They need to find their identity, and they're going to have to move forward and progress even further as a group if they want to move beyond being a flavor of the month.

The Rapture show that they are as worthy of pupils as they have been for the last decade as teachers. But, unfortunately, they still have a lot to learn.

As much as Mice Parade’s previous releases seemed to be insular statements, Candela is simply stretched too thin, with too little of Pierce himself in the music.

Side B is not a total miss though, nor even a miss at all. Once Mathers stumbles through this opening salvo and the awkward bits of “Tone Deaf”, the album settles into a comfortable space, and even becomes enjoyable.

An ambitious concept, but not fully executed, Top Ten Hits Of The End Of The World is stuck somewhere in-between.

It does sound a lot like oOoOO and under scrutiny with A-B comparisons, Our Loving Is Hurting Us is pretty starkly more of the same.

The album as a whole isn't flawless, yet by sounding utterly enchanting during its climax it leaves a listener feeling genuinely touched. From a such legendary band, you could ask for nothing more.

It's when I keep in mind the idea of Pull It Together being an album for her daughter that I enjoy the album most, as it's in this light that it sounds at its most charming and likeable.

The music on This Is Another Life isn’t the kind that boasts colour, or even deep and dark hues, but rather is full of big strokes of dull greys.

Off the Record, despite a few promising tracks, never provides a strong enough reason for listeners to do anything but go back and admire what he accomplished with Kraftwerk.

Neither cold enough to make a disquieting impression nor warm enough to connect with the listener the way the artist’s own A Strangely Isolated Place or, hell, Amber did.

Let us hope this isn't a flash-in-the-pan success and that subsequent releases are just as good.

I'd say that MDNA is at the very least "not bad," but frankly, it's worse than bad: it's mediocre.

This is one of those albums to throw on and leave on while you accomplish something: it won't demand too much of your attention, but none of it will bore you.

As it stands, Beak & Claw gets an A for effort but considerably lower marks for execution.

So while it displays a more mature and focused sound for The Drums, the album eventually crumbles beneath the weight of its influential stilts.

The textures are jagged and distorted, the lyrics are mostly nonsensical and feel spontaneously captured, and the whole thing sounds like an awkward genre-fusing experiment that doesn’t feel like it warrants its own noted release. That’s not to say there aren’t moments with elements to enjoy, if not just moments with potential.

Despite a couple speed bumps, Dross Glop is as solid of a collaborative remix album as you're going to find.

In The Cool Of The Day sounds like an intimate affair, like Moore has called up his friends and invited them over to the studio upon finding the Steinway piano.

Although this may be a relative disappointment it should not be looked at as the start of a decline, but merely a curiosity in the collection.

These six instrumentals are pleasant if not pretty in the usual way an Andrew Bird instrumental track might be.

Where at their best, Gardens & Villa may recall the harmonies of Local Natives and the hazy qualities of The Walkmen, they are clearly not (yet) at the level of either of those bands.

With Feed The Beast she has neither progressed past that nor become a lost cause.

He has this impeccable talent when it comes to picking the right sounds to liquidize his voice, even if that tends to muddy what he’s actually singing. It’s a shame that this time around Greene wants to distance himself from his two best records and early EPs, but Purple Noon is nonetheless an improvement over Mister Mellow because it brings most of what we enjoyed about his early work back – even if it’s not as heavily emphasized.

It’s surprisingly how unaffecting and mediocre most of it is.

All in all, the album is an above average collection for a band well past their expected use-by date; and with new blood injected into them, a world tour booked, and promises that they'll continue writing on tour, they don't seem to be stopping any time soon. This could be the beginning for a highly successful era of the band.

The moments of brightness--some poetry here, a brief pop moment there--will get most listeners through the album, but won't inspire them to keep coming back.

If anything, A Very She & Him Christmas can feel like a wet blanket at times, like a party that just can't get off the ground.