists.

This disappointing album is infectious and literate, but erratic compositional fortitude and lack of daring is a drag, as each clever step is followed by another clever step.

Unfortunately, attempts to abandon [their] formula offer little evidence that they can excel at anything else.

To their vast credit, even if the songs resemble a greatest hits package of indie rock, each guitar break, each bridge comes alive with experimental toughness.

As music for airports, the album hums along like a tension-age sedative, but if it was meant to be a grand artistic statement by an acclaimed band with a distinctive vision, it's pretty much static.

The impact is inconsistent but stronger.

This may be a more mature effort, but in places that sound is ordinary and unadventurous.

Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is diverting, short (47 minutes), atmospheric and contains exactly one truly memorable song.

Hints at future sonic depths: swirling patterns, impressive musicianship and ambitious ideologies.

Sexsmith is incapable of dishonesty, insincerity or cliché in his writing or performance, but none of these melodies soar and the lyrics reveal nothing new for him.

Solid and diverse if slightly lacking the gorgeous full- bodied melodies of its predecessor.

X&Y is well crafted and enjoyable, but it’s bloodless and distant. It feels manufactured, a piece of product in the march to become the Biggest Band in the World.

There's nothing about the quintet's second album that audibly acknowledges the impact of its debut.

The harder U2 tries to rock out with wild abandon here, the less spontaneous they end up sounding, making How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb more like an incredible simulation of a punk-influenced album rather than an actual punk-influenced album.

More time spent in the songwriting lab might have yielded material more suitable to the evident studio effort invested and brought Wilco closer to making a truly great album.

Even for a debut album, it’s too tentative and timid for its own good.