He still lacks the kind of technical rapping skill that made A$AP Rocky reach star status. Regardless, A$AP Ferg has constructed an album that surpasses the quality of Rocky's Long.Live.A$AP from earlier this year.

Home is an ambitious effort that veers in several stylistic directions. Sometimes it's terrific, and sometimes it stumbles.

What we're left with is an album that sounds like something of an identity crisis. It's far from a total loss and there is much here that is definitely worth revisiting in that old reliable Avett Brothers sort of way.

There are moments of despair, but on the whole, Lift a Sail rings as an uplifting testament to love and human resilience.

It’s the sound of a young band coming into their own unique musical niche and making the record they’ve been reaching for since they first hit the scene in 2009.

Of the 12 songs on the album proper, Sean is left to his own devices on less than half of them (two of which are the intro and outro), and the first signs of wear on the album come as soon as one of his solo joints succeeds another.

Like most of the record, it's slow to mid-tempo, but pushed forward by quick acoustic strums, and it builds up slowly to a huge rise with the type of sly hook that's all to rare on the set.

On the whole, American Beauty/American Psycho is Fall Out Boy's most consistent and bottom-line best album ever.

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

The sincerity displayed by Green throughout just makes it very easy for any listener to be fully transfixed by Beautiful Things.

It is that constant desire to create new music that makes Heaven so deeply rewarding and so worth the time.

The different moods and soundscapes take awhile to digest and let sink in, but every trip back to the dim dance floor has your feet leaving the disco with fresh moves and new accolades.

This is one of the better electro-pop albums of 2011, one that will stimulate your senses and rope you in with its instantaneous catchiness.

MMLP2 makes it more plain than ever that Eminem is among a growing number of rap superstars who are little more than vestigial pieces shoehorned onto radio by inertia alone. The main takeaway of MMLP2 is that Eminem fails to realize that the formulas that worked so well for him in 1999 are at best tired and tame today, and can't be saved by his lyrical dexterity.

Ostensibly an album about finding hope and navigating through the pathways of solace, Augustines is a shimmering, first-rate slice of pensive and passionate indie-rock.

As listeners, as fans of music, we've already hit the lottery here.

If the whole record were as explosive as these final two songs, it might have been Switchfoot’s best. As is, Fading West feels like a somewhat minor release from a band that has never lacked for dependability.

Happiness Is showcases how much each member of Taking Back Sunday has grown as an individual and a musician.

With The White Album, Weezer solidify their place as a more-than-capable modern pop-rock band.

Inheritance is as strong an opening statement as any released this year and with it The Last Bison firmly cement themselves as a band to watch in 2013 and beyond.

Aside from some quirky song titles, there's little about Land of Talk that's abnormal. In the end, they're just solid all the way around.

Aside from the overall atmosphere of the album, most of the time, Veronica Falls are spot on with their songwriting.

John is still going strong and better than ever. A few listens to The Diving Board proves exactly that.

Full of heart and soul, it's clear the band is putting in a daily grind and continue to impress in terms of ability & energy - it simply lacks the hooks, the feeling and everything we've previously seen in stellar fashion from a legendary band.

Though there is a good chunk of filler ("Wesley," "Target Heart," "Go On," "The Game,") the memorable songs mark this disc as something worth purchasing and something worth coming back to.

Myth seems like one of those albums that can really thrive in a post-critical world.

Three years after his album should have put the "sideline" comments to rest, Cole’s still studying the traditional playbook from the bench, preferring to follow Nas’ bible than strike out on his own.

Malin has always been a talent, but here, he parlays everything he does well into a single 45-minute burst, and he reaches his pinnacle as a result.