On the whole, How Do You Do is a satisfying effort.

The EP's major aesthetic shifts do lead to one issue: the lack of a core or soul to How to destroy angels_, a shortcoming which will hopefully be resolved on the outfit's forthcoming long-player.

In summation, for a band that received little limelight in the beginning, Little Dragon showed immense talent and work ethic to earn their keep in the world. Our question is this: Where were those two items when recording Ritual Union?

On Strong Feelings, his third full-length, Paisley’s pointed but oxygenated arrangements allow the best facets of his penmanship to bold-face themselves.

Night Beds offer a fine experience to listeners who are looking to hear saccharine pop with limited twang.

Throughout Earth Suck, Oozing Wound manage to deliver biting criticisms and headbanging riffs with their tongues in their cheeks, without either losing the power of the music or biting those tongues clean off.

While the album features several standout tracks and stunning vocals, as a whole, over-shined production and mashed-up genres obscure Murphy’s strengths.

Mug Museum lacks any sort of emotional dialogue with the listener.

Her construction techniques have always made for gigantic sonic treetops, and even better, the wind that rustled the entire forest. But when concentrating on placement rather than scope, simple additions don’t go as far.

Dylan may naturally be better at the brooding that Shadows required, but these types of decisions equally prevent Fallen Angels from matching its predecessor.

On Prophet, Knopf plays it by the book. In this sense, the most surprising thing about the album is how unsurprising it is. Knopf gets by, though, thanks to his raw skills as a crafter of songs, which are abundantly clear throughout.

C.O.C. stuck to their guns at the beginning of the decade, and now they’ve got a more formidable arsenal behind them. If there’s something they could learn from their Animosity days, though, it would be keeping a slim track list.

At its best, Vessel's debut LP for Tri-Angle, Order of Noise makes you cock your head and wonder why you'd never heard that particular high-end squonk used in the place where a low-end splomp would usually go, the cards moving too fast to pick out the placement. At worst, Gainsborough's reliance on the value of shifting cards seems to trump what the cards actually are, and the fact that those three cards aren't ever leaving your sight.

AFI covers most of the band’s explored genres, giving fans from every era something to appreciate. Unfortunately, this means no one will be completely satisfied.

The album is more a loving revival than a modernization of some of the Everly Brothers’ lesser-known songs. But when the duo’s influence can still be heard trickling into everything from Fleet Foxes to Animal Collective, it’s hard to claim that What the Brothers Sang does much more than reminisce.

The album’s middle stagnates some, but even at its least focused, Invisible Life is a pleasant experience, Lange’s downy production floating by like a pastel cloud.

In the era of extraordinary machines, Yvette’s Process is abrasive yet still human to the core.

Nabuma Rubberband is Little Dragon’s selfish record, and splendidly so. Some of the sweet moments in its strongest tracks, however, are lost in others, as is the nature of an album with standout tracks.

There are some sweet moments on Little Dark Age and some stale ones. More often than not, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser lapse back into a sardonic mode that sounded a whole lot better in 2007 than it does in 2018.

A reflection of the outfit’s independent nature, Les Revenants shows Mogwai succeeding in their aim to replace the typical anxiety-inducing scores of horror flicks with one that urges the viewer to uncover their own fears within the melody.

The finished product is still strong and consistent, to be sure, but with the lack of variety, Pylon is likely to be remembered as an album that just kept a constant rhythm for 56 minutes.

By playing both to nostalgic sensibilities and trying to literally occupy the same territory he once did, Hesitation Marks is only welcome in that it puts Nine Inch Nails on tour. But, for the album itself, the good ideas seem to have been wasted on trying to revive something that killed itself years ago.

While every cover on The Love may not be exceptional, Corinne Bailey Rae once again exhibits remarkable vocal and musical range.

Not all listeners are likely to enjoy the moments of instrumental experiments, but the varying forms of psych rock that pack the 53 minutes of Beard, Wives, Denim are enough to please both fans of Pond and those waiting for a Tame Impala follow up.

The Rosebuds instead have limited themselves and recorded an album that's generally good while being limited in its emotional scope and thus utterly disappointing in the long run.

Even with some of the more outstanding flaws, the album is worthy of a listen by both post-hardcore aficionados and fans of the group members' other bands.

Unfortunately, it seems the desire to be wild and innovative eclipsed the will to create songs that hold together.

Ranked alongside the Heartbreakers’ back catalog, their 13th falls somewhere in the middle. As a measuring of the fire inside Petty, however, readings are strong. Listening to Hypnotic Eye, you can rest assured he’s still kicking.