The Dave Grohl production is the best the band has ever had, and the disc absolutely catches fire in a few places, but there’s still a nagging doubt about Rye Coalition.

Through all of the missteps along the way, Face Control is a good album that with some more attention and ingenuity could have been so much better.

It never really builds steam until the end, when it is almost too late.

Black Clouds and Silver Linings is, obviously, a mixed bag from Dream Theater. Fans like myself will enjoy it, but again, you can’t deny how familiar it all feels.

Byrne fans will probably already own this, and probably should, if for no other reason than the final two tracks. Casual fans who haven’t seen the movie will probably be put off by 13 mostly homogeneous tracks of soundtrack fare. Without an emotional attachment to either Byrne or the movie, that’s simply too much for even a solid album like this to overcome.

I admire the band's unorthodox approach to its music and its combination of disparate rock and non-rock elements.... That said, I will probably never be able to listen to this entire album in a single sitting.

The majority of the record is solid and enjoyable, but taken in its entirely, Riot is a bit tiring.

Feel the Sound is such a consistent, and consistently smooth, pop album, that it might put you to sleep, or at least a musically-induced coma.

Nothing here is horrible, but nothing here is great.

Each track is filled with indelible melodies and hooks sure to have you keeping time with your leg or tapping your toes. But with music like this, singing along is the ultimate litmus test, and unfortunately the non-descriptness of the vocals leaves this album lacking a bit of personality and memorability.

There is just too much hit and miss on this album.

Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid has enough substantive quirks amongst the tiresome new-wave signposts to make this album a reasonable yet flawed artefact that is more than just the sum of its quaint parts.

He over-thought most of the tracks, failing to maintain focus on or fully develop any particular theme. Various elements drop in and out at terse intervals, presenting an idea for just enough time to intern it before moving on. But El-P has always had a theatrical flair, creating music that transports you to another place and time, and several tracks here do suck you into his demonic hip-hop underworld.

Ultimately, the hushed tones of the contemplative indie-twee The Caribbean weave on Discontinued Perfume is moderately pleasing yet unspectacular.

Many of the songs feel like incomplete character sketches that simply gesture at yearning and crisis.... Salad Days is, nevertheless, an interesting piece of work.

With repetitive, though bizarrely catchy refrains of failed puppy love and crushes gone awry, Kiss and Tell markets itself to an audience that still borrows money from mom in order to purchase the release.

Over all the album is pretty decent and enjoyable in its context. When it feels mediocre, it’s because the ideas, which once made this band and many post-metal bands so ahead of their time, have been caught up to.

Most of the songs on Power are quite impressive, and a good number are excellent, but there are some songs that were probably better left in the studio.

Constellations is only remarkable when it is given your absolute attention, but it doesn’t come up with enough ideas to keep it on its own, lulling the listener with too many serviceably dramatic but non-descript piano-led pieces.

Upon first listen, some of Calamity, though fun, sounds like partial ideas rather than full-fledged songs. Some tracks never recover from this symptom after a dozen spins; some do.

Ultimately, the peaks and troughs of Grinderman 2 RMX come from magnifying both the good and the so-so qualities of the original source material and from finding the most imaginative or laziest ways to refashion them.

In effect, the group have carbon-copied the sound of The Great Eastern but neglected to paste-in an equal number of tunes.

The sad thing about Waves are Universal is that there are many songs that just don't cut it.

These songs sound more like parts of songs that have been extracted from something bigger and more fully realized.

Strangelet may not be Grant-Lee Phillips’ most stirring collection of songs, but it’s certainly no catastrophe.

Manzanita is an uneven album that nonetheless reveals a great talent and a terrific voice.

Bardo Pond is not necessarily Avant-garde, but neither is it easy listening. It does however, defy categorization and perhaps with a little less unguided frenzy and a little more tempered structure would allow this reviewer to recommend it.

Although most of the songs are good individually, the record is fairly monochromatic, and it can get a bit tiresome listening to it from start to finish.