The North Borders is not a bad album--for the most, it’s as inoffensive as those decade-old chill-out compilations--yet a frustration persists because Bonobo is better than this.

Lewis’ singing is one of the few novelties on AudioLust & HigherLove. The rest is all breezy grooves and cabana jams, frictionless and blemish-free.

When Wallumrød emerges from the long shadows of her source material, elevate Go Dig My Grave beyond the beautifully rendered, if rather pointless, collection of covers it sometimes threatens to be.

Unexpected Victory's sound is too lousy--and its stakes too low--to ever possibly live up to his past glories.

At no point does Headful of Sugar come off as cynical, though the central premise falls apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny: This is a largely beloved, well-connected, and unabashedly accessible rock band trying to be convincing as the voice of outcasts obeying their most reckless impulses.

It's easy to get the sense that the intent is to let the jangling shoegaze wash over you, and if some of the lyrics stick, that's fine. But that's the thing-- they rarely do, and neither do several of the songs.

At its best, Born Sinner, showcases J. Cole's overall musicality, pairing his ability as a lyricist with a more broadly developed production palette.

Evolution’s fatal flaw is conflating being ubiquitous and being generic.

"Hey Ray" is a sore-thumb irritant on an EP that otherwise carefully mediates between Cale's populist and deviant tendencies.

The story of a young female songwriter pushing back against the sexist songwriters on her major label and modern pop’s oppressive beauty standards is an impressive one. The cautious Sucker Punch could do with more of that insurrectionist spirit.

After two albums of post-Britpop mediocrity, Manchester trio I Am Kloot kick things up a notch (or think they do), and suffer from bipolarity and an ambition that outstrips their ability.

Magic Potion is a record where overwhelming competence meets measured restraint, but for me, sacrilege trumps sincerity, and I'd rather hear tuneful blasphemy than a tasteful snoozer of an album.

M:FANS is less reclusive, just by virtue of its premise--Cale is collaborating with himself, the ultimate glum foil--but also because it fills every swatch of white space with his later-career electro-industrial leanings.

The album as a whole is moderately enjoyable while it's on, but that's about it.

Where A$AP Mob’s early releases were guided by a clear vision and unifying aesthetic, everyone here is content to follow rap’s reigning trends rather than lead them, a surprising capitulation from what was once New York’s most ambitious hip-hop crew.

Despite the overt bleakness, Strictly a One-Eyed Jack shines when Mellencamp invites other people into his world—proof that he can still surprise us this deep into his career.

COW has some of the Orb’s most gentle moments to date, but in eschewing their own classic album and instead oddly reflecting on one from their peers, they fail to get beyond the Ultraworld and the world of Chill Out, at times mimicking little more than some BBC sound effects.

Truth is, it usually works the other way; next to this rich, peculiar music, Nicolaus' reticence to reveal too much leaves Golden Suits' story feeling a little unfinished.

The sonics are familiar, as is the trajectory.

The confidence in their new record is clear, if only because their vocals sound more boisterous than ever, but for the most part, the experimentation is the problem.

WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD has plenty of gorgeous moments. Those moments will inspire the most generous listeners to wonder what this record could have been, if Hakim had given it more time to gestate, and maybe edited himself more.

There are brooding, rhythmically strong pop songs that fall halfway between the poutiness of Lana Del Rey and the hyperactive fizz of HAIM. The parts where it deviates from that template, however, are baffling.

For all its emotional charge, Changing Light barely feels more intimate than Share This Place.

Has its inspired moments but ultimately comes off like something of a vanity project.

The Black Album launched Metallica to superstardom because of its approachability, but in its attempts to offer something for everyone, Blacklist spreads itself too thin.

Expektoration is DOOM at his live-show peak, and people who go into this knowing this set's from six years back might feel a bit more charitable. But releasing a concert album with an "Act 1"/"Intermission"/"Act 2" structure instead of a telltale tracklist, and obscuring its actual place in a years-distant history? That's not supervillainy, that's antagonism.

The seven songs on In Motion #1 were commissioned as alternate scores to seven short avant-garde films, and without those inspirations unspooling in front of the listener, there's a strange incompleteness to most of them.

The title of Age of Transparency acts as Ashin's commentary on the way we live our lives out in the open, and his music seeks to pull you through uneasy, emotional dregs with its every turn. But what once felt intimate has started to lean to over-exertion.

As an experimental electronic album, Reachy Prints comes off as milquetoast. As a pop album, though, it sparkles.

Unfortunately, the efforts made by the band to expand their oeuvre on The Sword of God just fall flat. Long-winded instrumental passages, extended exploration of new instruments, and more bird noises do not a good record make, and The Sword of God makes this all too evident.

clipping. never present themselves as resurrectors of horrorcore, and Visions’ songs are livelier than those on TEEATB, but the way the group embraces the style feels archaeological.

It's difficult to determine whether You Cross My Path is a victim of the times or its own merits; it's the sort of thing that's so competent that it's more likely to be defined by its failures than its success.

The net result of the half-thoughts that make up the patten mythos throw the music into a certain light, depending on how it's received.

While it's admirable that Kisses turned their puppy dog-eyes outward, their attempt at social commentary ultimately feels half-hearted.

It’s full of capable floor-fillers, but it rarely offers listeners much they haven’t heard many times before.

Alone was worth the occasional cringe to show Cuomo's experiments and sonic baby photos through the years, especially after three studiously formulaic records.

Algiers’ audio zines, the last of which invoked the Algerian revolution to explore angst and uncertainty using thickets of drone, show that they are capable of more nuanced writing. But they haven’t yet learned to translate the political into the personal, to turn abstract ideas into matters of the gut.

If there's one positive remark to be made about What's Next to the Moon, it's that it sheds revelatory light on the subjective nature of lyrics. Yet, that might be the only truly positive remark this album deserves. Sure, Kozelek's voice is still smooth and sad, and his guitarwork is still deft, yet modest. But these are standard factory settings.

Lewis gives the briefest glimpse of a supremely raucous affair, then shunts you out of a side door, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Listeners are left wondering if they’ve just gorged on an Anglo response to J-pop, a post (white-)boy-band attempt to alley-oop new jack swing, or the work of a Scissor Sister gone solo.

Mills’ production gives the recordings dimension and depth, inevitably tempering the pain at the heart of the songs.

A far greater number of these remixes flatten out the complexity of TKOL's grooves in favor of commonplace arrangements.

36 Seasons is more in line with the spirit of Ghostface’s recent output, where he’s more prolific and "for the love" than ever and somehow lazier at the same time.

Home Everywhere has every element needed to make a great Medicine album, only they’re deployed in gangling spasms and obsessive over-processing. If only they’d edited themselves a little more--or a little less.

There’s pretty of sunlight on Galore, but no heat or friction, as everything from the production to Pepperell’s enunciation is so glassy that all of these somersaulting hooks might as well be gibberish.

[A] muddled, occasionally fascinating album.

Earrings Off! is filled with these sorts of growing pains, ones that hopefully point to brighter pastures sometime soon for this promising band.

3121 does a bit better than [Musicology], coming up with a handful of infectious songs-- it's his best since the symbol record, although certainly there remains a massive chasm between it and his masterpieces.

In theory, Boredoms furthering their psychedelic side should be fantastic, and I have to admit that for sheer orgasmic sprawl, few bands have much on them. However, at a point, sprawl becomes tedious and indulgent-- and I never thought I'd say that about Boredoms.

While it's not torture to listen to Dirty Dancing repeatedly, it does contain more than its rightful share of slip-ups and missteps.

For all the missteps, there are gratifying moments littered throughout. For the most part, the production, spearheaded by David “CDOC” Snyder, is patched together smartly and with regard to tradition.

Walking the fine line between so many gradations of emotion can be tricky, and there are more missed opportunities on Say Yes! than revealing interpretations.

The first disc of this double album set is evenly split between sketches and absolute gems.

Bibio brings a certain refinement and voice to anything he produces now, but that doesn't change the fact that much of the EP is indisputably ad hoc.

Siberia faithfully captures the wistfulness of the pilgrim’s journey--but it also suggests that the ears may be fickle traveling companions.

Draw Down the Moon most often plays like a collection of Total Life Forever extended cuts, moments of thoughtful lateral thinking tacked onto the beginnings and endings of otherwise familiar indie rock songs.

The actual sound of Fine Line is incredible, and most songs have at least one great moment to grab hold of. ... While the music wades into the mystic, his songwriting, pointedly, does not. ... Styles doesn’t have the imagination of Bowie or another pop-rock touchpoint here, Fleetwood Mac, who took their lives and transfigured them through cosmic fantasia or Victorian grandeur.

The frequently overstuffed, occasionally scatterbrained album is far from perfect. But even when going for broke gets them into trouble, Portugal seem happy to get up there and overshoot the mark.

Unfortunately, though, while they sound brighter and more alive than they have in a while, their default mode still leans a little too heavily on Hyde's increasingly silly beat poetry and the kind of unashamedly booming drums that haven't sounded exciting since, well, 1997.

Her voice and affectations are so guided by the heavy hands of Turner and Ford that Belladonna of Sadness is largely indistinguishable from their work: At best, Savior is a muse for her own introduction; at worst, she’s a conduit who’s yet to prove that she can hold her own with the company she keeps.

Like any poseur worth her salt, she can make a superficial costume seem compelling without drawing too much attention to the fact that the person inside of it may not have a whole lot to say.

Trick is nice with atmosphere, but largely a non-entity when it comes to hooks.

Instead of Lungs' largely charming yet discombobulating diversity, Ceremonials suffers from a repetitiveness that's akin to looking at a skyline filled with 100-story behemoths lined-up one after the other, blocking out everything but their own size.

The Faint are sounding way out of their depth on the Important Concepts front, while seeming perfectly at home on material about relationship-muck.

XOXO still manages a lonesome, crowded sound. Whether it's the sturdy chord progressions, overstuffed lyrics, or just Bianchi's tendency to avoid with melodies with contours his voice can't match, most of XOXO is likeable, if not a little tough to parse.

The inner-space exploration is enjoyable to a point, but it comes with an underlying claustrophobia and, at times, a weariness.

The bracing, sometimes violent collision of rock ‘n’ roll and dance music that’s powered Primal Scream’s best work has been melted down here into mercurial droplets--shiny and radiant, to be sure, but ultimately non-descript.

You’re Welcome feels stale, dried of both new inspiration or improvisational allure.

While Year of the Hare offers nice sounds and concepts, it essentially works best as background music.

They sound exhausted, right where we left them.

Seen It All: The Autobiography doesn’t deliver on either one of its titular promises.

This is a band that has given up on trying to look cool to most anyone, so Muse do here what they have always done and likely will always do—throw money at their latest fancy with the indiscriminate, earnest taste of a teenage boy. ... If there’s anything Muse truly nail here, it’s at last embracing just the right amount of camp.

Bringing it live is still crucial to metal success, and on that front they are ready to ascend to the next level. That doesn’t translate on Heartless, where too much space is squandered.

It's not quite hype enough to be pure party music and lacks the cohesive point of view that fosters a more personal connection with a record.

His latest album I Never Liked You—the title sounds like a breakup note passed in the back of a middle-school classroom—has the ingredients of a really good Future album but lacks the depth of one. It plays it safe by continuing to lean too hard on the schtick.

The problem then is one of staying power--Lewis does such a good job of nailing choice sounds and styles from pop's past that you can't help getting reeled in right away; only upon later reflection do you realize that much of her success lies in evoking something else great rather than achieving a greatness more uniquely her own.

Gordian is never boring, and none of the songs drag on past the point of entropy. That every listener might bring their own meaning to each song is an provocative approach on Nicolae's part--but it'd be better if the songs made their own purpose just as clear.

Each track seems specifically constructed to get stuck in your head, leaving you humming its tune for a week after, but it’s mostly an empty resonance. These are conspicuously competent club songs that strain for self-importance.

For all the improved minutiae, French Kicks simply can't shed the "boring" tag.

For all of Thr!!!er’s reliable pleasures, the requisite cover-image riff on the triple-bang logo is the boldest idea here, which makes for an awfully modest record to hold up against the pop-canon cornerstone for which it was named.

Wauters has always seemed breezy but never quite so meek.

The album comprises expanded and elaborated versions of incidental music crafted for the film, however, even in fleshed-out form, SYR9 can feel frustratingly incomplete, with many pieces coming off as a series of loosely linked fragments lacking an emotional center.

Merritt's songs are as delicate and meticulous as porcelain miniatures. Unfortunately, Realism holds more tchotchkes than museum pieces.

The record fits snugly into a certain nameless musical genre that can be found in martini bars and designer-label boutiques the world over, a mish-mash of recognizable sounds and influences that's enjoyable but ultimately hollow.

Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events.

Thank You for Today isn’t as uniformly bland as Codes and Keys--if anything, it’s the strongest Death Cab album of the 2010s, a dubious achievement that nonetheless deserves recognition. But there’s moments that suggest Gibbard and the rest of Death Cab are still struggling through the beige malaise that has cast a pall over their more recent work

It’s harder not to fixate entirely on the formal elements of the music, rather than the things that might make it personal. That leads to records where you listen to and admire them from a distance instead of getting immersed in them.

The Coral have reverted to a subdued and almost jaded sound-- Invisible Invasion reveals way too many wrinkles and stretch marks for a band barely into their twenties.

On paper, the decision to mix the raw invention their early work with the melodic catharsis of jazz and gospel sounds fascinating, while Closer Apart’s weirdly gorgeous companion video makes a case for Okzharp & Manthe Ribane as an enthralling visual act. But the album itself feels frustratingly limp, making you wish Okzharp & Ribane had stayed true to the kinetic force that lit up their EPs.

This Time mostly serves as a reminder of why he's troubled more than why he's great.

After that early-onset dizziness subsides, Girl With Basket of Fruit loses its power and makes little impact, as if these songs were menacing storm clouds that simply drift into and out of town without leaving a trace. It is heavy but hollow, muscular but oddly meaningless, built with streams of images that, however vivid, are the lyrical equivalent of inert gas inside combustion chambers.

Too top-heavy to sustain its momentum, yet too fleeting for its thematic framework to cohere, Uptown Special is that rare beast: a concept album that actually could use more fat.

Admire finds the band's balance shifting significantly; the rhythm players often seem more like glorified session men than integral components of a sleek post-punk machine.

Let It Beard's structure, its scope, its knowing nods to an earlier era's excess.

Mitchell’s voice is gorgeous and rich throughout, a piece of high-pile cotton velvet warmed in the daylight. She renders “Both Sides Now” with the wisdom of survival, the “up and down” having still somehow delivered her here. But too often, her patient approach is swallowed by the tide of well-intentioned boosters, associates who make Mitchell feel like little more than an honorary guest at her own party.

The album may be hard to connect to on anything other than a cerebral level, but sometimes that's the best way to connect.

Like many spinoffs from the Odd Future machine, it's a small piece of a larger puzzle, useful for obsessives concerned with keeping their catalogs up to date.

It's ultimately a spotty album from a guy who has released a lot of spotty albums.