As a full-length record, Fellow Travelers includes too many songs that come off like that neutered high note as opposed to an original, undeniable, caterwauling scream.

Unfortunately, tracks like [Rihanna's "We Found Love"] and, to a lesser extent, Welch's slightly crowded "Sweet Nothing" float like life rafts atop a sugary sea of tunes that will be the soundtrack of television commercials for months to come.

Sublime With Rome is its own creature, and Yours Truly is a very decent jam album.

Between the abundant déja vu and the periodical redundancy (doldrums which would be easy enough to overlook on a full-length, but prove problematic on a brisk 21-minute listen like this), Not the Actual Events’ purported “impenetrability” manifests as a riotous retread instead.

While Sisyphus doesn’t sound like an interminably boring case of forever rolling boulders, it does fail to live up to the talents of its cast.

Silesia is certainly a pleasant listening experience but not quite a memorable one, stopping just short of developing its own unique personality.

Muse’s firm embrace of electronic tropes risks fragmenting their fan base, particularly those who had been by their side since their earlier days and would find certain elements of Simulation Theory to sound shockingly foreign. ... Listeners who had previously revelled in the moments where Muse dipped their toe into electronica will delight in finally seeing them cannonball into the pool. It’s polarizing for sure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

When Tripwires push so far out of their confines that the boundaries can’t be seen, the uncertainty and frustration of the lyrics starts to make more of a connection. Unfortunately, too often on Spacehopper they stick too close to the traditional patterns of orbit.

There are many excellent, surfy noise rock albums that eclipse Mostly No, but Cohen's laid-back vocals and howling guitar are enough to merit at least a listen.

Tough Love relies more on gravitas, allowing more space for overly serious numbers like the Emile Haynie-produced “Pieces”. Sometimes sweetness works better.

No matter how overblown or nonsensical Coldplay have progressively gotten since 2002’s watermark A Rush of Blood to the Head, as long as they deliver one gobsmacking single per album, they’re kings--and rightfully so. That’s how you build a career. A Head Full of Dreams follows suit with first single “Adventure of a Lifetime”.

The album rarely manages to break free of its ’80s-lite inspiration, its tricks little more than emulations--not innovations--of the source material.

A greater emphasis on humanism would give Dungeonesse more soul and, perhaps most important of all, more hooks.

It’s more of the same. It seems to be needing something more. An extra spark of interest.

Young long ago figured out how to write rants that engage. The Monsanto Years, listenable but dusty, is no different; it’s music you’ve heard before with a new bad guy as its target.

The thorough arrangements on Piramida continue to be the reason to come to an Efterklang disc, but they are rarely matched with equally strong pop components.

For the first time ever, CYHSY is clearly not a full band playing in a room together; Ounsworth and drummer Sean Greenhalgh are the only two regulars here. But it also doesn’t sound like a freshly band-less songwriter trying not to sound band-less.

The end result plays like a record for the band much more so than the fans, who might be hard pressed to hang in there with it for repeated listens after the curiosity factor wears off.

As an EP, it’s not much to look at. But, as a quick footnote at the end of II, where it’s placed on the album’s deluxe edition, it’s a nice bonus, an insight into an artist’s process.

The False Alarms is marked by a frustrating lack of movement, direction, or variance.

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.

That energy and excitement [from the band’s past two albums] is severely lacking here, replaced by by-the-numbers pop punk that is uncharacteristically complacent.

Being surrounded by the attention of reputable producers and recorders helps make an album like Night Visions find its place on the charts. But leave room for the twinge of disappointment that comes from the lack of that Imagine Dragons edge that made them stand out in previously heard singles.

Likely as clean as you have ever heard it, Big’s flow is the glue that holds an otherwise disjointed project together with cadences that kick the songs into hyperdrive, cement his versatility, and prove that he and the Organized Noize production team--the guys that built The Dungeon and the bulk of the joints on this album-- might be close to returning to form. Their indecision about the creative direction of the project, however, takes away from the overall quality of the release.

Wake Up is happy and very danceable, but it should only be consumed in small, commercial, or movie trailer-sized doses.

Nodzzz are best in small doses, their tooth-achingly sweet indie pop causing some trouble after more than a few tracks in a row. Too many songs sound too similar, and that use of "effortless" at the beginning proves to be a deal-breaker.

It's a welcome escape, but it doesn't have the shape and form of something worth escaping to and remains at best a quality xerox of pop music today.

On Black Hours, Leithauser tries on a bunch of outfits, and at times those outfits are more costume than something pulled out of his own closet.

Ultimately, Finally Rich exposes the limits of Keef's chosen lane and, worse, doesn't point toward a more optimal route.

Throughout, Wale captures the weight of facing criticism and prejudice, of being an outsider looking in. Unfortunately, all that weight sinks his ambition as often as it lends his words impact.

The result is that most of what makes Goulding's work appealing, such as her voice and instrumentation, is lost underneath generic synthesizers that turn these songs into standard pop fare.

With so much good (and weird) folk music out there, it's difficult to strongly recommend something so sleepily middle-of-the-road.

Lights Out offers plenty of pop nuggets--a few of them punchy and expansive, most others losing steam right out of the gate.

There's some fun stuff, but nowhere near enough.

Confrontations, is more body-snatcher than horror slasher, the anxious fear more related to peering at the glowing horizon than over the shoulder at the murderer chasing you through the woods.

early tracks contain all the stuff Jenkins excels at; hell, there’s even a kind of charm to cringe-worthy lines like, “Go ahead, take my heart up/ Roll it up like a joint.” Unfortunately, that charm wears off as the album drifts away from wistful pop rock and Jenkins visits some of his other, less enthralling ghosts.

The whole album feels like it has been flattened out for the sake of streaming services. Without the big, chewy hooks, the songs tend to bleed together indistinguishably in hindsight.

While the band’s proficiency can create high spots, the overall sense is that its tight-knit tunes and detached feelings might have been enhanced more under a Californian sun than worked out in bleak midwinter experimentation.

An outing as plain as its title. It is the band’s most consistent album in years, never dipping into any true clinkers but never approaching anything close to a risk either.

Overall, The Abandoned Lullaby is a texturally interesting marriage of genres, but hardly a unique one. As solid as the music sounds, it's just not special enough to crave, making this collaboration rather forgettable.

Since the LP’s 11 tracks always keep the listener at arm’s length, it’s best to treat them with the same indifference. Don’t be the reacher in this relationship.

Illusion is simple and retro-sounding, and as a short first record, it shows promise for future albums from this group of old friends.

Three Men and a Baby just happens to be one such experiment that doesn’t land with the blunt force fans might be used to.

The double album concept only waters down Kozelek’s biting social commentary and exquisite observations on living.

It’s certainly not the worst Lil Wayne has done, especially with fluid performances on “Fingers Hurting” and “You Guessed It”. It’s that recklessness that’s absent.

Mylo Xyloto feels like the group's mid-life crisis.

This apparent quest for new sounds produced Death from Above’s belated sophomore slump, a collection of songs that finds the duo pulled in directions that play against their strengths and makes them sound, for the first time, a little dull.

After exploring BBD, it seems the rest of Mellowdrone wasn’t needed for idea creation as much as containing and editing the various artistic notions generated by Bates.

In general, though, the first half of Inner Classics feels more convincing than the second.

Though it’s a bit flat dynamically, Chung has a fluid, strong control of the vibe.

The music never threatens to eclipse the message. If anything--and this might sound like a strange criticism of a Christian rock album--it’s too reverential.

Altogether, Acoustic Sessions just lacks a lot of emotional depth, ditching conflict and challenge for sap. Shame.

Even if not all these songs are memorable, many are still damn catchy.

The pairing, and subsequent output, of Weber and the Bell Laboratory is expected and mundane.

The Larsons have style and passion for days. They just need to nail down a poignant message to pair with all the flash.

The album starts off strong but ends up overcomplicated.

Sound City: Real to Reel has its highlights, but the bad songs are hard to justify. Some collaborators don’t mesh with others, and all of them suffer from embarrassing lyrics.

Subject matter such as the aforementioned romanticism is refreshing, and maybe that will be pushed to the foreground in future records, but it only appears in spurts on Born Villain.

All in all, he has a pretty solid record of radio-ready hits, some that could double back as hazy, danceable club tracks. But MLK could have been left to rest in peace.

A definite mixed bag, the first half of this debut shows some serious power, while the latter merely lingers.

At its best, Stockholm is a solid and grounded album that speaks to Hynde’s strengths; at its worst, to crib a song title from the last group photo session, it’s a tad “Middle of the Road”.

By not leaning more on its crack staff of guest stars, Duets proves too safe and easy to live up to its name.

Too often, Vaccine is overly intent on bouncing between genres and styles.

It's definitely a pleasant album, but also too much on the safe side.

The 11 tracks on their sophomore record, Again and Again, compromise a brief sugar high clocking in at just under 30 minutes, the totality of the album a fun, slightly too tame summer listen.

These songs, plus several others, are ultimately frustrating because they never achieve Die Antwoord’s self-professed new direction. Even more frustrating, the few tracks that try something different end up being some of the group’s strongest material to date.

Lyrics that need to be read aloud to be understood, plus an unsettling discombobulation of tempos, dynamics, and various internal compositions, plus Leschper’s monotonous drone, all co-existing for nearly one hour becomes mentally exhausting and almost frustrating halfway through Render.

The middle section of the album is stellar, and for a few fleeting moments, it all seems to work. Unfortunately, the rest of As If is much less engaging.

What Hackford and Lyon really need is a plot, a purpose, a driving force, and an end goal. Without those things, Soft Openings gets lost and doesn’t quite know how to make its way back.

Bates sounds separate from Gibbs; their aural love affair falls flat. Bates will have to soldier on behind Big Black Delta, and hopefully with more time and experience he can break through and deliver the kind of emotional overtures he’s only just hinted at.

It’s a less appealing debut than Lanegan’s first records with, say, Isobel Campbell or Soulsavers, and a challenging introduction to American audiences for the talented Garwood.

Visions of a Life is often full, seeming to overflow. But the substance is lacking, resulting in a tiring trip through a band gamely trying not to merely cover itself.

Stateless is just one extended mood, which also makes it the least mysterious Dirty Beaches record to date.

Plateaus are boring, flat, and the first act of Aesthethica is precisely that (though lead vocalist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix asserts they're on some higher plane).

While there are moments of punk-ish joy, this is a disappointing continuation of Ramone's genius.

It feels as if the focus on Made Up Mind was on serving the songs rather than the players, which is understandable, as plenty of guitar heroes make less guitar-centric albums in an effort to prove themselves as more than just a bag of a licks. But, it all just falls a bit flat of what this group is capable of in the right context.

Dripping guitars and distortion follow Crystal Antlers' predictable style, but the messy trajectory of Two-Way Mirror requires serious tolerance for walls of noise to endure from start to finish.

On Clear Heart Full Eyes, Finn brings the stories (he always brings the stories), but as a whole, the album sounds atypically half-hearted.

Revolution Radio plods its way down roads the band first stomped on years ago. In a career filled with euphoric highs and honorable lows, this might be the first album that sits exactly on the middle of the scale, dipping its toes into every possible outcome but refusing to dive in and embrace either comfort or chaos.

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

Aside from the aforementioned pair of tracks [Control and the title track] that hit dark pop highs akin to Garbage's best, this is just another solid disc from solid musicians, no more, no less.

The State of Gold is a perfectly competent album, but after Pond’s 17 years in the music biz, competent isn’t enough. The primary problem with The State of Gold is that it exhibits a failure of imagination.

An un-ironic effort rooted in genuine curiosity of another era, but one that ultimately offers little that a dusty Madonna or Duran Duran compilation CD doesn't.

Gensho doesn’t allow for much variation, character development, key changes, note changes, or even much respite at all from the nonstop noise.

Regardless of how popular Big Moon Ritual may prove to be for fans of the jam, one can't help but feel Robinson's talents as gospel shouting rock 'n' roller are being squandered here.

If you’ve been waiting for Bloc Party to branch out, expect The Nextwave Sessions to disappoint. Most reductively and most accurately, The Nextwave Sessions are merely five more Bloc Party songs.

Ghost Wave know their flavors, but they have to infuse some more spirit and variety, in order to do their talents justice.

For now, Hood Billionaire is a half-baked testament to how difficult it is to make great records in rapid succession.

Due to the reliance on covers and genre-bending remixes, Donkey Punch the Night doesn’t arrive with the same comedic post-rock energy of Puscifer’s previous LPs.

The resulting eight songs [four-song EPs: EP-1 and EP-2] are appropriately and unambiguously mixed.

Neck of the Woods takes a similar middle of the road approach [as Halloween III], and as a result, the Pickups sound oddly de-fanged.

The problem with Jekyll + Hyde is that, with a few exceptions, a listener equally unfamiliar with the band and its role in the Nashville music scene can barely hear the difference.

Raury’s simple, yet passionate rap delivery doesn’t fare all that well when forced into shared space with established stars of the genre.

There's a lack of cohesion that makes for quite a disjointed listen.

Tally, while fun and digestible, also sends some mixed signals.

What The Sea of Memories does is inject some life into the Bush brand, proving that Rossdale isn't ready to call it a day.

Too many quirky ideas plague it from finding an identity, which says more about Rado than his own music.

Always Strive and Prosper doesn’t play to Ferg’s strengths. It feels more like album made by a big label committee, carving up a talented rapper piece by piece and stripping away everything that makes him special.