City Club may not be what fans were expecting, but it's by far the Growlers' most immediate and accessible collection of songs to date.

On the whole, her songcraft isn't so much catchy as haunting, and shines on the slower, sparer tracks.

Shine a Light is an album of big ideas and lofty intentions, but the truth is this probably would have been better if Bragg and Henry had found a nice concert hall where they could have recorded it in front of an audience that wasn't running to catch a train.

Ultimately, Sides and in Between is an exercise in nostalgia, but there is a good-natured, homespun vibe at play throughout that helps to smooth out some of the more overtly retro trappings.

There's no mistaking Foreverland for anything other than the work of an artist who has chosen to give up his fight with the not-so-cruel-after-all mistress that is contentment.

Once, or if, expectations related to personnel are set aside, there are some meaty post-punk tunes among an uneven selection on Science Agrees.

The variety of instrumentation and the rare unorthodox entry provide some balance and relief to what would otherwise be a relentlessly bleak affair.

Coomes knows he's not for everyone, and that lack of self-consciousness is one of the album's biggest strengths, but listeners with short attention spans and a low tolerance for eccentricity might want to stick with a more commercial brand of sonic weirdness.

It's a densely packed power lunch proving that Furman might be brimming over with enough good ideas to warrant an EP every couple of months.

As it is, it's a bit of a confused mess that needs some serious editing.

Katy Goodman and Greta Morgan have made an album that's often beautiful and marvelously crafted with Take It, It's Yours, but past the surfaces, it's often hard to tell what it means and why they made it in the first place.

This offers more of the detailed scenes only Ocean can script, as well as some stray sly quotables. Ultimately, it's a smartly ordered patchwork of mostly secondary material.

Alternating between bro country that's just past its sell-by date, summertime party tunes so breezy they get silly, and a heavy dose of southern rock, the Cadillac Three demonstrate versatility but they also seem scattered, as if they're scrambling for an audience.

On the whole, while the album lacks a certain distinctiveness (Lauber's vocals mostly blend, too), there's strength in its solid core and easygoing vibe.

Dey's music clearly isn't going to resonate with everyone, but it's unquestionable that she has a unique vision, and Flood Network is a restlessly inventive album.

One hears the core of a great band on I Hear You, but if Arbor Labor Union want to make a great record, they're going to have to find a way to make these songs go somewhere rather than letting them wander in a circle, though they at least sound like they're having a good time staying in place.

Though their debut remains the high-water mark of production, catchiness, and vitality, Washed Away is a fine set to buffer Rooney's catalog.

This is obviously not meant to attract new fans, but one to re-engage longstanding ones. It's a mixed bag, but its experimentation works more often than not, while the new songs suggest Heart's creativity is undiminished.

A record that tries hard to please but never does because the labor is always too evident.

Considering the emotional arc of this mix, it seems likely that the listener will have fallen asleep crying by that point. There's some fine music on it, but it's not recommended if you're expecting pleasant dreams.

This Is Gap Dream has enough going for it that it's well worth a listen, but while Gabe Fulvimar can make a good album all by himself, one wonders if he could make a better one with a few other people helping him tighten his focus.

The EP is fine, by all means, but it's definitely not the Aphex release to reach for if you're expecting to be challenged or blown away by something utterly unique or exciting.

As should be expected from a secondary release, the quality control here is not as tight as it is on Islah, but this is Gates in undiluted form.

With On Desire, the Drowners sound more confident and more in tune with each other as a band, but they still remain captives of their influences. They're evolving, but at a pace that may never yield any new fruit.

Droll humor is not Bazan's bailiwick, and in spite of some of Blanco's near-misses, it's nice to hear him put down the guitar and insert himself into less familiar environs.

Given how good the Felices are at what they do, fans are still likely to enjoy Life in the Dark's rambling take on American roots music, but casual observers might find their minds wandering by the time the album makes it into its final innings.

The music is vigorously played and faithfully captured, but the Mystery Lights' identity seems a little too lost in time.

On the whole, the produced numbers are better than the unadorned cuts: Bugg's nasal twang gets buried underneath the gloss and the hooks are pushed to the forefront. The whole thing adds up to a bit of a mess, not in the least because Bugg's schtick was his authenticity.

Eyeland's willingness to break the Dust Bowl minstrel mold is admirable, and it has enough moments that resonate to win back fans who may have drifted off to greener (or more sepia-toned) pastures during the band's long break from recording, but those listeners will have to be willing to sift through an awful lot of sonic detritus to find them.

It has to be said that the overall experience is far from Yung's magnum opus, but it is the sound of a young band finding its feet in a meaningful way, breaking down past experiences, and creating a record that isn't restricted by preexisting ideas of youth.

The minuses overwhelm the pluses, however, and the rampant mediocrity takes care of the rest.

Aas a whole, Why Are You OK isn't quite as memorable a set as they've proven capable of delivering.

For now, this album is a very bland, quite anonymous-sounding disappointment.

Appointed with lush strings, horns, and a host of backup singers, the songs are well-arranged and impeccably sung, but it's hard not to want Jury to expand his range somewhat.

Most of the time, Basses Loaded is more interesting in concept than it is satisfying in execution, though the best moments suggest that future full-length collaborations with McDonald or Dunn would be worth exploring.

Fans of the ever-prolific artist might enjoy it simply because it is unmistakably a Mark Kozelek album, but his dry, straightforward readings won't do anything to convince listeners who don't share the same sentiments for these tunes.

Catfish & the Bottlemen hit their marks dutifully, rushing through their melodies but never taking it so quick that the singsong tunes don't stick, slowing down the tempo for needed breathers and ending the whole shebang with "Outside," an extended number designed to ratchet up expectations prior to the obligatory encore.

Ultimately, it's this guitar interplay that's the attribute of Pierced Arrow. Some of the songs stick out--particularly, Stills' two attempts at social commentary, "Virtual World" and "Mr. Policeman," both of which would've fit on a CSN LP -- but this is a record about instrumental interplay, not about songs.

Like Bringing Back the Sunshine before it, If I'm Honest is at its core a balladeer's record, and Shelton pulls off these romance tunes with a sly, masculine grace that complements the album's sleek modern surfaces.

They may lack the immediacy of some of their more envelope-pushing contemporaries, but as sonic world-builders they excel, and certainly possess the acumen to expand those horizons on future outings.

A Giant Dog aren't necessarily offering anything that hasn't been done before, but Pile is definitely a fun listen with enough bright spots and kinetic energy to sustain it.

This is a record that attempts to unfold but remains grounded within its own humble limitations.

It Kindly Stopped for Me is no easy listen, and its mostly mumbled outpourings don't leap out of the speakers, but it is intensely honest, which is something we don't hear often enough.

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

Even if it isn't as dynamic as its predecessor, at the very least Ullages reflects that Eagulls can do more than rant.

The Machine Stops sounds like Hawkwind--a diluted version of what they sounded like at their peak, to be sure, but still Hawkwind, as eccentric and individual as ever.

It may be an intentional shift, but the soulful resonance of 2012's The End of That has given way to an artful experimentalism that, while musically impressive, doesn't make as big an impact. Still, it's an ambitious near miss from a very good band that has proven it can be both cerebral and heartfelt.

Eventually, people will get tired of the same old song if it's sung too often. On Views, Drake is starting to sound a little weary of it himself.

Nothing had every element in place to make Guilty of Everything very close to brilliant, a modern shoegaze/noise rock classic; on Tired of Tomorrow, they seem to have lost their way and have made something quite standard issue and disappointing.

Anohni's targets deserve all the fury she unleashes upon them, but that doesn't make this any easier to engage with, even if you agree with what Anohni has to say.

As with the first volume of Electronica, the second is commendable for its scope and its attempt to bridge several generations of electronic music, but as a listening experience, it requires a fair amount of cherry-picking.

On a track-by-track level, Detour has a few stumbles--the biggest is "Night Life," and that's due to the gravelly growl of Willie Nelson, not Lauper--and if it's taken as a collection of performances and not a coherent record, it's fun.

The ambition on this first part of Prayers for the Damned is admirable. Better still, they often manage to take this roiling outrage and shape it into something melodramatically satisfying, an achievement that suggests why Sixx had no trouble saying goodbye to Mötley Crüe.

I Long to See You is well worth investigating even if, at times, it is overly tentative.

Apart from the relatively lively pulse of the aching "Another One," everything plays out at slow-jam tempo, and the vocals often slip into falsetto mode with lapses in enunciation. The duo is at their most effective on finale "The Line," a bare, subtly churchified pleader.

English Heart is a great concept, and for the most part the execution works, but one can't help but wish it had been recorded in the '70s or '80s, when Ronnie's voice was strong enough to make the most of the material.

There's something admirable about the album's solemnity: the Lumineers are on a quest to be taken seriously, and even if they overplay their hand, the earnestness is ingratiating.

It's heavy stuff, but it's delivered with the humility of someone who has enough road behind him now that the rear-view mirror is no longer a window into the past, but a seconds-old snapshot of the present.

PersonA finds the group still offering music-festival-friendly fare, but of a nature that's more jammy than jamboree.

The lyrics are generally focused around breakups, loss, and loneliness, and while those subjects are well-trod territory, Redway sings them with conviction, and his passionate vocals complement the tracks nicely.

As it stands, Metal Resistance is still worth hearing, if only for the half of the record that captures the insanely silly balancing act that their debut managed so well.

Chaosmosis finds the band scaling back their predecessor, narrowing their vistas so drastically it often seems as if the group cobbled it together on an old Casio.

When she gets heavy with either beats or ballads, This Is What The Truth Feels Like slows to a crawl. Cut away these excesses--these moments of emotional bloodletting or thirsty appeals to the top of the charts--and This Is What The Truth Feels Like manages to be as fleet, giddy and charming as Gwen Stefani ever is.

Liima still recognizably sounds like Efterklang, but it seems like there's less pressure for them to construct a monumental statement here, and the group seem to enjoy their freedom.

They embrace their essence, how they want to be broader and burlier than the rest, how they want reflection to seem like celebration and parties to be a dark night of the soul. This contradiction means the band remains an uneasy good time, but at least on Us and the Night the reconstituted 3 Doors Down have decided to look on the sunny side of life.

For Star Wars freaks, identifying the sources can be amusing, though not many of the cuts are comparable to the artists' best work.

Occasionally, there's a slight surprise--Buckley attempts Bukka White's Delta stomp on a slippery, slurred version of "Poor Boy Long Way from Home" -- but usually, You & I feels of piece with the rest of his early work.

Xtreme Now is eclectic to the point of feeling scattered, and its songs don't entirely live up to the outrageous concept.

On Music for Listening to Music To, there's a vision, but it's not Goodman's and it's not well conceived or well executed.

Even when things get silly on We Can Do Anything, the silliness blows on by, headed toward a bit of revved-up folk or unexpected introspection, and those twists are what makes the album worth hearing.

Everybody plays the songs they love in the way they learned them, so the highlights fall along the spectrum of sensitivity to enthusiasm.

As of now, they've proven that they can wear the baggy tracksuits, but not that they necessarily deserve them.

All of Summertime's charm is tied directly to its mellowness. Perhaps it would have been a more interesting record if it had a hint of adventure.

Victorious amounts to little more than a thrown-together mess.

Grasque proves to be the group's most elusive outing to date, favoring icy, often formless melodies that come and go as they please, and existential lyrics that periodically dissolve into ghostly, wordless repetition.

Aside from messing with his own formula, it's not necessarily the most groundbreaking or well-written LP Sartain has made and, taken as a whole, it feels more like an experiment than a major step forward.

Compared to You Are Not Alone and One True Vine, the quality of the material is more variable.

Hidden City would have made a great EP, but falls far short of the mark as an album. It closes this arbitrary trilogy on a strange and unsatisfying note.

They've simply absorbed the lessons they've learned and are content to lay back, spinning out trippy harmonies and fuzzy riffs, music where the feel matters far more than individual songs. This also means the band hasn't changed much in 20 years--back in 1996, songs were also secondary to vibe; they were still peddling hippie nonsense--but the older Kula Shaker are better at execution, which means K 2.0 is the rare sequel that trumps the original.

Khalifa, the album, is influenced by the "See You Again" sound, and yet that mammoth single's inclusion would've helped round out a set of tracks that aren't nearly as direct in their lyrics or intent. These expansive cuts surely benefit the Wiz discography, and will do best when shuffled into his canon, but lump them together into one LP and take away the driving influence and Khalifa feels more like part of a continuum than a self-contained statement.

Songs like "18 Wheeler" and the relationship laundry list "Boys (That I Dated in High School)" are surprising winners on an album that feels like it probably should be written off.

Often, the tunes appear to be handsome constructions--grand, stately, and well appointed--but their foundations are shaky, constructed from threadbare melodies and words that dissipate not long after they land.

"Tough Towns," which salutes cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, similarly lapses into ambient space for an extended time period, and closing track "Fame II: The Wreckoning" is nearly still for five minutes before its splashing, hopeful finale. Other than these more reflective moments, the album is generally pretty exhilarating, particularly on vicious avant-rap tracks like "At Your Service."

Songs for Our Mothers indicates Fat White Family still want to annoy you, but they're only going to put real effort into it for so long.

When the band attempts to branch out, the results are mixed.

Vulnerability is often an asset to singers, particularly in matters concerning love, but Puth's problem is that he feels stage-managed; you can sense him hitting his marks.

A Tuesday afternoon pool party of a record, Songs in the Key of Animals sounds like a great time was had by all, but that you kind of had to be there to appreciate it.

Wildfire is the work of a determined singer/songwriter who prizes craft over poetry or introspection. Platten specializes in skyscraping melodies and big, bombastic surfaces and these are the elements that not only fuel Wildfire, they distinguish it from the singer/songwriter's clear antecedents.

The simple guitar leads and shared lead vocals of Cosials and Perrote are charming in their ramshackle way and their quirky back-and-forth interplay is the glue that holds it all together.

To a casual listener, it might be a little much, but considering the Pope released an album with an electric guitar, he deserves a little credit for having some edge. Whether listeners are religious or not, these are messages that are universally comforting in dark times.

It's a trivial if fun diversion.

The most frustrating aspect of the record is that they are obviously trying hard to find their own sound and they almost get there.

Just as his Def Jam-era album tracks often outshined the singles, Nash is in top form here when he forgets about hitmaking, drops his guard, and produces gems that are scenes as much as they are songs.

Christmas in Reno will not likely be welcomed in most extended-family, five-CD holiday shuffles, so enjoy it as intended, alone in a basement apartment with some stockpiled wine on Christmas Eve.

The succession of guest artists is so long that it becomes disruptive. Jeremih nonetheless delivers enough slightly quavering, somewhat vulnerable sounding NC-17 and X-rated lines to keep ears perked.

The majority of what follows is a qualitative step back from previous solo album X.

The Buffet does have more dimensions than Black Panties, including the enjoyable "Step in the Name of Love" rewrite "Backyard Party" and the throwback, Love Letter-styled "All My Fault."

The mix of guests, which includes Deniece Williams, CeeLo Green, and Jessie Ware (who once covered Caldwell), add to the album's cross-generational character.