I’m Wide Awake is an uneven product, full of everything there is to loathe and love about Oberst.

If Edan can sort out the dismayingly schizophrenic nature of Beauty and the Beat, he could harness his immense potential as both a rapper and lyricist and create something pretty cool, especially if he gets guest-MCs who perform as well as Insight, Percee P, and Mr. Lif do on this album.

Minus the instrumentals (eight), tracks featuring guest stars (three), and songs whose only redeeming quality is their cool title (at least five, including "Son of a Bitch," "I’m Going to Stop Pretending I Didn’t Break Your Heart," and "Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb"), you’re really only left with a handful of bonafide Eels tunes.

Kaputt is filled with light, sprightly textures, all pleasant and groovy, but the album still seems to lumber along with breezy but basic sequencer rhythms, indistinct melodies, and sax blowing similarly all the way through.

It’s the latter comradely pursuits that this new 2CD compilation attempts to put into a comfortable package for those who just can’t get enough from the twosome, or need a roadmap to understand where it leads into their better-known works; which it just about succeeds in doing.

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.

So if you can make it to track six - the lush “Only Love Can Set You Free” - Love Songs For Patriots becomes far more palatable from then on in.

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.

Yeah, they're good at what they do, but what they do is just not that palatable.

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

It’s not quite the doom-laden disaster that provisional plays suggest but neither is it an easy-to-recommend addition to the Low catalogue.

Street Horrrsing is a solid if still flawed album full of enough cool moments to satisfy anyone who might be interested in checking it out.

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

Although annoyingly inconsistent, Infiniheart contains enough interesting tunes with odd arrangements and instrumentation to convince us that Chad Van Gaalen is a talented songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and is capable of producing engaging, lo-fi, ambient pop.

The songs themselves aren’t as outstanding as they could be, and it sure doesn’t help that the production choices give them less of the overwhelming energy that the Pharmacists are known for.

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.

The sad truth is that few of the songs top their studio counterparts.

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.

It’s not that the album suffers too much from being stuck in traction that it won’t still be appealing to fans of the first album. It’s just that, in terms of expectations, it isn’t the game changer that many of us were expecting.

So while the subdued vocal harmonies and acoustic folk influences of 70s pop bands Chicago and America can be heard, there is enough intricately layered dream-pop floating around the fleshed-out orchestrations to keep indie-rock fans contented.

While The Mendoza Line's lyrics may be full of light and full of fire, the music here is not.

It lacks the consistency and unique feel that the original had in abundance, and lacks the quality hooks that defined his debut.

Our Blood doesn't leave me wanting more, it doesn't leave me drooling over another listen, and it sure doesn't leave me interested in more of Richard Buckner's work. But on the same measure, it doesn't leave me sick or angry.

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.

A simple exercise in bright, energetic--if somewhat vapid--pop music.

Despite Fortune’s several throwaway tracks and sometimes generic alt-country feel, it serves as a reminder that The Mendoza Line’s prolific songwriters are still capable of churning out catchy, accessible pop songs.

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

A shock in the uttermost worst way because Wale has suffered from the over-production, guest-crammed, lack-of-ideas style that usually follows with a major label release.

Eternal Turn of the Wheel just seems to pack too much of an antiquated, overused style into it without any new innovation and I just can't get behind this album.

It worries me that cheesy metal riffs have made their way onto a Converge record, making it sound like it might be accepted on tour with Mastodon. It’s not a matter of breaking apart but experimentation that might not always go right.

A solid yet underachieving return.

Jesse Sykes and company have fashioned an alternative country-rock album that is both decent and reflective.

This is an unwieldy yet infectious compendium that will satisfy those who need it most.

Guster finally feels like a full band and not some cutesy sideshow act.

As half of the fun of an album is trying to figure out what the artist is trying to do creatively, having the artist essentially tell you what they're going to do and then watching them do it, is somewhat less interesting.

Ultimately, The Avalanche lacks the lasting impact of Illinois, as its songs don’t quite hold the same sense of gravitas, economy, and focus.

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

While it feels great to have some undiluted Avey Tare material, he seems a little creatively restless here.

Arthur & Yu's inconsistently brewed blend of neo-psychedelic indie-folk is definitely an acquired taste and the home-recorded, lo-fi production along with uninspired songwriting renders In Camera incapable of being a worthwhile investment of your listening time.

A collection that’s muddled but peppered with gems.

Simply put, it's a decent album. There are a handful of great tracks and handful of tankers. The rest is just kind of there.

Come Home to Mama is lyrically stiff on top of instrumental complexity. The lyrics need to be pulled way back. What does work are the opening beats and rhythms awash in a mix of sonic, ambient environments.

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

It's this robust fervor and subject matter that fire up and lift up many of the songs on Ceremonials, but the constant exhortation comes at a price. Listener fatigue sets in as the relentless, up-tempo pace and sharply exclamatory vocal tone overwhelms over the course of the album.

To sustain her muse beyond short-term thrill-seeking, a little more focus, restraint and better pacing is certainly required. That said, Acid Tongue is still-peppered with acts of greatness, which will no doubt grow further in stature through successive spins.

Temper, an album that stays the course in terms of facade but for the most part lacks the great songwriting that elevated "Précis" above other singer-songwriters.

A staggeringly uneven salad of powerpop alt-country and even R&B that succeeds as often as it fails.

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.

In the end, this is better left to die-hard Yo La fans and jealous bassists everywhere.

Mo’ Mega starts off strong... But from [the middle] on out the songs lose focus.

Overall, though, there's a lack of memorability tarring this CD. Very few of the songs sound familiar even after repeated listenings.

There are some genuinely good songs on this album. But good bands make music that their listeners don't have to really try to enjoy.

The problem is the songs. Oh, the songs - they're pretty, all right, but there's no substance.

Ultimately, it’s the combination of thwarted ambition and lack of proper recognition, which is apparent, that prevents Beware from ever fully taking flight as a listening experience.

This is a solid, sonically beautiful album.... [Yet] the problem with her quicker stuff is that, while pretty, it tends to sound all the same; you end up desperate for the chorus, so that you can tell one song from another.

Though true that the album lacks the fervent surge of nearly every other Sigur Rós record, it's far from a snoozer. The conspicuous beauty and flummoxing eccentricity of the past haven't gone anywhere – they've just had their edges softened.

It is both a timid musical experiment and a relatively directionless one at that.

When not overdone, the playing and singing are excellent, and when they want to, the Dresden Dolls can pen a mighty fine tune as well.

It’s obvious Adamson possesses some serious musical vision, but Stranger on the Sofa takes so many musical missteps and is so laughable lyrically, I have trouble recommending it.

The question then arises whether this double album is “necessary” in the overall scheme of Sigur Ros’s work.... When listening to Hvarf, the answer is decidedly “yes” for sustaining their known output, but on the Heim side of things, with its stripped down, string-focused, acoustic sound, the answer leans towards “no”.

Whereas Magnolia was instantly gratifying – a sea change for Molina both sonically and emotionally - What Comes After the Blues is scattered and tangled.

It’s somewhat troubling to see Jurado abandoning the genre of folk that served him so well on his last album. More unsettling is the simultaneous presence of the mopey indulgence of some of Jurado’s faux-gothic breakup stories and the honed, spare excellence of tracks like “White Center,” “Lottery,” and “Fuel.”

It's not that so many of these disparate sections sound bad--on the contrary, they're generally quite listenable and often feel like excellent mini-songs--but that they seem to willfully distract from a far more worthwhile mantle that Akron/Family are more than capable of taking up.

While individual songs work on their own, the album seldom succeeds as a whole.

Noir... writes some really genuine, cheery, memorable songs, but it’s just too much to digest on one record.

With its restructured band lineup and multiple producers/locations, Fading Trails is unavoidably a somewhat dispirited and disjointed affair.

The unashamedly wilful reductionism of Brightblack Morning Light will either engross or alienate listeners, depending wholly on instinctive preferences.

Picking through Blurry Blue Mountain in stages, there is evidently a decent fistful of individually strong moments but taken as a whole its meandering, undemonstrative nature does make it feel like a somewhat makeweight collection; one that will appeal to few people beyond the existing Giant Howe fanbase.

The problem is, Parton seems hesitant to just go ahead and continue to make the kinds of albums that will attract hardcore folk and roots enthusiasts, instead tempering her material with apparent attempts to hold appeal to a wider audience. So, at best, the final results are a bit mixed.

Nocturama isn't the weakest album in Nick Cave's canon, but it's far from being a particularly good one either.

While Trans-Continental Hustle isn't exactly a disappointment, it isn't the thoroughly solid album it could (and should have) been.

Horses in the Sky has some melodic, attractive moments, though these are drowned by yelps and off-key vocals that grate and stain the whole work.

The band hasn’t yet proven capable of rendering a thoroughly remarkable album. This is nothing to be ashamed of, though.

Lo-fi recording and lackluster production force the songs to rely on the comforting characteristics of the understated indie-twee-folk, of which there are too little to make it real appealing.

Still Living is undoubtedly a clear step in the right direction for this Sacramento trio displaying exponential growth while maintaining their penchant for infectious rock n' roll grooves.

There are nine tracks of somewhat forgettable spacey-psych 70's songs that are packed with confusion from start to finish. It sounds as if the band skipped a few pages, assuming that their immediate debut success would carry over with the risks they took for this one.

Hometowns may not be the amazing album some had hoped for but it is an honest debut on many levels: sometimes great, most of the time decent and a good while just being there.

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.

At each fork in the road, instead of going one way or another, Lerner takes the fork.

Some of Log 22 feels like a step too far, with the band's ambitious arrangements falling foul to the limitations of their musical abilities.

Load Blown, superficially, is more of the same; sample some 30 second clips online or in your local record store and it's believable that this is a continuation of what they've been doing the past few albums. The entirety, however, exhibits otherwise, and isn't nearly as fulfilling.

Tookah is a frustrating album because there are a couple examples of something fantastic happening in Torrini’s musical mind but it doesn’t quite deliver in the end.

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

Revival is a good album, and I don’t intend to imply that some of the slower tunes or more laid-back lyrics are simple throwaways, it’s just that this is definitely a change of direction for a band that has followed a relatively clear path for such a long time.

Their sound and influences seem to jump out all over the place, but regardless, it is entertaining.

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.

The tracks with fuller arrangements are the more interesting and surprising tracks here, and they suggest Vile would do well to seek out other strong personalities to write and record with.

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.

Year of the Black Rainbow is not a bad album. It has its moments, but it is a far, far cry from the greatness Coheed & Cambria possessed on all four previous albums, especially the masterpiece of melody, dynamics, musicianship and continuity that was "Good Apollo I."

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

Overall then, Whatever, My Love is a mixed affair. Die-hard lovers of Become What You Are will have few real complaints but might perhaps overdose a touch on déjà vu. For the less pre-devoted, a cherry-picked yet economically-unviable EP selection from the album might have served this reunion better artistically.

There are a number of ear-worthy gems on the album but it’s difficult to muster up enthusiasm for a band that doesn’t seemingly have much enthusiasm themselves.

A decidedly mixed bag that offers many captivating songs but not a consistently high-quality artistic statement.

Alternating between sounding like a gremlin and sounding like a baby, the vocals don't so much haunt as distract.

These initial songs are noteworthy by any measure; the remainder of the album, then, is a bit of a let-down, especially on first listen.

Nothing here is horrible, but nothing here is great.

Surprisingly enough, it lacks a strong sense of focus (something the creative basking of Sea Lion honed in on) and for all of its elements of sweeping grandiosity, they never seem to have much of a purpose.

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.