It was obviously made with care, and, as an result, is pretty easy on the ears. Much of it is also over-saturated, poured on too thick, and it can be cloying in its polite pleasantness.

Veronica Falls are enjoyable to listen to, but they don't seem to offer more than that fleeting smile.

He doesn't quite sell the thesis that that's the point.

I can't say I'll be giving Inside the Ships more spins this year, but it's offbeat charm never felt like a waste of my time when I did, and that's more than I can say for most albums this year.

It's great that Natalizia and Willis are playing with the boundaries of genre, but the experiments feel overly cautious, leaving the album full of pleasantries and devoid of punch.

There is literally nothing on Gauntlet Hair that hasn't been done better by more respectable second-order bands like Tonstartssbandht or Ganglians.

The end result lumps the worst banalities of "indie" music into electronic sounds that, if properly fleshed out, might have been interesting.

It is unremarkable to the point of being enraging.

On All Things Will Unwind, though, the bursts of inspiration in each corner and crevice remain too stiff to merge into anything more than the sum of their parts.

El Khatib's voice is good and scrawny, and yelps out Tennessee hiccups just right. But he works too hard at selling the whole show.

They simply begin, evolve, repeat, and end, very much as though they were designed to play out while we directed our attention elsewhere.

Life Sux, however, shows that laziness is still very much the enemy here. And it comes in many flavors, but none more egregious than the penchant for gimmicks.

Sometimes he continues with the same train of thought; sometimes he changes direction completely. This isn't technique on display. It's more like improvised self-analysis in musical form.

If anything, the album isn't obnoxious or overproduced, and those who are more forgiving of beauty-mongering landscape pop likely have a year-end list candidate. Those who are into Apparat's more adventurous work and collaborations, though, should pass.

Organ Music may not quite be what Krug hoped for--and it's by no means perfect--but it is intriguing and occasionally illuminating.

As a mood piece, there are poignant moments, but nothing resembling a clear emotional statement.

What was once an exciting examination of a seldom-explored corner of rock and roll has become a listless, mechanical affair.

While there are some real successes here, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is extremely inconsistent.

One of the risks of having faith is becoming deaf to plain truths. The truth in this case is that most of In the Grace of Your Love is lousy.

Naive and wide-eyed, Wander / Wonder tries so damned hard to feel real, to make big dreams and grandiose plans feel distantly (but not quite) attainable.

Bruner has some pretty sweet, vibey chops that he deploys sporadically here. If cultivated, he could deliver that skewed-fusion, weed hazed love letter he's attempted here. In the meantime, best to let him noodle it out on his own.

So, enjoy it if you will, and forget it if you like.

The sound necessarily lacks the precision and propulsion of, say, house or grime instrumentals, and since nothing forces the listener to pay attention or move, Down 2 Earth disappears as it reveals itself.

Drums Between the Bells at its simplest is often Drums Between the Bells at its best.

The problem is the lack of hooks, atmospherics and soul.

Maybe Butler was aiming higher than simply "dance music." A laudable ambition, but one that sadly isn't matched by the content of Blue Songs.

It's the same songwriter we've seen in snapshots from various foreign lands, this time in front of buildings that may as well be down the road: same Seine-side accordion we heard on The Flying Club Cup, same mournfully stately horns he picked up in the Balkans for Gulag Orkestar.

Haley tows the line between soundtrack and banger throughout, exposing the similarities between the two but also the pitfalls that come with catering to a particular demographic.