Daughters of Everything is a fine, fun rock ‘n’ roll record that struggles with a gimmick it didn’t really need.

The Eagulls’ album does a fantastic job of funneling the band’s energy. That’s the good part. But as for the subtleties--the way that players interact, the fit between chug and melody, the depth that emerges with occasional negative space--you won’t find any of that here.

Morgan Delt is too academically rooted in the past to really disconnect from it. Still, as a debut, it shows some promise.

There’s a jump in recording quality, but this isn’t always a boon to this sort music and can be a distraction here.... When they put their harmonies in unexpected setting, it works.

When they’re not trying to imitate the inimitable, Painted Palms hit a pleasant if not ground-shaking plateau.

It coasts at times too comfortably its relative strengths, and it never really generates a significant excitement in its more extended jams.

Whether Ferraro’s singing is purposefully amateurish or not, it puts the album in a particular light, one in which NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is either an awkward misstep or a tongue-in-cheek spoof. Actually, it probably falls somewhere between the two, but either way, this isn’t James Ferraro playing to his strengths.

Even as Barnes works with a more limited palette, the drums/bass/guitar ensemble sounds as tight and crisp as could possibly be desired. He just doesn’t seem to want to be as gentle as the music that he has created here, resulting in a frustrating, and sometimes rather irritating listen.

Burial doesn’t step into the spotlight particularly masterfully. For the first time, his rhythmic choices get a bit lost, and some of the cuts to silence are more clumsy than disorienting.

Uncanney Valley looks like a Dismemberment Plan record and largely sounds like a Dismemberment Plan record. But yet, it’s not a Dismemberment Plan record. Not a very good one, anyway.

The Bones of What You Believe loses steam quickly, leaving nothing new that approaches the promise of the group’s early releases.

Though this release is bloated and sometimes inconsistent, Horseback remains a distinctive, at times even bewitching band.

Despite some good ideas and intriguing moments, tracks like “Inside World” feel unsatisfyingly aimless.

Hard Rubbish is only a simulacrum of thoughtful, accomplished indie rock of the post-adolescent doodling variety.

Surrounded as a minor spit-polish improvement on Our Blood is sure to please Buckner’s cultish devotees.

There is beauty on Nepenthe, but it’s altogether too clean and self-regarding to pack much of a punch.

OK, it’s not pretty, but it’s pure Fall. And that’s what makes them a difficult band to feel disappointed with, even if the release is, like Re-Mit, something of a second-rate offering.

It’s not sanctimony that drags the album down so much as lack of focus, both lyrical and aesthetic. Coursing between the ham-fisted message-moments is a nimble and reliably engaging display of verbal dexterity.

English Little League starts with a memorable and high-quality opener in “Xeno Pariah,” a compact showcase of everything the band does right.... They don’t maintain that high quality--the off-key “Sir Garlic Breath” is just painful--and more often than not, the songs fall into good-not-great territory.

False Idols could have been impressive and believable at fewer than a dozen tracks, but nine of the 15 seem insufferably lazy.

12 Reasons doesn’t find Coles in poor form, but he’s nowhere near his Fishscale peak, in terms of lyrical depth or the intensity of his delivery.

It’s a magnificent mix, of course, and a great summation of everything we came to accept about this group and "encapsulating an era and putting it to rest.” That’s what makes it feel like such a hollow gesture, a pat on the back they deliberately rejected for years.

As it is, Cyclop Reaps has the aura of automatic writing, a stream of unfiltered imagery that is, intermittently, quite arresting, but as a whole shapeless and hard to navigate.

The object of his lamentations is conveniently out of reach, hence the constant cat-and-mouse game between enunciation and melisma. When Blake sees fit to loop a phrase or attempt a chorus, the undertaking breaks down under its own weight.

For as strong as much of the material on You’re Nothing may be, it is an uneven record, without the focus or pacing of its predecessor.

It remains to be seen whether Nomad reveals Bombino to be an artist of limited means or one who is making the occasional misstep on the way to something great.

As an album, Ride Your Heart seems less like a collection of songs and more like a collection of expertly selected Tumblr-ready rock ‘n’ roll signifiers.

Revisiting the past isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but turning elements from one of their discography’s savage outliers into a competently turned-out, but not outstanding new chapter in the ongoing story of Wire hardly seems like the most ambitious thing they could have done with that material.