Parquet Courts needs an extra injection of grandiosity (as 2014’s towering “Instant Disassembly”) when they slow things down, and they don’t always provide it on the songs that need it the most.

As I said, there is nothing really to fault, at least superficially, with Night Gallery, but it just never builds on the decent ingredients at play. It's simply far too easy to forget once you've heard it.

A solid, if not predictable emo-tronic excursion.

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.

At the end, S-M is still a silly tribute band, years away from hoeing a unique row. But when musicians crank out such a joyously chaotic mess of someone else’s forced nostalgia, it’s hard to be mad at them.

The album’s elements--large scale pop and tightly controlled electro--don’t always work together, but they come together on the very last track, 'Radio Kaliningrad.'

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.

The Richest Man In Babylon is strictly background fare. If you run a coffeeshop, you’re cooking with gas.

While wildly uneven and far from either's strongest work, Instrumental Tourist does have its moments of inspiration.

Together is a good album that is catchy and full of hooks and does a lot of what we've come to expect from the band. Having said that, it's also a step down.

Unlike previous output, the ten tracks on Attention Please are slick, synthesized, almost club-ready vamps (or at least that seems to be their aspiration). The affect may be intentional but for the most part I found them to be drowsy, forgettable, head-nodding throwaways with at least a passable amount of textural variety but very little in the way of memorable song-writing.

There’s no question that when they get it right, the Walkmen are captivating. But with songs like 'Long Time Ahead of Us' and 'New Country,' the only thing keeping your attention is Hamilton Leithauser’s slurred laments.

Fading Parade brings back the guitars, but continues the slide toward formlessness, with songs that are always pleasant but no longer very compelling.

So refined at times it borders on the insipid.

Strawberry Jam is a mixed proposition if ever there was one.

Right from the start, it’s the attention to detail in the arrangements — what Frank Zappa used to describe as “eyebrows” — that brings Norm to vivid, radiant life. ... Regardless of how gorgeous it all sounds, sometimes the songwriting does feel a little wanting, as if Shauf has penned a decent verse and chorus, then run out of ideas about how to add another section to take the song to the next level. ... By keeping all the songs to a succinct few minutes, Shauf stymies their potential to evolve into longer, more complex pieces.

The more faithfully you capture these songs, the worse they sound. The Lillywhite Sessions may be DMB’s darkest, most dangerous material, but it is still slick as hell. No question, though, that Walker approached these songs out of love, and for that, you have to give some credit.

It sounds like the Good Shoes are tired and mildly sick of it all--and unfortunately, it’s catching.

With no connecting thread or great songwriting, I Am Very Far is difficult to engage with. It has its moments, of course, but the more I listen, the more I think of it as a creative palette cleanser -- a chance to try out a few ideas while planning the next big song cycle.

The confident, relaxed, but still concise and appealing “Vertical” indicates that Animal Collective still have some life in them, and as much as some of Painting With can tend to grate, it’s still an improvement from the band’s last two albums; trying to write pop songs instead of dance records or noise jams suits them in their middle age.

There are certainly more fun moments than not, at the very least rendering The Grey Album enjoyable, but it’s hard to argue for any reason other than its novelty.

The record is more about preserving hip-hop culture that about creating something fresh.

The tracks that are built on longer samples and vocals are more involving.

Alligator's biggest missteps are the moments when the music joins in the apprehension, rendering the coyness in Berninger's lyrics unreadable.

It goes through stretches of boredom. From a distance, the album seems concise and poppy. But up close, the heavy grazing of each song bursts its seams.

If you prefer the combination of styles in his other Thrill Jockey work, or the more ambient and experimental character of A Child’s View, this may not be your bag. There is a specific focus on 10th, a consistent if ultimately unspectacular attempt to see through a child’s eyes.

Listening to Equilibrium is like attending a Matthew Shipp museum retrospective: one samples the various facets of Shipp’s recent career without delving too deeply into any one of them.

The net result of The Uglysuit’s formula sounds something like an imagined pairing of Bedhead and Phish. It’s all right as far as it goes.