If you don't listen closely, it goes down easy, but listening with just a slightly critical ear reveals those similarities [to Dave Matthews] as near farcical.

Neither redemptive nor triumphant, No Mercy is the MC's least compelling release thus far, but there's a sense that he'll regain focus once his legal matters settle.

Champ is still a melodic, eclectic record, but it often feels like the work of some other band.

Perhaps if he were a more skilled producer and arranger, things would have been better. Unfortunately, his style comes off more like sub-Enya with a beard than a true studio wizard.

Too close to the original to be a worthy reinvention, and too flawed in execution to feel like a successful homage, although this will almost certainly remain the only Elvis tribute album to include a sample from Aleister Crowley, at least until Jimmy Page gets around to making one.

The album consists entirely of songs begging for a singer that could give them their own personality, to which Michele and company respond by making every song louder than the last.

The issue isn't that it's a pop effort; indeed, they get points for a brave attempt so outside of their wheelhouse. The problem is that much of One More Light is devoid of that visceral charge that previously defined much of their catalog. It's a provocative challenge that ultimately fails to satisfy.

The limited palette and relentless attack wind up a little wearying, especially when married to brickwalled masters.

It's style for miles and miles unencumbered by hooks and accentuated by an attitude that carefully practices disdain for its audience, so if you're not inclined to buy into their gait there's not much reason to stick around.

The by-the-numbers production goes hand in hand with the bandmembers' tailored playing and thickly stylized vocals, hitting all the marks of emphatic country-enamored rock on tracks like the Toupin-fronted "Houston Train," a tale of being strung out, riding the hard-luck rails.

Cute he may be, but he has charisma that lasts no longer than a GIF, as Handwritten makes painfully clear.

Jake may be the weak link, but he merely reveals how the whole band seem to have learned their moves from watching late-night concerts on Palladium while buying pre-worn vintage-styled T's at Urban Outfitters. For the band and audience alike, Greta Van Fleet is nothing more than cosplay of the highest order.

There aren't enough songs like "Recollection" and the very poppy "Room 14 (I'm Fine)" to counteract the moments of heaviness, though, and the album ends up being capsized by the sheer heaviness of the majority of the songs.

This is endearing -- Hot Chip's sense of humor is as contagious as their knack for reinvention is obvious. But those traits can't make Coming on Strong sound any less unfinished or even tossed off at times.

It's the first truly disappointing album that the band have released and the first where they sound like they are running out of gas instead of hitting on all cylinders.

Longtime fans, wondering what the Cowboy Junkies have been up to for the last three years, will probably find several songs to like on One Soul Now. Newcomers will be much happier by picking up Open.

If anything, the defining factor on The Temple of I & I is that it's their most formless record to date.

The tempos drag, the lyrics are nothing special, the electronics nothing much to care about. Instead of sounding like the teenage spawn of My Bloody Valentine and Mouse on Mars, now they sound like Radiohead's very earnest cousin.

Without many radio-worthy cuts and both Shawty Redd and Drumma Boy going through their B-list of beats, Ferrari Boyz isn't impactful enough to make it past the already converted, but that "street release" tag should have already given that up.

A serviceable slab of unpretentious yet utterly forgettable '80s retro-metal that adheres to every cliché in the book.

They're a singles band at heart, though, and they wear out their welcome all too quickly on We Started Nothing.

ong for song, Merry Christmas, Baby is very much of a piece with Rod's ongoing Great American Songbook series, with Stewart not straying from the familiar form of these songs and producer David Foster laying on all manner of soft, soothing sounds.

The Silver Cord was released in two different editions; one with the songs edited to around four minutes each, one where the songs stretch out over the ten minute mark. The extended versions don't add much to the overall effect of the album, merely giving the listener more time to wonder why the band chose to go down this route.

It's pleasant enough, particularly when the breathy vocals fade away to leave behind cascades of guitars, but even at its best, it's nothing more than an approximation of Smashing Pumpkins at their peak, with all the interesting parts stripped away.

The resulting Curve more or less lives up to its ballpark idiom, and while it may not signal a complete reinvention, it definitely distances itself from the calculated guitar-driven alt-rock that dominated 2009's Burn Burn.

It seems like he missed an opportunity here to really put his well-earned gravitas into a genre that would be ripe for it. That the rather mundane and conservative A New Testament is the end result of his country explorations is a bit of a shame.

There's something gelling on Dirty Glow that almost matches the album title itself, but it's just not quite there yet.

The Del-Lords once embodied the spirit of the ragged, rootsy, New York rock & roll scene at the end of a magical era; but that culture has long since vanished into history, making most of these songs, no matter how well constructed or intentioned, feel like exercises in nostalgia rather than anything vital.