Oceania lacks the emotional force that it needed to transcend what it is: a former rock star trying to sound vital again.

119 is more concerned about power flexing than it is being simple, fast, direct, and catchy (and there are way less 30-second spurts than before); it has a hefty presence of East Coast ferocity, and Spielman's signature chokehold commands the band's socio-political magnitude more than ever.

While the EP isn't the best material of the band's career, it shows a promising future that looked ever so bleak just a mere three years ago.

Williams seems to have mostly left behind the beach motif and the surf vibes for straight 90s alt-rock, and more often than not it works for him, but a few songs here (“Dog,” “Everything Is My Fault,” “I Can’t Dream”) fall flat on their face.

Fiasco has since gone on record as saying he both loves and hates this album. After all he went through to get it released, it's hard to blame him. But all the hard work he supposedly put into making sure Lasers remained true to his vision seems all for naught.

Forging a path not quite dismissing their last batch of cuts, Architects' drive to re-assert their heavier influences makes for a back-and-forth slug match that draws on a little too long at points – yet is still memorable enough to keep you coming back for the highlights.

Overall, Young Hunger is the sound of an artist spreading himself too thin.

For any other group purveying hardcore-influenced post-rock (or vice versa), Recitation would be a career-defining moment; but for the band that created All the Footprints and A Dead Sinking Story (releases introducing a new language in aggressive independent music), and to a lesser extent Insomniac Doze, Envy's latest is a bit too middling.

The record as a substantial body of work comes complete with up-tempo numbers that are danceable but without an enticing hook, a few straightforward pop/rock tunes with tremendous choruses, and an album ending ballad that renders the album slightly indifferent, inconsistent and lacking an underlying direction and purpose.

Because the band took the songs from Carlile's solo sessions and integrated them with the songs the band wrote during the front man's absence, The Flood's final product lacks some cohesiveness.

If I lived completely under a rock, I'd say Screamworks, and HIM in general, would hit Twilight tweeners straight in the heart with its dark, dismal and dire themes, but the more mature crowd would see the excessive sentimentality as almost self-parodying.

What Is Love? is a very enjoyable record and a lot better than what I expected. Christofer Drew has given his listeners a taste of his potential, because, musically, he knows what he is doing.

Aside from a thin outer veil, This Modern Glitch is a disappointment from a band who most listeners were probably only hoping to get a few catchy singles from.

Vulnerable contains its share of lemons, but there is a spark, an energy, that hasn't been heard from McCracken's voice in a while.

Musically, The Circle in the Square is a bit too wobbly to stand up even amongst the rock acts channeling hip-hop a little less obviously.

From its atmospheric nineties leanings to Bellamy's consistently on-the-mark channeling of Bono, it's not too hard to imagine The 2nd Law having a similar legacy ten or twenty years down the road: not a great album, but an adventurous one.

Wolf is still packed with signs of potential, and at this point it would be just as foolish to write Tyler off as it would be to call him one of the best in the game.

Musically, it's pretty much vintage Zombie-- relatively catchy metal with the occasional industrial vibe.

The final outcome of this is an extreme lack of consistency. The high spots are high, but the low spots are even lower.

Each song will become the soundtrack for Mean Girls soccer moms and pre-teen pre-sluts everywhere.

Overall, About To Die isn't particularly great. The EP is quite unnecessary.

The flow of Strange Clouds tends to vary between songs that are helping make the album great ("So Good," "Arena," "So Hard to Breathe"), and then the ones that keep pushing it down the route of a sophomore slump ("Ray Bands," "Just a Sign," "Play for Keeps"). Right when there's about to be a trend of some consistency, it ends up falling short.

Unfortunately, a handful of good moments aren't enough to outweigh an album jammed with songwriting that just doesn't amount to anything.

There are some parts you'll have to suffer through, but there are at least a handful of tracks that we can save and enjoy into the future.

Candela makes for an, at times unpleasant, but ultimately forgettable listen.

Even though I'm sad this record has left no lasting effect, I'm also happy that it might mean my life is heading somewhere positive.

The songwriting on Burning At Both Ends isn't nearly up to par with other prominent pop-punk groups, and Set Your Goals only stumbles more in the execution of their sound.

Although Hot Chelle Rae obviously aren't doing anything new here either, they've mastered the art of cheese pop and took a much more "natural" new route in sound compared to Lovesick Electric.

The biggest problem with When Fish Ride Bicycles is the overall dull presentation and atmosphere.

Certain songs on The Temper Trap are just not worth listening to more than a couple of times.

Aside from a few solid, unspectacular pop-rock songs though, ¡Dos! Has only one thing to offer: it makes ¡Uno! sound a hell of a lot better.

while the 7 or so songs on What A Pleasure have different names, it never really feels like anything ends or begins. It just kind of is, much in the same way that after listening to Beach Fossils, you know something happened but you can't remember why it did so or what it meant.

For most, the record will be too much--it's messy, it's overdone, it's arrogant, and ultimately it's disappointing – making Radke's return not really worth the wait.

As a whole, Bullet show absolutely no progression on Fever, despite this being their third album.

In essence, A Thousand Suns is a record with no real character or substance.

It's basically the third time Attack Attack! have written the same record.

For the most part, Young New England is embarrassingly lost in itself, a superfluous output that floats along at a frustratingly slow pace and lacks even a slight resemblance of direction.

The results of his recent output have been unquestionably subpar.