Carlos Santana's guest spot on "Brand New Wayo" sounds less than "Smooth," and the entire ethos of "Welcome Home" works like repurposed new country.

The vocals are wan and the production too polished.

Hynes' shift into elaborate, string-laden indie-folk is itself a profound gesture, but repetitive melodies and inscrutable melodrama undermine the mission.

Production by the Black Crowes' Chris Robinson is unobtrusive to the point of being almost nonexistent, but peeking in on two guys sitting around Joshua Tree with a couple of guitars should be a little more engaging.

Seventy-five minutes from the ambitious Atlantans untangles an actual hook in "Quintessence," but perennial "Mother Puncher" and Melvins closer "The Bit" batten down the goods vs. Crackthe Skye: The Movie jumbling a 50-minute New Age Russian silent.

Whatever's on Your Mind is as scattershot as the band that made it.

Gone is the glitzy art-punk, spastic freak-out, and unfathomable screaming. Here now instead is simple melody, nasal singing, and familiar songs, which begs the question: Y Control?

LP4 is every bit as unimaginative as its title suggests, picking up quite literally where 2008's lackluster LP3 left off.

While Reality isn't a failure by anyone's standards, there's precious few moments that you can recall, much less hum, an hour after listening to it.

With too many songs trying too hard, Duranies will still go hungry for quality.

There's potential in the chemistry, but no daring.

Not a song sticks. It's sheer style that carries this disc, albeit one that sounds great.

Pete, sweetheart. Enough with the rock operas already, "mini" or otherwise.

The band hits all marks on melody and dynamics, but the furious passion that drove their past work sounds muted.

Someone please get this man his edge back.

More song-oriented than some past Allstars efforts and with an emphasis on country and gospel rather than the trio's gut-bucket blues, it wallops undeniable warmth even when the material itself veers from the Dickinsons' natural strengths.

Sixth album Used Future revs up behind "Deadly Nightshade," an ass-kicking rocker showcasing the local quartet at its bombastic best. Alas, the Sword doesn't stay in its wheelhouse. While "Book of Thoth" and "Twilight Sunrise" stick the same landing, the title track swims in the neo-classic rock waters in which the band has recently waded, now gone tepid.

At 65 rocky minutes, the Stones' first studio album since 1997's Bridges to Babylon, and rootsiest since '94's Voodoo Lounge, could've been whambangthankyoumam at 40.

It's sometimes hard to tell who's running the show, the major label or the major talent.

Hunted by cryptomusicologists with a zeal once reserved for Zimmerman's Basement musings and the Pixies' purple phase, this addition is alluring.

Problems arise with second vocalist Richard Julian, whose mild tenor is the musical equivalent of beige.

Fans of Calexico's darker, rougher, and more cinematic work will pine for just that, even though the band's clearly evolving on Garden Ruin.

Despite Santogold's bloggorific buzz, her eponymous debut, while diverse, is no revolution.

Porcelain's angry opener "Guns of Memorial Park" sets the stage for a shoot-out, but as soon as "Hiss the Villain" bears its teeth, it's clear the fire has left Ward's belly.

It's frustrating and intriguing in equal doses.

Marred by Edwards' rather unremarkable voice.

Fishscale's tail-end reeks ("Jellyfish," "Big Girl," "Momma"), but then first cuts are always the deepest.

The whole back half of Souljacker drops into a range between plain bad and plain vanilla with only the occasional standard deviation above musically amusing.

The songwriting trends to predictable formulas of ruminations upon nature leading to contemplations of love and loss.

There's plenty of sizzle, but nothing really sears.

They've built upon the calm, dreamy songcraft that highlighted previous efforts, but the risky sludgefeasts have lost much of their psychedelic bluster, sounding instead like mellowed-out Mudhoney B-sides.

Amputechture is more a series of events than a complete experience. It's as though the Mars Volta is simply seeing what they can get away with.

Band of Heathens: a group searching for another direction.

Clark's worthy of the adulation, of course, but only a handful of cuts beg for more than that initial spin, and quite a few suck the life out of the song.

Sparse renditions here add zero insight.

Barlow's precious melodies and don't-wake-the-baby vocals never reach fertile ground, making Emoh more Dashboard Confessional (or maybe Dadbored Confessional?) than anyone may be comfortable with.

That he can rhyme more with a dated reference such as "Monica Lewinsky" affects neither his approach nor his ability to top Billboard, as happened yet again this month. That works only if you can get past 78 minutes of (potentially fictionalized) misogyny, homophobia, and allusions to killing or abandoning his family.

A six-minute Hendrix jam finishes off this cranial service in a puddle of drone.

Elevator suggests the band isn't willing to take risks now that they've got a big-label home.

With Dr. Dre, Kanye West, and even Jay-Z on its guest list, Hip Hop Is Dead makes for an ample, yet ultimately morbid, party.

Four producers besides Ingram are listed. And still he's come up with another generic disc of heartland rock that some call country.

The album hits a few highs; "The World Is Watching" enchants with swirling synth lines and intoxicating guest vocals from Valentina. The lows leave one wondering what could have been if Two Door Cinema Club had challenged themselves a bit more.

By mid-disc, 'Bitches Leave' and 'Bummer Time' have turned lukewarm-bratty, as the remainder of the album stumbles between self-destruction, self-reflection, and breaking shit, and not in a real cohesive way.

That lack of propulsion makes Welcome Joy something of a sleepwalker.

There's one smashing standout here, and that's the closing remix of "Guilt Is a Useless Emotion," a thumping, serpentine slice of pure New Order circa "Blue Monday," but even that can't save this grave "No."

A.C. Newman is a brilliant singer-songwriter, and his work here shows no diminishment. Challengers' glass jaw, then, is its sluggish instrumentation, its boots filled with lead while the lyrics and vocals--especially Ms. Neko Case's--strain to pick up the pace.

Material and energy lag toward the end, but for Monotonix, this isn't where it happens.

The kinder, gentler, safe-for-consumption-by-sorority-girls version is fine, but it's merely entertaining where it used to be enchanting.

Dave Gahan's songwriting has improved since 2007's solo "Hourglass," but this Sounds like a mundane midlife crisis.

Most of Whiskey Tango Ghosts suffers from a kind of confessional sluggishness.

Most of Summer Sun is underwhelming to downright cringe-inducing.

His lyrics, a strength in the past (most notably on 'Oh Me Oh My'), seem just plain tossed off, when they're in English, and he seems caught between tuning in and dropping out.

Victory fizzles as a disorganized laundry list of what Cham sees as society's troubles.

Perhaps if there were more self-exploration and less chemical dependency on the old standby, heartbreak, Narrow Stairs wouldn't sound, to paraphrase the band, like settling.

El Camino might be the weakest Black Keys album since 2006's Magic Potion, but the band certainly earned this celebratory joy ride.

A formula that worked well the first time around, but stumbles badly on the second.

If you've followed Wilson's treacherous saga, it's heartening how upbeat Getting' in Over My Head sounds, even with a fair number of tracks misfiring.

But where's the joie de vivre? Sunk like a 401(k), it seems.

Where the singer's awkward earnestness yielded rock & roll poetry through the band's storied odyssey--Emerald Isle exodus (Boy) full circle to paterfamilias (All That You Can't Leave Behind)--his world leader pretend profile here matches Horizon by yielding only self-conscious gobbledygook.

[It] tries putting everything from the buffet on your plate, even the Jell-O you're not going to eat. C'mon, sounding like a stripped-down version of the Stooges wasn't such a bad thing, was it?

With every nuance filtered through as much electronic buggery as conceivable, #1 is often irresistibly catchy and simultaneously disposable.

An album full of promise but low on result.

Credit MGMT for refusing to rest on its major-label laurels, but directionless experimentation proves no substitute.

A scattershot collection of wobbly garage-psych ("Virgin Mary Queen"), broken country ("Misery Again"), and promising pop ("Hanging Around," "Don't Waste My Time").

It's a tale of two cities that was better off reaching an accord for a single CD.

[He is] an exceptional mandolinist and brilliant composer ... however, Thile's deficiency as songwriter has begun to bleed through, and the quintet's third album quickly wears thin.

Through it all, The Great Awakening feels like a far-off summer lightning storm: all low rumbles punctuated by occasional flashes of grandeur that tease something major awaiting without delivering a single drop of anything with impact.

For those who truly want to rock around the clock, Black Ice never brings the heat.

Nelson's debut on seminal jazz imprint Blue Note lacks the luster of its 1978 counterpart.

It's perfect for getting some shut-eye, but the boy wonder bores when cast upon alert ears.

It would seem Wainwright has traded his operatic sensibilities for Broadway flair, which is as tired as swapping stilettos for orthopedic loafers.

Just a little less inscrutability, and this could have been a real contender.

This is not the sound of a band with anything on the line.

Anyone turned off by last year's octogenarian opera Rehearsing My Choir, recorded at the same time as Bitter Tea, will find little solace here.

Pierce shows neither the vocal presence nor the songwriting chops to justify Let It Come Down's bloated orchestral excess.