After half a decade away, If Not Now, When? really does feel like a misstep. Hopefully a little creative control can be wrestled away from Boyd in the future, otherwise a much under-rated band really could be lost forever.

The album aims for Grohl-esque rock anthems, but falls short mostly due to a lack of melodic gifts; given that, it needs many more musical ideas than it has to keep anybody interested.

Beachy summer party/winter bummer wallpaper for your Bohemian café-bar and for the hipsters that frequent it, who like their pop music perfectly pleasant and non-threatening.

The album does have one redeeming aspect preventing its plunge into epic echelons of suck, and that's lead single Party Rock Anthem.

Magic Hour's never exactly bad. It's worse than that. It's boring.

13 songs in 36 minutes is a constrictive ratio for a record with so many proposed ideas, and its brevity makes Rustie’s ideas sound especially half-hearted. It’s bad enough that he doesn’t give the more physical tracks enough time to flex their muscles, but the tracks which suffer most are the briefer, more innocuous pieces.

Unoriginal, haphazardly thrown together and lacking most of what could make it the least bit enjoyable, Places Like This just proves that Architecture in Helsinki is a one trick pony.

It's just painfully mediocre.

Their style fits in between Chvrches and Taylor Swift’s 1989, though not up to that level of craft. Interesting moments, like the echoing guitar of There’s A Honey or the finger-snap rhythm of Loveless Girl, are drowned out by overstuffed songs with unmemorable melodies.

The Future Bites is the worst sounding album he’s ever put out.

here isn't enough variation on here to retain its limited intrigue, as Lortz relies too much on his consistently unremarkable songwriting; ultimately, it's a forgettable record.

There’s barely any turntable work, just vanilla rock that once you’ve heard once you’ve heard it a million times. ... Incubus have un-made themselves.

Given that these songs mostly clock in under two minutes, that should be enough to carry the flat arrangements and melodies, but it's not.

Colonia has an awful lot of ideas, but doesn’t really know what to do with them and the majority of tracks end up sounding messy and--like the rest of us following Christmas--carrying a little too much extra weight.

Into The Diamond Sun is somewhat equivalent to being pelted with macaroons; at first sweet, delicate, even impressively constructed, but soon proving not just boring, but intensely samey, sickly and unsatisfying.

Lyrically it’s weak, and the over-polished studio buffing does nothing to emancipate the blueprint that is, essentially, the same as it was 17 years ago.

There's no debating in my mind that Digitalism have the potential to produce an album even better than Idealism. But sadly, I Love You, Dude is not it.

The band begins to slog through the session--each song sounds like the sonic embodiment of utter indifference, only this time it’s accompanied by electric instruments.

By playing it safe and giving the fans exactly what they want, Coheed & Cambria have successfully delivered two of the most predictable, mundane albums I’ve ever heard.

Fike doesn't make much of an effort to flesh out any of his genre-fluid ideas. Instead, he's content with writing half-written bouncy hip-pop anthems (Cancel Me) and tryhard "indie" jams (Double Negative) in hopes of charming everything and everyone.

Only three tracks are of sufficient quality to have seen the light of day and it means you can't help but question the motives behind the release of such an inessential collection.

Outrage! Is Now is unequivocally uninspired, shelving almost all of the rawness that put the Toronto doublet on the map thirteen years ago. It’s lyrically apathetic, and Jesse F. Keeler’s basslines have lost all of their punishing nature.

Save for a few tracks, you get exactly what you'd expect from a band like Dead Confederate: middle of the road alternative rock music with seemingly little depth and a whole lot of cliches.

Every solid moment on American Standard is outmatched by a one to ten ratio of awry choices for songs that shouldn’t be hard to ruin. It’s almost impressive to see James Taylor screw up songs that are fundamentally easy to cover.

By attempting to give us what we want, and provide reassurance that the Sonic Youth legacy is in safe hands, Moore has somehow managed to make it look weaker and less appealing than it ever was.

Their live performances are largely improvised around one riff per song, which could make for an interesting show--but on this record, it gets old fast.

Fresh Air and Midnight Snack. Sagar sounds lethargic and detached, which may be the mood that he's going for; but when he sticks to the same tired motifs, it's hard to feel any more excited than him.

Circuital makes it clear that we are dealing with My Morning Jacket post-metamorphosis. From a provocative indie/country/blues band with exceptional vocals, witty lyrics, and a stellar band, MMJ has found prime real estate on the premise of becoming a commercial parody of themselves.