All in all, this is pretty good album and it is by no means horrible.

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.

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

A solid collection of delicate songs.

As a live album, Out West is a fair one.

Nightcrawler stretches Yorn’s limits as an artist and crosses the line in a few places.

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.

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

The final impression The Seer left me with is that of a sprawling, lacking in cohesion and over indulgent album that fails as often as it succeeds.

Sea of Cowards, for all its snarkiness and caustic overtones, is ultimately a fun record, but it’s likely the band had way more fun playing it than I did listening to it.

Varshons II canters along as a casual grab-bag of songs plucked from largely obscure locations. Whilst the results are mixed, there’s no doubt that Dando hasn’t fully lost the reinterpretative knack that previously served him so well on likes of Suzanne Vega’s “Luka” or Mike Nesmith’s “Different Drum”.

Lament after lament, they start to all blend together, and all of Thomas's considerable skill as a singer, musician, and composer can't seem to create any really arresting moments, just a lot of pretty songs.

Evangelicals certainly have the potential to push through and make amazing music--it’s just too much hit and miss here.

If you're an old, die-hard Kings Of Leon fan Come Around Sundown will upset you. Keep what you love about this band close to your heart and ignore this album, you'll thank yourself in the end.

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.

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.

It's hard not to listen to this album and to think that they've mined this territory already in 69 Love Songs.

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.

An unquestionable oblique listen by mainstream standards, but compared to Of Montreal's previous offerings, Paralytic Stalks demonstrates an intimacy and immediacy which Barnes would do well to repeat.

It’s a multi-layered album constantly shifting in mood and sound offering the listener much to explore.... The band struggle, however, to distinguish themselves from their influences and constantly fall under the shadow of Can, Pink Floyd and The Flaming Lips.

Mountains had found a way to work in an area which was unexplored and undefined, successfully fashioning their own esthetic. This new direction is taking Mountains away from that specialness and closer to the average.

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.

While Polysics have certainly come into the peak of their sound with Now is the Time, the mindless intensity of the album can be a tad overwhelming.

Remind Me ... has the feel of two albums compressed into one, and a slightly more minimal approach to instrumentation would have given some of the slower numbers added gravitas.

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.

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

While there's certainly something to be said for BestCoast's paeans to the utopian side of life near the Pacific, the subtle shifts in Cosentino's songwriting are best experienced when the rays of sunshine are muted.

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.