The result often sounds claustrophobic, though it's also much fuller than Soft Moon's earlier work.

If the English art-school psychedelic trio had been able to keep up that momentum, their third album would be a solid one. Instead, they stumble and disappoint.

Sure, it's bloated and loaded with overreaching, pretentious lyrics, but it wouldn't be the Pumpkins otherwise.

Estella and guitarist/singer Eric Cardona trade quirky elocution and harmonies with twinkling, twangy arrangements that toe the fine line between charming and cutesy.

It’s a masterpiece of uneasy listening but would be a lot more digestible had it been trimmed to a manageable length.

Their well-honed flamboyance has finally given way to full-blown pretension, the lyrics that used to be an afterthought hidden behind a painfully contrived yet musically unimpressive ragtimey veneer of muted trumpets, shoo-bop, shoo-wahs and happily jingling vaudeville pianas.

A fairly satisfying collection of disposable pop R&B.

The real triumphs come when beats make unexpected appearances, bringing to mind the left-field electronic music that his new label, Warp, was once revered for. Makes you wonder what Eno would come up with if he ventured into techno.

The album is executed slickly enough that this lack of cohesion isn't a huge problem. The goofy lyrics, though, owe too much to the hippy-dippy era.

At her best, Sumie evokes the poeticism of Joni paired with the headiness of Mazzy Star. But given the songs’ lack of variation in tone and tempo, an EP might have offered a more focused introduction.

Irglová’s sophomore release, Muna (Icelandic for “to remember”), still has a delicate, emotive touch, though the overly sombre approach to her cinematic folk tunes makes for a somewhat unvaried listen over 51 minutes.

It’s a limited palette to be sure, but they do it well. However, cutting out a few songs would have made a stronger statement if they’re going to follow such a tight formula and narrow range of influences.

Produced by VanGaalen, this record explores a whole host of interesting sonic ideas, which keeps things nicely unpredictable.

New wave, soul and house beats make this his most genre-bending album yet.

At times, the material here comes dangerously close to sounding like 14 versions of one song, but he manages to mix up the moods and textures just enough to avoid that pitfall.

Let's face it, outside of the obvious singles, it's filler town.

The increased repetition of blurted nonsense phrases and the further dumbing down of their very basic progressions should serve to rid them of numerous long-time fans who hoped the Hives could save rock 'n' roll.

Hopefully, Canadian audiences won’t be fooled by the British hype, because Bell X1 don’t have what it takes to win over the Great White North.

The record will prove inaccessible for those seeking a retread of the members’ more famous projects but works when approached on its own terms.

Bub's knack for whimsical, 8-bit bleep-bloop electronic is apparent, and in addition to a few purrs or meows here and there, her magic shines in the arrangements.

Williams does sound inspired, and there’s an energetic current running through Little Honey that was missing on previous records.

It's an interesting listen but doesn't leave a strong impression.

Blood struggles to shift out of platitude territory with lyrics fixated on horizons, stars and sunsets, and it soon becomes apparent that La Havas is content not to go much deeper than vague universalism requires.

Judging by Devonté Hynes’s ambitiously grand follow-up to Falling Off The Lavender Bridge, with its piano intermissions, ubiquitous orchestra and choral chants, there’s been some Freddy Mercury blaring through his player.

Despite a few hiccups, Loney, Dear is one of Sweden’s best exports.

Barter 6 eschews obvious hits for what feels like an attempt at crafting a cohesive work.

13 gets tiresomely monolithic and ponderous.

After four albums of American girls, dirt roads and fingers in dust with the radio on, it's tough to overlook the clichés.

Anyone familiar with the Flat Duo Jets will tell you that Dexter Romweber is a helluva guitarist (Jack White is a proud fan club member), yet our boy Dex has always been lacking in the vocal department. So his delivery on Ruins Of Berlin sometimes sounds more like a Buster Poindexter impression of Conway Twitty.

In between standout tracks like Public Enemy No. 1, Never Dead and Fast Lane is less remarkable filler, and Mustaine's socially conscious lyrics are sometimes cringe-worthy. But his snarling vocals and guitar work never get old, and the production has a warmer, more vintage feel than steely recent albums.

Her new disc is a sweet, infectious collection of alt-country that tackles broken hearts (Palmyra) and Jack Kerouac (Mexico City).

Originality isn’t always the most important criterion in music like this. Familiar, nostalgic sounds can please just as much, as they do here.

This album is their least messy and most consistent, but it hasn't left singer/songwriter Mike Donovan's slacker charm behind.

Taking a tip from William Cooper’s conspiracy theory tracts, Nas deftly delivers attention-grabbing rhymes with a sickly slick flow yet offers little backup for his inflammatory insinuations in the way of persuasive substance.

Somehow, Ta-Dah feels like the Sisters covering themselves, and the glitter and gloss have worn off.

Despite the flashy production values and singer Thomas Mars’s wispy croon, it ultimately feels as superficial as its subject matter.

Smith Westerns have proven themselves adept chameleons and excel in their new style. It’s just tough not to miss the old one.

His singing, an acquired taste, could have been used more sparingly. Nevertheless, his odd chants keep the weirdness levels appropriately high, and we wouldn't want it any other way.

FitzGerald's only musical foils are guest vocalists, so the contrast between fragile sentiment and driving rhythms feels obsessively and perfectly realized. It's pretty standard stuff, but it works because the album is full of subtly affecting moments that viscerally lock in to a magic-hour state.

Burton deserves some of the blame for the album's shortcomings as well, even if his creative engineering is the high point. He gives us some gorgeously layered textures and swirling atmospherics, but then backs those up with tepid and forgettable beats.

Tentacles’ more focused psych punk feels formulaic, underdeveloped and disappointing.

This is his first time as producer, and you could argue that he neutered the band's crunch to a degree. But it fits with the album's mature mood.

Yet something needs to be said for Allen’s ability to make cursing seem cute, and tunes about giving head sound charming.

Add in some politicking and dissociative trilling and Wild Water Kingdom is revisionist rap meant for fans who believe in Heems's neurotic, post-post-colonial, lapsed-academic POV.

It's the lyrical shift that propels the album in a new direction that will be hard to appreciate amongst throngs of festival-goers. That's what the sugary hooks are for.

There’s not a lot to get excited about, but it’s a catchy enough confection that should work well in gadget commercials, which was likely the whole point.

Just when it starts to feel like the album is continuing in a high-powered vein, the Lips start sounding like they’re steering a chuckwagon.

Pond still appreciate the glue of a hummable pop hook and the intoxicating pyschedelia of headphone tricks, but the most satisfying way to hear Hobo Rocket is turning it up as loud as it’ll go.

Cudi deserves credit for such an audacious high-concept debut. It falls a bit flat, but at least it falls forward.

Despite some cliched lyrics and cheesy moments (Bootful Of Beer is pretty goofy, the groovy Wheels is straight out of a steamy 80s-rock-chick video), the album--the Wilsons' first in six years--is both tough and tender, and makes a girl like me dive into the YouTube archives to relish the ass-kicking awesomeness that was and still is Heart.

The album as a whole is still more interesting than any of its individual parts, but now we can truly appreciate each and every fragment.

The production (thanks to Jim Diamond) also sounds more radio-ready, but the increased crispness makes the looseness of Maya Miller’s drums far more distracting than it used to be, and everything is far too cold.

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.

There are some really gorgeous moments here, as on sleepy waltz 'Don’t Watch Me Dancing' and beautiful lazy closer 'Evaporar,' but overall the album comes off as an incomplete and thrown-together hobby project.

Angelakos’s Hot Chip-meets-MGMT sound also works on I’ve Got Your Number. His distinctive vocals backfire only on the too-cutesy Cuddle Fuddle.

Eraser Stargazer is full of ideas, a lot of them half-baked. But for the band, it's a courageous, wholehearted lunge into a more danceable form of convulsive mayhem, and into more elliptical and impressionistic narratives.

If you can disregard the arrogance of proclaiming yourself outside the parameters of musical taxonomy and if you don’t mind Anna Barie’s shrill chanting, appropriately ghoulish on Sand Tassels, you’ll probably dig this synthesized blueprint of the future.

Understandably, he’s lost a little youthful edge: there’s no defiant Mr. Cab Driver, for example. But the songs hold up.

Just cold, robotic electro beats with Wiley's aggressive cockney flows on the usual subjects.

Stylistically, their fourth record doesn't depart much from previous ones.

When you have to think this hard about music, it becomes a somewhat joyless ride, especially since Booth and Brown deny the listener a single danceable beat until track 10.

Meh. Patti Smith does it better.

Sustained by romantic tension, they walk a strange line between being mesmerizing and washing over you like sonic wallpaper.

It’s far from a perfect record, but it’s their best in years.

The quieter moments that give his voice less to compete with are more interesting.

It isn’t until album closer Spring Fever that you get a sense of how much further the band could’ve pushed the experimentalism.

This is still effervescent, hook-based pop, but it eschews the Delgados' more orchestrated moments in favour of simpler instrumentation, whipped into cabaret-ish arrangements or pared down into frantic post-punk, with driving lines of ringing single-note bass and guitar.

While they’re great at the dreamy soundscapes, Toy are not as strong with fractured pop songs, and the vocals could still use some work.

At times, those love ballads veer into over-the-top Leona Lewis territory (Emeli Sandé’s More Than Anything) that only the Brits, it seems, can get away with.

She may have gone a little too far toward conventional pop, and not all of it rings true.

The lyrics are dense with vivid imagery that could be autobiographical but may just attest to the duo's ability to create intimate moments for their listeners to enjoy.

Although the new direction isn't revolutionary, it's natural enough and distracts from some of the filler.

RTRWRA neatly combines those familiar chantable choruses, punchy guitars, pleasant harmonies and simple, clever lyricism--all in all, a great vehicle for that smooth, too cool croon of singer Alex Kapranos.

Calvi’s obviously got great pipes, but the EP would’ve been better if she’d made every cover unrecognizable.

Echoes sounds pretty business-as-usual.

Neither as playful as previous efforts nor as spooky as it wants to be, Mirror Mirror is a middling effort by a good band.

Billy Bragg’s studio return finds him in his comfort zone provided by the Blokes and producer Grant Showbiz under yet another title copped from novelist Colin MacInnes.

At this point, however, the movement of white UK female artists using 60s nostalgia to reinvent pop music is not all that original, but at least it’s a welcome break from the previous trends.

Overall, the record is solid: lots of fuzzy psychedelic riffs and infectious melodies. But inevitably, a few of the toned-down tracks miss the mark.

Much of the record is stuck in a good but not great sound from 10 years back.

It’s just the sort of gently strummed, sweetly harmonized and vaguely familiar-sounding pop music replete with quirky lyrical turns that is designed to make indie-rock-obsessed music hacks swoon. And they will.

They've delivered faithful, appreciative renditions, but the elephant-in-the-room question is why anyone would cop this disc instead of an H&O best-of.

Despite the evident talent of his backup band – vocalists Patti Griffin and Jill Sobule, guitarist Smokey Hormel, bassist Don Was and Giant Sand's Howe Gelb on piano – it takes a while to get into, in part because the arrangements are often so busy that they verge on chaotic.

The Menzingers haven’t necessarily mastered the grown-up punk formula, but they’re certainly maturing with each new release.

Why Bother sounds like it would be fun to see live in a dive bar, but at home it's a little grating to listen to from start to finish.

Hakeem Seriki's sophomore album kicks off with his heavy single 'Hip Hop Police,' with guest Slick Rick, one of the strongest rap songs of 07.

It’s initially fun to play spot-the-references, but in the best moments the sounds are harder to pin down.

Jon King's vocals sound especially diminished, a reality underscored by the occasional electronic manipulation, while the cluttered mix overcompensates for repetitive songwriting. Without the vitality of youth, Gang of Four risk drowning in the sea of bands they inspired.

Their high and pretty voices tie the songs together in a way their previous releases lack, though they would do well to let up on the layered effect from time to time.

Everything sounds lovely, but the songs are too indistinct from one another, and there’s very little emotional range on display.

The sheets of noise and absence of hooks hide some interesting ideas if you have the patience to listen for them.

The Whigs are at their best when they embrace their more overt pop sensibilities over the wall-of-guitars thing, but it sounds like they need to expand their record collections.

If you already hate him, nothing on this disc will change your mind. But some surprisingly creative moments throughout the album will likely inspire hundreds of clones over the next year.

Somewhere along the way he must have forgotten about that--there are a handful of collaborators--but the overall theme of gleeful self-indulgence remains.

There is a fair amount of Bowie-esque schmaltz in Vincenzi Vendetta’s vocals, which make Dystopia a little harder to swallow than its instantly catchy cousin, Cut Copy’s "In Ghost Colours."

What makes Under The Blacklight a true disappointment is the shoddy songcraft.

Unlike Manson's previous records, there's no real guiding concept here, which is probably for the best.

The results are mixed--a few brilliantly sleazy moments but too few to make this album as good as we’d hoped.