There’s just not enough that grabs you by the throat and pulls you back to listen over and over again.

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

Totems functions as a decent well for drawing singles but, as an album, lacks the connective tissue to make it stand out within Clark’s impressive catalog.

Lee’s music comes from a place that’s pure, completely at odds with his current urban environment, handled with loving precision; nevertheless, it also fails to resonate when he’s too wrapped up in his own insularity.

There’s a whole lot of beauty in As Seen Through Windows, but it isn’t attainable beauty. When the music stops, so does it disappear, leaving you feeling as though you’ve lost something in the process.

Long Slow Dance might be a strong garage pop album with some incredibly catchy songs, but it could definitely be grounded from its chick flick sensibilities.

Obsidian is a shallow and unsatisfying exploration of this dark side.

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

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.

Is this record the cure to the ails that is the sophomore LP? Yes and no. Yes, it's new and fresh and spilling over with more of their unique brand of high-energy rock; no, as there's some missteps and growth is often traded out for immature jabs.

While it shares many similarities with the quieter side of their first record, it never quite achieves the same heart-rending beauty we know they're capable of.

A 37-minute album that feels closer to feature-length.

Carrying features stellar glockenspiel work and a beautiful chorus, but uncharacteristically poor drumming and a gaudy ragtime piano solo. Perhaps the most damning indictment is that the worst songs are all similar enough to blend into each other.

Simply put, it's far too repetitive, especially considering its short length, and even on repeated listens tracks seem impossible to tell apart--particularly, after the strong opening provided by Welcome, the run of Apart, Motion and Expect all sound pretty much the same.

Perhaps ... the best way to describe Boys & Girls: unwilling to innovate or add anything new to its genre, preferring to remind us of the roots of rock instead of showing us what made the pioneers so great, a reminder of a past love instead of a new love for us to discover.

Repetition is considered their weakest strength, which isn't true at all--they introduce shrill synth textures and dub elements with a good understanding of technique. It does add the slightest variation to their acerbic post-punk, all rendered with a cheerful stance even if there’s an apparent loss of rage. Still, this party feels less exciting than the night before.

To an extent, it may sound like just another day at the office for Sunn O))). Nevertheless, this team-building exercise is still more compelling than whatever employee engagement activity your day job offers.

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.

Iit’s hard to parse the logistics behind their songwriting, but there’s a tasteful equilibrium at hand even if each member brings out their own peculiarities.

It’s nowhere near as annoying, despite my physically manifest aversion to it, but it definitely is not trying to please you, or make you comfortable, or even happy in any way.

Cottrill's clear songwriting focus gets bogged down with mellow, listless ballads that sound pleasant—and not much else.

She’s made some phenomenal music in her career and a handful of songs on The Tortured Poets Department are welcome additions to her canon. These are sadly outnumbered by bland filler and compromised by an overwhelming sense of stasis.

Ultimate Care II doesn’t inspire one to peer closer into the musicality of everyday life; instead, you’ll constantly look at the time, wishing it’d sped up so you can move on with anything else.

At times it’s as if the band is still trying to figure out the right temperament to base off of for the extent of a full-length album. The result is an uneven pairing of drive and control, and the latter tends to push them towards worn-out novelty with greater force.

Barring a few notable tracks, this debut from Snaith under the Daphni name, fails to coalesce into anything resembling the creative designs of his previous records.

Far beyond simply avant garde, this is one for the abstract devotee.

Very, very few people have something clever to say and the musical ability to put it into song. That leaves us with ten pleasant songs about nothing much in particular, sung by vocalists of middling charisma.

The nine tracks on this record are nimble, charismatic, and ultimately make for an enjoyable if unspectacular listen.