That's the ultimate irony of 3 Doors Down as they mature: try as they may to pour out their angst-ridden hearts, by riding out their success and smoothing out their music they've turned into mildly aggro background music at malls and movie theaters across the nation.

MacFarlane and McNeely don't attempt to ape the pizzazz of Frank's Reprise years, nor do they spend much time with May's snazzy snap, they stick with Riddle and Jenkins, keeping things sentimental and lush even when the words crackle with wit.

Honey nonetheless comes across as an attention-grabbing experiment more than it does a third proper full-length.

While one can always sense the pain and joy in the mere sound of Stone's voice, some of the songs' lines provoke head scratching rather than knowing nods. Through deep, repeated listening, the album increasingly resembles ragtag emoting. Heard passively, it's all pleasant summertime listening.

Maybe lovers of '90s revival bands will find something to like here, but anyone who was into the records Wavves made before is out of luck.

The slightly wider vocal range and additional expressiveness don't hurt his cause. For those who aren't as easily drawn into Tesfaye's world, this will seem roughly as insufferable and as bleakly aimless as the earlier material.

They are trying very hard to be a specific thing, realize that they can't quite take it all the way, and add the occasional coating of camp in order to look less silly.

There's a comforting softness to the album (only occasionally broken by a stray emotion in Eric Emm's vocals or a danceable tempo) that makes it perfect background music for working away in a cubicle or relaxing after a long day.

Faceless... grooves more fluidly than Awake, but the band still hasn't managed to locate the pop hooks that made their debut a success.

She winds up with a processed, affected record halfway between Live Through This and Pat Benatar or possibly Billy Squier.

Without the instantly gripping singles, Jigsaw is as scattered as its title implies.

The songs lack hooks, as if melody would be too commercial, while the production has its sights on the radio, resulting in tuneless songs that are polished for mainstream consumption.

After such a lengthy time away, it's admirable that Dolby has returned with such a bold and difficult-to-pigeonhole record, but with its disappointingly flat production, A Map of the Floating City fails to make the most of its abundance of ideas.

Super Extra Gravity matches their previous record, Long Gone Before Daylight, for its dour mood and sour attitude, its lack of discernible hooks, and the unappetizing flavor of the Cardigans' performances.

Anywhere I Lay My Head doesn't quite work, but it can't quite be dismissed, either.

Amazing as the music consistently is, however, it can't overcome this album's primary liability, which is Martyn's atrocious singing.

The 12 songs on All Things Bright and Beautiful, Owl City's third album, certainly demand the audience's imagination -- or at least their willingness to go along with the world Adam Young dreams up, a cartoonish place where the skies look like alligators, the rivers taste like fruit, and emeralds poke their heads out of every rock.

The Garden are definitely not for everyone and the Shearses' talent for disguising their actual talent behind pranky hipster exercises can be irritating, but repeated listens reveal more craft than they'd probably like to let on.

As it stands, the album is a decent attempt at a fresh start that won't put off too many Girls fans, but until he figures out exactly what kind of singer/songwriter he wants to be, won't likely earn him too many new fans.

Guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx are the showstealers here, riffing in constant harmony, and incorporating the speedy guitar pyrotechnics of similar-minded bands like Dragonforce and Escape the Fate while throwing in showy Zack Wilde pinch harmonics, and Yngwie Malmsteen sweeps.

Mainstream Sellout feels mostly like a middling attempt to further cross over into pop-punk, this time lighter on ideas and cohesion.

Midtempo tracks like "Only if for a Night," "No Light, No Light," and "What the Water Gave Me," the latter of which finds Welch in full control of the room by the song's second half, are soulful, spooky, and bold.

There are clever parts strewn throughout and some of the more ambient instrumental tracks like "i.v." and "l.i.v." are quite nice, but overall, the songs themselves don't have quite enough going for them to support the album's quirky intentions.

All this feverish digital desperation makes the already clamorous M A N I A feel positively cacophonic: it may only be 39 minutes but it's one long ride.

Detroit Stories is stuck in a confusing limbo somewhere between tribute to Detroit and another album of the kind of campy, theatrical, radio-geared hard rock Cooper has been turning in since Hey Stoopid. Never quite committing to either concept, Detroit Stories ends up feeling like a handful of solid covers of classic Detroit tunes with some Alice Cooper extras thrown in at random.

He also leans a bit too heavily on co-producer Clint Lagerberg, who wrote Rascal Flatts' chart-topping "Here Comes Goodbye" but fails to bring similar hitmaking hooks to Kelley's table, and his vocals sound forced, with a deep baritone twang replacing the breathy croon he used on earlier albums.

MDFMK charts the same breakbeat industrial-thrash that has long been a staple of any KMFDM album, complete with ranting vocals, aggressive songwriting, heavy-metal chords that sound vaguely familiar, and solid programming that reveals a surprising pop sense.

These fleeting glimpses of originality aren't enough to save the album, though, and until Olsen discovers his own voice, you'd be better served by listening to music by the artists he borrows from so heavily.