The curious should still probably go back in the catalogue to Flood, but for the rest, Join Us is a serviceable, albeit inconsistent, stab at shooting for the moon in sheer zaniness.

He still enjoys bouncing his gruff voice off tropical beats, a vocal conguero, but all those 4x4 stomps from the Continent give him fewer opportunities to do so.

At its best, it's a fantastic album, with amazing musicianship that's emotionally striking. At it's worse, it's empty.

Rakka contains some of Ripatti's most thrilling and unpredictable sound design, but taken in one sitting, it's hard to know what to do with it.

While it might be a stretch to call the women behind one of the most revealing Twitter accounts matured, Discipline & Desire is indeed much more of a fleshed out and comprehensive effort.

The identity crisis of Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast has less to do with the schizophrenic thrills of Cornershop's best-known work and more with a surprising lack of individuality. Much of the album goes retro in a puzzlingly rote and even deferential way.

There should be little doubt as to whether or not the Depreciation Guild have managed to refine their sound here--the question is if, in so doing, they’ve managed to obfuscate those qualities that made them stand out in the first place.

Despite its imperfections, Light Asylum is a must-listen for those interested in synth-pop or the Brooklyn scene in general, and Light Asylum are a band worth keeping on the radar.

This is a decent snapshot of a great band doing what they do best, but instead of providing a three-dimensional, in-depth picture, it's a two-dimensional one that only hints at the actual greatness the band achieves.

There's a fair amount of stuff here that does work here and works well.

However a hard sell this album may be, though, it’s a satisfying trip down memory lane.

Maybe while stoned it makes sense, but sober, Mind Elevation is more confusing than uplifting.

He's produced an album that takes his current style just about as far as it can go. At the very least, those who have followed him this far should be satisfied.

Despite being culled from different projects, far from feeling like a smorgasbord, the songs are undoubtedly all of a piece.

Sound Mirror is the mark of a band in it for the long haul who will undoubtedly get better and better as time goes by.

Another accomplished, warm, and welcoming record, one whose open-hearted generosity of spirit ultimately proves hard to resist.

Chapter II is enjoyable, it’s worth a listen through once; as given it’s so broad and diverse, it would be hard for the listener to not find one song they could listen to again. The disappointment for many will be shining through though, and while Benga may gain more exposure, many will feel he’s compromising his art in the process.

The band really comes alive on the final two tracks, both of which are cover songs.... After the disc finished, I found myself wishing that Farrar's own songs would have been approached with the same heated fervor.

This approach leads either to a powerful, palpable intensity that's unremitting, or to a suffocating bathos that's maddeningly distracting from the words of the songs themselves, which ultimately prove inventive and compelling by anyone's standards.

The record doesn't entirely succeed, but these tracks are built on durable structures and sentiments that make them deserving of the focus they'll likely receive.

If it's not a leap in the right direction, it's at least a big step.

There's a compelling musician under all these layers--of sound and worry--we just need a few more peeled away for us to see him fully.

Celebration have made the type of record about which it can be said that when it's good, it's very good, but when it misses the mark, it misses it by a lot.

By the end of the album, the listener will surely be overwhelmed by Arie’s earnestness, both musically and personally, but like her previous albums, Testimony is for those who seek a motivational guide for living a conflict-free life.

Fierce Bliss has a few breakthrough moments, but overall it steps back to familiar ground: too much thunder and not enough light.

Jamie Woon seems to honestly prefer the slow observation of growth to the harsh, quick mistakes of an unobserved life. And yet, in the process he seems to prove the point: a watched pot never really boils.

In the final analysis, none but the most diehard fan will find this to be a more pleasurable listening experience than any of the excellent studio records he's put out over the past decade. It's not bad, necessarily. It's just inessential.

Overall, Off the Record is a solid album with plenty of attributes, though not necessarily an exceptional one.