YG regains some of the energy that made his early output stand out, though all the new elements he brings into focus--from the spirited features to his tribute to Nipsey--feel tacked-on and half-hearted, well-intentioned but not well thought out.

Abyss isn't a failure--their audacity to upend themselves, contriving each and every step of the way with an expansive sound that masks away the more attention-grabbing arrangements is worthy. Props to them for sounding like everyone else and no one else at the same time.

So while it’s worth checking out, DVA lacks any real core.

Art Brut vs. Satan is somewhere in the middle; good enough to be worth a couple of listens but enough bad at times to frustrate and make you wonder what might have been.

King is worth a listen, but only to prepare yourself for their next visit to a neighborhood near you.

While this leap into the big leagues proves that he’s still very much a rare talent, it unfortunately seems that genuine inspiration is even rarer.

Weighed down by its own concept and bloated with references, there’s just no room left for emotional reckoning. In the end, we’re better off seeing Daddy's Home as purely an homage to the rich ‘70s funk and psychedelic music scene from somebody who only experienced it secondhand. It’s simply unable to withstand the added complexity of the personal narrative that we were promised.

While enjoyable and familiar, this set of songs reflects a band who knows what music they don't want to be making but haven't--at least, not yet--determined what it is they want to be defined by instead.

This isn't a bad album, and these quotes are by no means deal breakers, but it is a little telling that an album about “feeling lost” suffers from a distinct lack of focus or specific vision.

While lyrically ponderous and sometimes grim, (“Am I a waste of life?/I ask the night”), Hubba Bubba satisfies an impulse pleasantly.

Much of it is quieter, cinematic, and, of course, better than Our Love to Admire. Thank God. Sometimes we are impressed by not being miserably disappointed again.

It's like a Jason Statham film, leave your brain at the door, don't think, enjoy it for what it is.

Real Emotional Trash feels like a compromise, for Malkmus and for us.

There’s an unshakeable feeling that they’re going through the motions a bit too frequently and that this represents a step backwards for a once fresh and exciting band. Unfortunately, it seems the curse of the third album may have struck again.

The major problem is that this doesn’t sound like a band that’s pushing itself any more, or at least not making the same sort of pushes that lead to the brilliant sucker-punch of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the vastly underrated A Ghost Is Born.

It’s difficult not to see how this album, in an attempt to appeal to a much wider audience, won’t end up splitting their fanbase. It won’t alienate anyone who wants a fine pop album, but it may disappoint those who had come to expect something more interesting than that from the trio.

In the midst of all the new-fangled electricity that positions Mi Ami for creative growth, there is a spiritedness and innovation to their past output that is missing with this new device.

UZU is further indication that Yamantaka // Sonic Titan aim to get bigger, but hopefully they don’t forget that coherence suits them well.

As an initial barrage of sound, Weird Work can seem overpowering; but as we begin to divulge pockets of sense in the chaos.

The Five Ghosts chooses to communicate in a simpler, terser manner, which counteracts their evident vigor to test out miscellaneous musical approaches. By switching their objective, Stars' fifth effort has become their true reversal of fortune.

The way they attempt to reinvent the idea of the rock band is admirable but quixotic; they;'re intriguing but way overhyped. The album is buried in just a bit too much sonic obscurity--their arrangements are at first elating, but eventually frustrating.

All in all, Painting With feels just far too interpolated, and even familiar, to truly grasp, though through its failures it manages to somehow bring them one step closer to achieving those awe-inspiring moments of yore.

A "more accessible, less-noisy Jesus and Mary Chain".

On their latest album, The New Abnormal, The Strokes have mirrored the career of Beck, offering a mimetic approximation of music they think people want, instead of music generated from their raw, inner demons or whatever fueled them on Is This It.

Trash Talk are still far from a pop group, and the album features some highly destructive moments in its 22-minute span – but unfortunately, 119 features too many weak spots of lukewarm punk that suggest the group is beginning to slip away from the fully realized and perfectly balanced sound the group was just starting to master.

Violence may make you roll your eyes as much as tap your feet, but when everything comes together, Editors manage to sound like a genuinely exciting prospect for the first time in years.

In lengthening the song lengths and trimming the tracklist, No Mas jettisons the spontaneous, off-the-cuff energy that made their debut so incredibly fun.

Whilst the majority of Stygian Stride is an abstract pulsing mass, beneath there is a narrative that draws the listener through an intense display without losing purpose.