Barragán, the follow-up to that 2010 misstep [Penny Sparkle], course-corrects well, incorporating the most interesting elements of that electronic side trek while returning a few steps closer to their strengths.

Joanna Gruesome rides on raw emotion, whether it stems from anger or victory, but they lose the edge of their retorts.

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.

Now I’m Ready plays like a collection of tracks that didn’t quite make the cut on the season’s coolest synthpop albums, familiar despite its unfamiliarity, pleasant if not exciting.

The production and playing are beautiful throughout the album, and Yusuf’s voice remains remarkably preserved, still able to instantly spring from gentle introspection to emphatic eruptions. The record as a whole does suffer, though, from certain cover choices.

The Inevitable End doesn’t have too much to say that hasn’t already been said either by Röyksopp or their descendants. But when it does hit on something, it screams its lungs dry.

The results are never bad, exactly, but they do fall somewhere between tribute and karaoke--call it Now That’s What I Call George.

Truthfully, some of the most affecting songs in the Cheap Girls catalog are the ballads (I’m thinking of “Cored to Empty” off 2012′s Giant Orange) and it’s a shame there are none to be found on Famous Graves.

Rip This is a step forward, but it’s a small, staggered one.

Their voices complement each other and mesh together almost seamlessly, and on tracks like the big-sounding “I Won’t Dance”, it’s hard not to smile at the perfectly executed harmony. Covers of slower tunes like “Nature Boy” don’t really offer much that’s different or new, but they’re beautiful and engaging nonetheless.

For diehard Iron and Wine or Band of Horses fans, Sing Into My Mouth will make a pleasant supplemental entry into their collections, but for everyone else, it seems to be a record much more fulfilling for its creators than for listeners.

Few artists can make complaining about heartbreak passable subject material, and even fewer come out of that experiment more likable. Despite some too-similar musical passages and a lack of memorable moments in the album’s mid-section, a few gold standard hooks, some heart-pumping pop punk, and clever turns of phrase help Dalliance do just that for Gold-Bears.

Auerbach got the chance to dial down the tempo and warm up the mood with his friends, and if this side gig doesn’t eclipse his main one, at least it has him flexing out of his mold.

Madonna has created this music for an audience of one: Herself. Often it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

MØ deserves credit for consistency; almost every song on Forever Neverland is pleasant enough, but few rise above “pleasant.” The everything-is-a-hook songwriting style works better in small doses.

Unfortunately, Wasted on the Dream gets too mired in the darkness in between its party anthems.

There’s something to be said for organics, but that conversation isn’t happening here. Become Alive compensates by pinning three powerful songs to its tracklist, but the rest feel like scraps unintentionally left on the inspiration board.

If the lyrical substance isn’t quite there, at least the riffs are.

Naturally, the beats are excellent across the board, although 21 Savage uses a little more Autotune and makes more of a play for the pop charts with some slinky R&B jams. ... Unfortunately, these reflective moments are outnumbered by repetitive odes to getting high, getting laid, and getting lots of money. What’s worse, some of his lyrics aren’t just bland, but blatantly homophobic.

Trick might not be a must-have album for working DJs across the tech-house scene, but it’s an earnest passion project that will once again bring some new faces into the worlds of dance music and indie alike.

Hypnophobia is a pleasant listen, but it passes by as quickly as a warm breeze on a spring afternoon.

Honor is a healthy step back in the right direction, but there’s also no chance of it blossoming into a late-career classic.

With the whole of Just Enough Hip to Be Woman, though, there’s more needed to jump into greatness than just those peppy, almost virulent hooks.

All Hands may be better than many group hip-hop albums, but the whole comes up as less than the sum of this collective’s talented parts.

On Evil Genius, Gucci Mane sounds like he’s having fun and his rapping is as polished as ever. But too much of the album comes across as filler, and his lyrics seem afraid to take any kind of chance.

As pleasant and competent as Sand + Silence is, it rarely emphatically grabs attention. Instead, it’s an appealing but overall unremarkable batch of well-recorded indie pop. That’s it.

Zahner-Isenberg has changed his focus more toward the piano and atmospherics on At Best Cuckold, as opposed to the complicated guitar lines of their debut, and it works well. However, to keep growing, the band can’t stay focused on cute adolescent lyrics that, while tongue-in-cheek, don’t match the lush intricacies of the music behind them.

While Classic Zeus sounds like it’s supposed to be catchy, it’s ultimately impossible to remember.

Oddly enough, The Getaway starts to flounder whenever RHCP revert back to their old habits.

The two halves of the project couldn’t be more at odds with one another, making it easy to wonder why the decision to drop them not quite all together, but together for all intents and purposes nonetheless, was made. There’s a vivid line of demarcation between the narrative of chaotic implosion and the gentle piecing back together that happens later.

While The Saga Continues engenders enough wistful reminiscences to satisfy the core, it provides shockingly little in the way of memorable moments.

At nearly 80 minutes, it’s understandable for an album like Hardwired… to Self-Destruct to have lulls, but the band gets way too comfortable way too early.

The album feels like a careful study of new techniques, but the end result never breaks into more than a simmer.

A mixed blessing. The musical edifice that he and his cohorts have built is strong and daringly modern, but they’ve decorated the insides with spray paint and hashtagged sentiments.

Many of these songs will soar in arenas and on festival main stages. They’re expansive, epic, and Mayberry’s powerful voice never wavers. But that openness comes at a price, and throughout Love Is Dead, every time CHVRCHES have the chance to get stranger, messier, and more unique, they rein in their eccentricities, going cleaner and more general.

The last few tracks are memorable because they’re so strange, but City of Quartz falls short by suffering an overarching identity crisis.

The vocals feel particularly watered down, a pastel blur that lacks the highs and lows that the Leopards had delivered in the past, the songs blending too anonymously into each other.

Darkness and Light loses its depth, however, when Legend skews toward pop (see: “Love Me Now”), even if these songs do maintain a catchy candor. Fortunately for the album, they’re rare and few.

It is, overall, inoffensive and even likable.

Amos manages to weave her own mythology into larger fantastical stories, and fight societal norms in the process, all with a fierceness that will please old fans and likely win over new ones.

My Dear Melancholy, has cohesion, but it’s a listless, murky sound that never unhinges the way you want it to. Had he pushed a little further, it could have made for something more substantial, rather than walking up to the cusp and then backing down.

Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’ seems concerned with little more than keeping up appearances. Hopefully, the high points of the album are a proper barometer, and Kid Cudi’s next destination is a sight better than this.

Especially on the front half, tracks flow into each other inconspicuously, and two of the nine are one song split into two parts, probably unnecessarily. The effect, then, is a bit of a shrug, a signal that James either has less to say or is less inclined to profess it.

Skip A Sinking Stone is Lee’s most mature, thoughtful work yet, filled with complex reflection and meditation. That sense of calm also serves as the record’s biggest drawback, as it lacks the dramatic tension and sweeping heights that made songs like “Golden Wake” or “Advanced Falconry” so direct and impactful.

Gang of Four have always been emotional in their own way, but when the emotions are broadcast so loudly, they drown out the anxiety. They drown out the energy.

It’s undoubtedly healthy for musicians to step outside of their main project to spread their wings and create something new. But in the end, the project reads as only a slight tweak on Berninger and Knopf’s established voices.

It’s a unique recording, a shocking, exciting collaboration performed in full faith. But it too often fails to be more than the sum of its parts.

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.

niggas on the moon might be their most polarizing release yet, simply because it’s non-musical in many ways.

Although it features a few radio-ready summer moments, Waiting on a Song never quite rises to the heights reached by its famous collaborators or canon-approved inspirations.

Zola Jesus has a firm grip on the magnificence her songs can accomplish. Without the threat of failure, though, that beauty runs too smooth.

While the album is undoubtedly fun and includes a few absolute gems, this mismatch [twisted samples meant to indulge the horror intentions, but rarely entirely integrated into the music] makes Slasher House a middling success.

Hollywood offers few surprises, leaving listeners with memorable hooks and impressive sonics but little information about the man at the center of it all.

Though the 19-track, 22-minute album zips by at a Black Flag pace, the songs feel more akin to Calvin Johnson’s monotone confessionals. Engle’s voice is meek and exposed, though he still manages to assert himself over the pummeling drums and sharp guitar riffs.

On a practical level, High Country is a decade-old band trying out different material. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

If there’s one knock against Santana IV, it’s that it might be a little too overstuffed, with a tendency to occasionally wander into the realm of the self-indulgent.

Perhaps treasures will be revealed when we apply the deep, close attention Perkins requests. But not enough breadcrumbs are strewn along the path to encourage the search.

It’s an album you can approach and recognize even if you haven’t kept up with the recent catalog, but it might not set your heart alight.

Rave Tapes sees Mogwai doing what they do best in the way they’ve always done it. For better or worse, this is archetypical Mogwai.

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.

Range Anxiety is an album of endearing earnestness and jangly charm, and it will stand on your doorstep asking to come inside and chill for a while.

Though the two men may feel that this is the most personal album yet, musically, Meteorites sounds more like Echo & the Bunnymen without its whimsy.

Inventions is another mood-friendly collection of ambient works that never impresses too hard upon your feelings.

The album’s weaknesses aren’t unforgivable; they just too frequently sound limp and over-saturated in storied traditions. The verve and unpredictability that so frequently fueled her songs are lost and sorely missed.

It’s political without being overt, the production is strikingly heavy, and the good tracks outweigh the bad. At this point in his career, it’s as strong an album as anyone can expect from Mustaine and his revolving door of performers and should pull Megadeth out of has-been status.

Mostly, it feels like The Lumineers are talented songwriters, wary of repeating themselves, who know what they want to say, and are still figuring out how to say it.

The band fails to make a significant statement of their immediate necessity with this sophomore effort.

Widow’s Weeds may very well be the most ambitious album of Silversun Pickups’ catalog. And though it finds the band at their most self-assured with the cleanest, most polished sound of their career, it can also feel rushed, unfocused, hollow, and, worst of all, forgettable. It’s an ambitious, heartfelt album that never becomes the powerful record it was intended to be.

Taken on its own, it’s a fine if not slightly disappointing work. But looked at within his prolific catalog, it paints a picture of a musician who will never stop experimenting and will likely continue to make music until he physically can’t anymore.

If it rocks, it fits perfectly in a live setting, easy to place among their best-ofs. But when it slumps, it really crumbles.

Icarus Falls has a lot of songs and some of them are quite good. As a vehicle for blitzing the internet with Zayn singles, the album is totally effective. But the concept is only half-conceived, and the listening experience is repetitive and dull.

Solar Power is pleasant background music, an album you might default to beside the pool, but it ultimately lacks the cinematic grandeur that made tracks like “Green Light” or “Ribs” so deeply moving.

Gunnera isn’t a grand statement. It just lets some familiar names expand their expression, free from the shadow of their parent bands.

Conceptually big but musically slight, this return of the early ’90s Primus lineup promises a lot but delivers only fragments of what we know this band is capable of.

From Out of Nowhere isn’t going to be turning heads in 2019 with its lackluster production and, at times, generic lyricism. But it does remind us that Jeff Lynne is one of pop music’s greatest hook writers, and that skill isn’t easily forgotten.

The resulting effort is a largely uneven collection of songs that span everywhere from an actual Bruce Springsteen collaboration to subdued, orchestral ballads, from ‘70s-indebted heartland rock to ‘90s-inspired slow jams.

What 25 25 is missing are those necessary bits of relief that were worked into their previous album.

A booming, fun pop record that is refreshing by not attempting to be anything other, though that same inessentialism keeps the record from reaching transcendence.

It’s an overstuffed, yet often enthralling record by a band revealing depths that weren’t as apparent before.

While many of the songs on The Color Before the Sun do fall into a certain post-hardcore formula that’s used over and over again throughout the album, the journey presented therein makes the difference.

Active fans may be left underwhelmed and wanting more. So, while you’ll likely be tapping your foot and nodding your head, you might also be wrestling with the fact that none of this is new.

The best things Soldiers of Fortune have going for them are a palpable sense of energy and camaraderie. But after that ["Campus Swagger"], Early Risers gets a little too loose, a little too freewheeling to stay interesting as an LP.

When it comes to Uptown Special, Ronson put so much effort into polishing the crown jewel that he let the rest of the album tarnish.

7 is musical Chex Mix — lightweight and best consumed in selective increments, but also strangely addictive.

A few more of those scattered breaks into hip-hop and electronica could have given the record’s well-traveled sounds some fresh legs to stand on. Instead, it’s hard not to look at No Peace as a bit of a missed opportunity.

Even with its stunning, heartfelt moments, it’s hard to think of Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance as a cohesive Belle and Sebastian album. The band manages to blend their signature brand of subdued indie pop with new, bombastic disco cuts, but sometimes the disparity can be jarring.

Despite its lesser moments (forgivable, given the nature of the project), Shriek is a successful reinvention and hopefully a prelude of things to come as the band embarks on its new life.

Some of the harshness seems a little forced.

Music saves the misfit kids, but not every pain can be walloped into submission. Beach Slang sound less interested in ripping that pain open and exposing its insides than they are in shouting over it, and The Things We Do can start to sound like an exercise in emotional extremes.

Predictably, it’s the riskiest choices that pay the fewest dividends.... Fortunately, the album on the whole has enough of Morrissey’s strengths--the ones he established with Marr and co., first causing NME journos to wet their trousers 30 years ago--to be a mostly serviceable Morrissey album.

Maybe the best thing about dreams are the surprises we find there, that there is risk involved for it all to turn bad without much notice. Depression Cherry lacks these stakes, and the result is a dream that’s hard to remember once you’re outside of it.

A couple of the blues songs (“Here to Stay”, for instance) blend into the scenery and are soon forgotten, but the only real clunkers are the lighter fare, “Marlene” and “Old People”, which feel forced and unable to balance out the album’s darker moments.

If you’ve loved his music since The Smiths, and their music actually brings you joy, well, then there are things to be found on Low in High School that could possibly, maybe, present a solid argument for attempting to find a way to suck the goodness from this album ... while spitting out the pulp that is Morrissey himself.

HIVE1 falls just short in its transformation from art piece to LP.

Many of these tracks certainly evoke something older, plucked straight from a dad’s record collection, but Down in Heaven carries some of that mustiness. The record ends up being too careful, even occasionally uninspired.

Skeletons’ canned production is tolerable up to this point, with the riffs and drums serving as background noise to Danzig’s trademark voice, but it only dilutes a track like “N.I.B.”.

Folds’ gifts for narrative and composing are clear, but fusing the two more fluidly could be something magical.

Despite functionally inelegant song choices (“Big Red Gun”) and filler (“February Winds”), a good deal of Afraid of Heights trades in rapid-fire aggression for a calculated barrage of justified fear (the title track, “Ghost Ship of Cannibal Rats”).