Background check aside, there isn't much air to breathe for any or one of Cooper's many ideas in a given song, leaving the record as a whole even less of a chance to cohere.

It's easy to see Share the Joy's place in the Vivian Girls discography, but their place in indie rock as a whole is becoming less clear.

A fragmented 12-song album that trends toward the same path that he already spent five albums exploring.

It works fine as a stopgap or as background music. It sounds like license-free 2010s trap, for which there always seems to be a market. But it is so ordinary, so uniquely uninspiring that it makes it difficult to imagine a solo work from Quavo that would truly grip our attention (or our club nights or car stereos).

But if the group has grown deadlier and more dynamic in their five years together, singer Julian Casablancas still struggles as a lyricist.

As ever, Topley-Bird's voice continues to be a strange and beautiful thing, but it's admittedly less strange and less beautiful when framed against this hopelessly warmed over setting.

The album's overall flow and structure is decidedly disjointed, with a scattering of tiny, demo-quality tracks adding virtually nothing to the record.

Though inspired by weightier and more evocative themes [than 20122's Too Beautiful to Work], Animator already feels less memorable-- it seems to constantly evade the listener's grasp.

The majority of the record's new tracks need to either be more focused or show more dynamic range.

This is the Killers' spitball album, the one where they try everything and see what works while Flowers grasps for a relatable tone.

There is nothing on Lily-O to break the spell these musicians have too carefully cast. In other words, there is nothing to get Amidon out of his own head or out of our collective past.

Rather than dismiss Just to Feel Anything as a mistake, perhaps it's better to think of it as a mixed detour, one that some of the band's followers might in fact welcome.

Feeding People's energy is abundant and undeniable, but all over the place on Island Universe.

Department of Disappearance does sound strangely complacent and monochromatic, offering no twists on the technorganic aesthetic he's been plying since Grandaddy were still a bedroom act.

Tellingly, the best songs on Blue Giant are also the simplest, pointing to what this record could and perhaps should have been.

Tales Told lacks the charm of the Seeds' most ebullient singles, and it's certainly no Crocodiles, either.

Where the music in Good Evening manages to mostly please without much compromise, the visual documentation of said music bends over backwards to make itself palatable to only the most fervent of fans.

Homosapien's constant fluctuations between styles means it's a mercurial and somewhat uneven listen.

Fans of mid-fi one-man indie bands and anyone who loved Elbogen's when he was still Say Hi To Your Mom will undoubtedly find things to like about it, but Oohs & Ahs is ultimately a decent record that's weighed down a bit by some puzzling sonics.

Let's hope Magic Chairs is as much terminal as it is transitional, meaning that next time, they'll get all of that grandness right.

Concert albums never sound like the concerts they're supposed to capture, and with a band whose presence can stifle trite conversation like High on Fire's, it's a disservice.

While Cave represents a return to form, the band hasn't recaptured the beauty of early highlights like 'When the Red King Comes' or 'A Dream in Sound.'

Bitter Rivals too often feels like a cheap thrill ride, firing on all cylinders but without any grand design.

Instead of exploring their sound and growing more dexterous over time, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter have backed themselves into a creative corner on Marble Son--with a sound so austere it becomes tedious instead of heady, tentative instead of revelatory.

Magnetic Man's arrangements may proudly flaunt dance-pop's most universal qualities, but their efforts remain mere gestures so long as their beats continue to stare so resentfully in the opposite direction.

Slipping dissonant, screeching bleeps into a placid, space-age bachelor pad schema seems oddly passive-aggressive, though not enough of either to pass as legitimately interesting.

As it is, the album feels slightly cluttered by a surfeit of dry minutiae that calls for a cutting room floor of its own.

Houdini sounds like an attempt to escape from the predicament of the sophomore album, making more nuanced use of orchestration and sticking with a comfortingly sweet and naïve tone while also expanding its perspective.

Primal Heart is a collision of hard electronics with light sprinkles of au courant R&B making for Kimbra’s most mainstream statement yet. ... However, her most ambitious efforts don’t quite reach their apex, causing her somewhat cocky assertions to land flat.

When Krug sticks to his strengths—off-the-beaten-path keyboard-driven rock n’ roll, with taut, wiry tunes that match his voice and wry wit--he generally succeeds. But his tendency to slow it down and draw it out leads him to take risks that often don’t pay off.

While often precious, it’s never bad or incompetent, but there’s a frustrating sense of bets being hedged, particularly once the more ambitious production gives way to mildly anguished stadium boom towards the end.

Walk It Off attempts "The Loon's" indie patchwork using fewer and larger pieces, causing less-than-stellar ideas and riffs to suddenly become load-bearing pillars for painfully linear three-minute pop songs.

For enthusiasts of the goth/post-punk nexus, it absolutely has its moments.

This agreeable sameness infects much of the score, turning the voices of two inimitable musicians into hack work for hire, churning out glossy tones for images of cheap thrill and intrigue.

Hobo Rocket draws out the indulgence, more than happy to engage in dumb fun without bringing much to the party.

Laughing Gas suffers from the same issues as its predecessor without introducing any new ideas. Even Tatum’s usually enjoyable melodies feel bloodless.

Every song on this album could stand to be tightened. Most could lose a verse or two, and a lot of them would sound much better if they were played faster.

Not fully realizing where their strengths and weaknesses lie makes Sam's Town, despite the drastic makeover, roughly equivalent to Hot Fuss, a mediocre album surrounding a few towering singles.

I'm sure it's all firecrackers live, and in their defense, Dinowalrus' populist-noise contemporaries (Liars, Oneida) needed periods of woodshedding to find their way. But I suppose it does the title justice when % finds a band that's not quite all there yet.

[Song "Casualties of War" is] the sole promising moment on an album that ranges from average to disappointing. In the end, Joyful Noise feels like a stopgap.

Though this band was routinely slapped with claims of 1970s plagiarism upon their arrival, it's unlikely that many people have ever mistaken a Strokes song for one by Lou Reed or Television. So it's ironic that their mimicry can be uncanny on Angles.

Ultimately Skeletal Lamping registers as a misstep, but not without loads of silver lining.

Essentially, Trial is just one semi-interesting idea (retro-tinged, Smiths-influenced, synth-friendly rock) repeated 11 times-- and no matter how able or committed the French Kicks may be to that lone notion, their conviction alone can't make their sophomore record feel any less tedious.

It’s Toliver who sounds like he’s rallying, his voice less like a piece of software and more an instrument of feeling. His singsong verse is one of the few moments on JACKBOYS that isn’t just product.

So, essentially, this is the pop record '70s prog bands would make in the '80s-- Big Generator and Power Windows for a new generation. Aside from two major blunders nothing is overtly offensive, but simply lachrymose and lactose.

Actual Life 3 has moments of brilliance and will certainly connect with big festival crowds. ... But music that focuses on reality tends to work best when it is doggedly cinematic or highly relatable; Actual Life 3 is neither, instead frequently slipping into mundanity.

Largely, Revelations leaves us waiting for the subtly brilliant moments its title suggests.

The result is an album that is too vague to have much depth and too absorbed in real-life drama to have the feel-good vibes he wants to preserve.

Fans of Client will appreciate the more dynamic edge to City... but those without a history with the band may write it off as another limp post-electroclash exercise.

Appealing and in tune with admirable influences but ultimately lacking the sort of unpredictability or drama that can make these the songs that saved your life rather than reminiscent of ones that can.

While the musicianship on display is impressive, Cook's songwriting could certainly be sharper. None of these songs have strong enough hooks to encourage repeat listening or stand out from the rest of the EP.

In Ciara's effort to prove herself a diva, her second album flails, bloated with spoken-word interludes and boilerplate pop & b that obscures some truly good songs.

These moments of misplaced weight make Antidotes hard to recommend, but there are good ideas and moments all over the record.

If you’re in the mood for a good-enough orchestral rock album that lifts and falls in all the expected ways, you might as well queue up one you haven’t heard before. Mono are doing their part to keep you in a steady supply of them.

Fifth follows the same Bacharach/Gainbourg/Motown thread as its superior predecessor, 1999's Playboy and Playgirl. But nothing new happens here, not even within the duo's derivative sphere. The beats are still bouncy as hell, and the string-laden melodies are still layered ear candy. However, this fullness is less Wall of Sound and more Vegas showroom.... What makes Fifth most unremarkable is the fact that it's nearly bereft of the great, catchy songwriting we've seen from Pizzicato Five in the past.

At times the intricate arrangements come across as a means of covering up unmemorable songwriting.

On Time Is Over One Day Old, any emotional extreme or attempted musical shift just ends up sounding like stasis.

While she may never have been the most articulate and thoughtful messenger, in AIM, M.I.A. demonstrates her legacy as an artist eager to tackle issues that are volatile and antagonistic. But at this point her music is more potent in theory than execution.

Much of Lookout Low sounds more fatigued than mature.

Honey's more fleshed-out productions show Millan has the ability to be engaging on her own, but they are too scarce to make this album anything more than a humble footnote.

Uniformly and unashamedly sentimental, Born Again leaves too little to remember her by.

There is very little happening within his verses right now, and even as he’s pivoted toward the personal, he’s still doing impressions, sonically and stylistically.

Please Be Honest certainly has its charms. But for the first time in Pollard’s career, Guided by Voices isn’t the main event--which, for the band’s legions of fans, is surely a loss.

In other words, it’s strong and considered enough to mean big things to more people than just Pierce. Even the best Drums albums surround a few highlights with filler, though, and Brutalism falls even harder into this pattern.

So while Delìrivm Cordìa is filled with great blocks of sound, it too often loses sight of direction.

Hazed Dream has some heady moments--the languid guitar intro to "Incense Head" and the head-nodding chords of "Mexican Wedding"--but the songs are just too mellow, understated, and lyrically anonymous to move the needle much.

[An] album that, like its predecessors, is as accomplished as it is stunted, waddling wadlessly towards its intentional exile on Cute Island.

The sounds he pursues here as Blood Orange might be more hip than his work as Lightspeed Champion, but the end results are less satisfying.

Kinski have the potential, the skill, the other requisite intangibles to be awe-inspiring, but somehow they keep shooting left of the mark.

If all of this sounds more geared toward Eno completists and poetry fans than the general listener, that's about right.

Totems Flare regains a measure of hospitality from its predecessor, but it brings only one new idea to the table-- Clark's singing, which is only partially effective.

Stefani’s focus on the good times alternates with songs where she expresses cartoonish anger by awkwardly rapping and shouting non-sequiturs (“Naughty,” “Red Flag”), and neither mode plays to her strengths as a songwriter and signature vocalist. Her best songs are the ones in which she is audibly upset.

Hello Happiness is a messy, overproduced, anonymous set of hotel-lobby beats that makes woeful use of one of the greatest voices of all time. ... There’s a moment when Hello Happiness works. On the sensual and affirming closing track, “Ladylike,” Chaka Khan finally breaks free of vocal effects.

Obviously, a host of issues--from downtime to headlines--compelled Walla to make this record, and his effort shows. What's missing is a compelling reason to listen.

Surfing troublingly ends with three plodding failures (including the seven-minute "Sayulita") that feel at odds with the record's fuck-all spirit.

Van Weezer’s two-handed tapping revels in its hamminess. And for all its pyrotechnic guitars and arena stomp, Van Weezer never actually roars all that hard.

Guests reinforces its inessential nature by presenting, for the most part, a one-dimensional rendering of DOOM as a lyricist.

There are building blocks for something fantastic in most of these pieces, but only in two of them have they been used to make more than the sum of their parts.

Sure, Alexander is an unsteady and uncertain release, but it's also a trial run by someone who has already made it.

For Smith's first four albums, Outside Society is an abridgement that doesn't really do her justice.

The Kooks take elements from their up-and-coming peers and a name from Hunky Dory, achieving an adolescent universality that's at once their strongest pitch and greatest failing.

Brass is certainly an easier record to wrap your mind around than Flux Outside. But, with one too many good-not-great melodies and that nagging sense that these guys are holding something back, it's also a whole lot less likely to get itself lodged in your skull.

Too many of these songs are just bluster in search of a purpose. Casualties of the duo’s noncommittal approach, they fall into a thankless gray area, too tinkered-over to function as punk, yet too haphazard to be great pop.

Even when Beer herself sounds lovely, her explorations of vulnerability and self-definition tangle in stiff, obvious metaphors. The writing relies on flimsy framing devices, shoehorning a delicate narrative about hiding and healing into simplistic slogans.

Rather than delving further into experimentation or exploring their strengths, Tool have made an...A Perfect Circle record.

There's potential in The Visitor's mix of electro, new wave, and pop, but it's obscuring or distorting Aguayo's personality, which is the engine that has driven his songs for so long.

Despite capable guest vocalists, including Robyn herself, it's generally devoted to glossy, bittersweet electronic drifts that are too slow, too long, or too bland to hold interest for 60 minutes, though often unobjectionable in smaller servings.

UR FUN—a confection, a distraction, a collection of competent and sparkling pop songs—doesn’t open itself to the world as it stands in this moment.

The production isn't a disaster, but most of the stylistic flourishes can feel gimmicky or, at worst, like dry history lessons... There's also the tugging sense that Springsteen and Aniello are trying to cover up some of the album's lackluster songwriting.

There’s no question that van den Broek is an energetic and capable musician, but those qualities feel irrelevant when they show up in songs that might appear on a bad Shuggie Otis covers album. Anyone can make music that sounds like soul, but not all music has one.

Grapetooth’s low-effort operation is part and parcel of their overall charm, but effortlessness doesn’t have to mean insincerity. During these 10 tracks, those feelings often seem inseparable.

Their latest record has more instruments and lyrical or melodic turns than hooks to hold onto, but its problem is more like an excess of ideas than a lack of them.

It's to the Weakerthans' credit that their lyric-driven songs can be, in a way, useful, at least by helping reassure the sentimental souls with whom Samson's deftly told stories resonate. Still, they're rarely as striking here as on the groups' previous albums.

The pacing is so languid, the dynamics so muted that I doubt this iteration of Son Volt would last very long in a real honkytonk.

There's the potential for something here; as of If Songs Could Be Held, it's yet unrealized.

If Out-of-State Plates is about as revelatory as your typical garage sale, it's not because these are necessarily bad songs (except for their lamentable cover of "...Baby One More Time")-- it's just that most of them seem somehow defective, one element overpower-popping the others.

Though a mixed bag, Blues Funeral does have its moments.

The album feels just pop enough in intention that its pleasures seem noticeably absent; with a few strong exceptions, the album could be a folder of songs waiting for someone else to bring them to life.