Cole's bars concentrate primarily on how far ahead of everyone else in the game he is and how his skills are unapproachable.

WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU is a nearly 90-minute sprawl divided into two parts.

Fun sonic flourishes abound, like the heady call-and-response of "Incognito" or the winding melody that gives "Explorer" a phantom of the discotheque vibe, but ultimately, Hyperdrama is neither catchy enough to play to the duo's pop strengths nor bold enough to highlight Justice's experimental skills.

The first half verges on sluggish -- the call to "Release the pressure -- big, big fun" comes across as unenthusiastic, maybe even sarcastic -- but most of the songs do have an alluring quality. There's considerably more verve and buoyancy to the second half.

While the feelings here are melodramatic and overexpressed, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, this also has some of Swift’s best work, and much of the best pop music ever made.

Jim White is undoubtedly a masterful musician, but All Hits: Memories never quite gets off the ground, and it feels like the type of record that might be of interest to fellow drummers but will have limited appeal for anyone else.

Time will tell if Lavers is snatched up for work in scoring or if he will develop his songwriting on future albums, but based on this under-30-minute taste, his handiwork seems destined for continuation.

It finds the rap luminaries more or less staying in their respective lanes. Metro Boomin's beats are typically cold and ominous yet lustrous, and Future sticks to familiar subjects such as drugs, sex, and luxury fashion.

On the whole, Interplay is interesting but inconsistent, landing more like a collection of ideas being fleshed out than a cohesive album experience. Ultimately, it's commendable that Ride continue to reach beyond their past, but the best moments of Interplay are the ones that remind the listener what made the band so unique to begin with.

Some focus and editing would have really helped because there's a great album buried somewhere in here.

Here everything feels like a copy of something that had already been done better by another band. In the end, there's little to no reason to pull this record out instead of Siamese Dream or Nothing's Shocking. Or the other three Meatbodies albums, which have all the oddball thrills and unique perspective Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom seems to have lost along the bumpy journey to completion.

Yeat's creative drive is admirable, but unfortunately 2093 just doesn't live up to its lofty concept.

The material occasionally slides backward, from subtle and reserved to nearly featureless, but it's as clever and almost as charming as Sensational.

A rather inoffensive listening experience, a middle ground that Idles have mostly been able to avoid until now.

Kanye has shown the world his unfiltered megalomania, heartbreak, self-obsession, self-contempt, and confusion, and even at its most ghastly, it's always been at least a little bit exciting or provocative. On Vultures 1, he struggles to show much of anything, crafting songs that are loud and shiny, but still largely blank.

Pink Friday 2 lacks the cohesion and self-editing that would make it a rightful follow-up to her 2010 mainstream arrival. As it stands, Pink Friday 2 is another collection of Nicki Minaj songs, most of them exhilarating and fun, but some forgettable or awkwardly placed.

The starkness of the arrangements helps draw attention to the distance between the origin of a song and Young's present. Now creeping toward 80, Young doesn't sound fragile yet his vocals display some age-related raggedness. Embracing his weathered, keening voice, Young highlights the tender yearning that runs throughout these songs.

2023's The First Time is a 20-song album that more or less revisits the tones and styles Laroi laid out over the three previous years.

Blockbusta is not without its instances of fun and excitement, but for the most part, Busta Rhymes sounds like he's reaching for something different on almost every track and not quite grabbing ahold of any of it.

Burton's falsetto feels like part of the tapestry masterminded by Quesada, never quite pulling attention to either his words or melodies. While this ultimately means that Chronicles of a Diamond doesn't leave enough hooks behind to linger in the memory, the pulsating, colorful vibrations it creates as its spins are certainly an enjoyable way to get lost in the ether for a half hour or so.

Its seven tracks are rhythmically labyrinthine, unhurried in tempo, with clamping drums and cosmic synthesizers that burble, prance, and sometimes create a sense of menace.

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.

Action Adventure doesn't sound like DJ Shadow's other records, but it's exactly the type of album he would make -- a risky, expectation-bucking set that only fully makes sense to the artist himself.

An album that continues very much in the melancholy vein of its predecessor while taking a generally looser approach to arrangements.

With a more congruous title, "Anxiety's Rainbow" is an album highlight for its marriage of rousing melody, dissonance, and groove, while the rest is interesting enough to hope for more from this ambitious isolation-induced project.

Chock-full of brusque rhymes that, even with occasional respite with the odd slow jam, become mind-numbing over the course of its hour-long duration, Scarlet is a fascinating follow-up to Planet Her.

It might not be the worst Drake album, but it's in the conversation for sure.

The Dark Side of the Moon Redux doesn't offer uninterrupted talk but the stress is placed firmly on the words, to the point that "The Great Gig in the Sky" now doesn't float weightlessly: it's now about a letter Waters wrote to the assistant to Donald Hall when the poet was in his last days. It's a subtle change but it's a substantial one, turning Dark Side of the Moon into a voyage inward, not outward.