Things pick up toward the end with the slightly more upbeat run of Lost In Yesterday, Is It True and It Might Be Time. For the most part, though, Parker is a better producer than he is a songwriter.

There are a handful of feel-good moments. ... But it’s not enough to carry the bloated 18-song track list to a satisfying end. Instead it feels like getting caught in an endless kaleidoscope of solipsistic nostalgia. The effect is suffocating in its repetitiveness.

He’s managed to inject this compact collection of eight tunes with more than a whiff of 90s alt-radio nostalgia, but the songs are hummable enough to rebuff anyone inclined toward cynical eye-rolling.

With 22 tracks over 80 minutes (including a few skits you’ll skip after the first listen), it’s way too long. It’s themed around Chance’s wedding to his longtime partner, Kristen Corley – a rite of passage that mirrors the “big day” of his debut album release. And like a wedding in which the priest’s sermon is getting in the way of the dinner buffet, you can really feel it drag.

The album wouldn't be satisfying if it was just another version of Freudian. But Caesar calls the album an experiment, and that's often what it feels like. He's still figuring it all out.

Individually, the songs are absorbing, but when listened back to back, they begin to lose their magic.

He remains a confident and commanding rapper, full of agile double-time flows and verses that skip from biographical vignettes and life lessons to boasting. But, given he rarely has more than one verse per song, Diaspora gives us a fragmented window into his thoughts.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with sticking to a formula that works, and in Cowboy’s case, it’s pretty acoustic songs and (mostly) mellow vocals. But for a songwriter like DeMarco, who on previous albums has triumphed when trying something new, perhaps change is worth pursuing.

There’s a world-weary wisdom that was only hinted at in party-heavy previous albums, and the band is skilled at translating it into catchy lyrical nuggets you can raise a tall can to.

The fleeting interlude Sonora, inspired by Cochemea’s Yaqui (an Indigenous nation from Mexico) ancestors, brightens the album with a hint of tropical sax.

She’s become her own worst nightmare – boring.

The record lags a little in the middle as the songs start to blend together. There’s enough differentiation that you don’t want to skip them altogether, but it’s a kink to work out on later records.

Where the project falls short is in the handful of filler tracks that pollute the listening experience, including the repetitive Temptation, F&N and Overdose. Yet it still counts as a victory for Future, who has now introduced The WIZRD to the world. It will be interesting to see what he does next with that persona.

Her percussion is often mesmerizing, the glue holding it all together. It’s all cinematic in a broad sort of way, the kind of album you can put on and walk through the streets, imagining how the movie of your own life would unfold. Thematically, it swerves through early 20-something existential angst in a rather predictable and trend-chasing way, which starts to lag and feel samey in the album’s second half.

The problem is that Earl’s stream of consciousness style does not lend itself to easy listening. Off-kilter drum loops and piano chords bury the lyrics on Red Water and Peanut, creating an unfriendly sonic experience reminiscent of listening to a song with cheap earphones in a noisy room. Listeners will only be able to appreciate Earl’s poetry once they devote every ounce of their focus to hearing it.

After the long wait it’s not a disappointing effort, but it’s all over the place.

There are enough good songs to give Queen a pass, but if it’s going to be 19 tracks, it needs to be more consistently awesome.

Kanye West has always been a troll but there was once an empowering, heroic quality to his narcissism. As he struggles to find his footing in a strange new world, there is still merit in a work like Ye if you can somehow look past the self-destructive celebrity behind it.

Rault’s commitment and ability to ape the sounds of his idols is both his strength and his Achilles’ heel.

There’s something bewitching about this free-form section of Testing, but there’s still that feeling Rocky's stylistic adventurousness--however appealing--is overwhelming lyrics and flows that aren't as ambitious as the production.

There’s more softness and vulnerability than one usually associates with the Weeknd, but also his signature numbness. ... Opener Call Out My Name’s title is typical of the EP’s uninteresting lyrical approach, but he sings with a grandness that is further amplified by sturdy production choices: a buzzing bass line and waltzing drum beat that sounds recycled from hit single Earned It.

The album as a whole drags a little. But the softness of Kline’s vocals and the instrumentation anchoring her lyrics and stories make up for it.

White’s yelps and screams, reverb, synth and jittery guitar riffs could be more pleasant or cohesive, but that’s not White’s style, especially not on this record. Piling it all on seems to be the point he’s trying to make--this sense of being overwhelmed, constantly, at the hands of technology.

The album doesn’t sound phoned in, necessarily, but it absolutely sounds vacuous, vapid and clichéd.

When it works, it’s as joyful as the best Tune-Yards songs. ... Given her soaring delivery elsewhere, the talk-sung ABC 123 and Now As Then fall flat in comparison, and the reliance on 808s feels a tad dated for a group lauded for their innovative production.

Another artist might show signs of disappointment or uncertainty when faced with the notion that not much has changed in half a century, but on Medicine Songs, in the face of the unchanging nature of the oppression she’s expressed through her music, Buffy Sainte-Marie has chosen to be just as determined, unflinching and constant in her own art.

dvsn’s deeply satisfying and sputtering beats are accentuated with wandering and jazzy piano riffs, melodic guitar and classic soul/R&B nods that maintain warmth and red-bloodedness but also overemphasize the Morning After’s sentimentality.

Now, her newest batch of songs feel overly done up and superficial, with squeaky synths and drum machine beats fabricated for the club.