The production was handled internally by the band. Listening to all of the unnecessary indulgences, it's tempting to imagine how much better this would sound if an outsider had stripped them back to the sparse production of their earlier records, especially now that they're time-tested players and writers.

Fall to Pieces gives the impression of an artist struggling to sustain his vision, leaning on his collaborators to make up for its lack.

The key takeaway from None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive is simply that the Streets is still around and making music. Given the raging dumpster fire better known as 2020, that's not nothing. But in a summer full of triumphant blasts from the past, it's certainly not enough.

The new record is pretty sparse in terms of its recording tones, very dry, and, in that respect, it owes a lot to skeleton-sparse Smog records like Kicking a Couple Around. But while that EP, another gem, seems to expand in its quiet moments, suggesting all sorts of dark narratives, heartbreak conceits, and hidden dialogues, the distance between Callahan's voice and the material he surrounds it here will leave some broader declarations up for grabs.

Like Joanne before Chromatica, Smile plays like a necessary centering exercise, indulging her insecurities and less surefire instincts. If Witness was overdetermined, Smile is an earnest exhale, for better or for worse. It delivers an image of her journey towards inner peace that is honest (if corny) and catchy (if not exactly inventive).

Imploding the Mirage promises dynamite rock 'n' roll yet delivers tepid synthpop. Whereas the album marginally reinvents the Killers' sound, the lyrics problematically redesign archaic ideology.

Yes, Hate for Sale is unbalanced. However, the Pretenders maintain an unapologetic devotion to the sound, which defined their success. Hate for Sale maintains a formidability that rejects compromise.

Yes, it's interesting – but it will leave most of those outside small academic circles feeling a little cold.

The concept of lifting us all higher through music is where the two paths meet. And this ability to help the listener achieve a certain elevation is something Laraaji can do, at least to some degree, no matter the instrument.

It contains at least one additional near-classic. But it falls into a type of rut that only long-lived bands can travel: Its primary purpose seems to be justifying its existence with an almost obsessive show of confidence. Which is a fancy way of saying it tries a bit too hard for its good.

When Andrews focuses on her own story, she's an immensely compelling songwriter. It's when she speaks in a general sense about heartache that her powers are weakened.

Because it occasionally breaks new ground, Love + Light avoids being an afterthought from start to finish. Even so, the album is far from consistent. While the LP features Avery's typical versatility, that versatility is spread rather thin.

The Glow has some pretty good songs trying to peek out of the morass.

Survival is a listenable album, but the songcraft leaves something to be desired. It seems like Hardy needs to find a way to play to her strengths more consistently, and it will make her songs more effective.

On Built to Spill Play the Songs of Daniel Johnston, Built to Spill sadly suck most of the vitality and marrow from Johnston's occasionally vexing compositions.

All in all, The Mosaic of Transformation is a slightly uneven record. It generally transcends the tropes of its genre, but occasionally substitutes substance for style. The songcraft is not up to par with Smith's past work, but the album offers plenty of rich textures and unique sonic flourishes.

Ultimately, in the overall sweep of Nightwish's rich and varied discography, Human. :||: Nature. comes across as more of a minor note than a magnum opus.

The quality of the songwriting varies widely, despite the more or less consistent theme of death.

On Do You Wonder About Me?, it sounds as if the more professional in-studio approach rounded off the edges that made the band's best moments so compelling.

Shelby Lynne carves out just one aspect of its creator's versatility. At times (as with the ending), it can feel a little thin, but Lynne's personality and vocal skills carry it through.

Neither an audio-verité release or a fully-fledged, star-studded duets album. It's quite interesting, but that's all. Now, with this out of her system, she can move on.

There is no doubt that who think a record is a concept where the overall idea matters first, will love it. For the ones, however, who consider music the first language and are looking for melodies that can crawl underneath their skins, one listening will be enough. In the end, it seems like the message exceeded the medium.

There are no bad songs on 925, but the songs I enjoyed are pretty scattered. ... It will be interesting to see where their music goes in the future to see how they develop, but for now, Sorry haven't quite fully arrived.

The orchestrations are mostly neutral, sometimes problematic, occasionally great. But: the quartet deserves an album of its own.

Mostly, they passively experiment with synth sounds as they did on Angles and Comedown Machine. At one point, they jack the melody to "Dancing With Myself". Sadly, the most intriguing parts of the record are the numerous times when Casablancas comments on the piss-poor songwriting in realtime.

The ten tracks on Born Again might comfort those who feel the same but would not inspire one to take action.

"After Hours" and "Until I Bleed Out" recapture some of that old fear, but any heft these moments might have had flounder without the proper buildup. The listener's just meant to be satisfied that yes, that is the Weeknd singing, so this must be another Weeknd album. But the problem with After Hours is that: its Weeknd-ness is still the centerpiece, the thesis, what the Weeknd wants us to see the most. It's been a decade, and the story still hasn't changed.

If this were the kind of queer red disco deconstruction that it almost is, it would be excellent, but that's not even half the record's runtime. There's a quarter-hour stretch in the middle where it almost catches fire, but that's not enough for an album.

Ripping off very obvious rock songs is asking to be deemed irrelevant, and their attempts to sound contemporary are poor at best. If you must acquire this, then you might have fun with your friends picking out which songs they ripped off, or pay homage to or whatever.

Balance is a tricky thing, and Eyelet is an album about the difficulty of finding balance. It's something of a letdown that the listener gets just as muddled in that search as Islet does.

Interesting, unique ideas squandered by a lack of blossoming. The album's vibe is maybe best exemplified in the three skits where we get snippets of people asked broad questions, and their responses are layered over each other.

It's unclear how Caspian's latest will age, especially alongside a gem like 2015's Dust and Disquiet. There's little on this LP that's as instantly gratifying as Dust's "Arcs of Command" or "Darkfield". But maybe it shouldn't have to be.

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.

Navarrete occasionally tries some self-deprecation in these songs, but actual self-awareness is harder to come by.

As a curio from one of the most unsettled times in UK music (pre-grunge and post indie), it's interesting, from an academic rock nerd's perspective. For everyone else, if you're looking for an album that has all the hallmarks of a musical movement but only some of the flair of the leading lights of that scene, here it is. Warts and all.

It's all flawlessly performed and comforting in its predictability.

Although Allison had a particular vision for the project, it's tempting to wonder how much tighter the final product would've felt had it been put through a more rigorous edit.

The overall sound is now more cohesive and relaxed to the point of being harmless, while Huntley's lyrics aren't his best.

When Grimes's impeccable production skills are given a chance to shine, the ideas behind Miss Anthropocene's slow-burners begin to come into focus.

Treat Myself is ladened with the same girl gang hoots and hollers and fluffernutter hooks that popularized preceding albums Title and Thank You, but with a little more urban beat thrown in.

It's another sequence full of common tropes and techniques (to the point of plagiarism in some cases), and at only 26 minutes in length, it rushes by without leaving much of an impression.

For an album with the word 'raw' in its title, it contains virtually nothing gritty and therefore is hard to take seriously.

On Seeker, we get a solid album from a talented musician, but it feels more like the groundwork for a classic. Hopefully, that one's imminent (and arson-proof).

For an album named Wildcard, there doesn't seem to a standout track. There are some very songs with strong emotional appeal and literate, artful lyrics such as the reflective "Bluebird", the love story "Fire Escape", the teary "Dark Bars", and even the comic "Pretty Bitchin'".

Sexorcism is not perfect, nor is it the sort of album that could ever be enjoyed front to back, or played in broad daylight. But it does stand as the second coming of Brooke Candy -- in all of her nightmarish but playful, horned-up but at least honest, seedy and sexy glory.

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.

The Avetts have been doing this for too long and are too accomplished as songwriters to make an album that's a total dud. The good stuff on Closer Than Together is really quite excellent. But when the balance is just a bit more good material than mediocre (or worse) material, you start to question the production choices involved.

LφVE & EVφL offers wild and wonderful immersion, but once you're in it, you're on your own.

Hot Motion feels like a safe bet for a band too at ease with their music. If their music is to remain fresh, Temples must develop or expand their approach to songwriting.

For all their experimentalism, Fly Pan Am are ultimately derivative in a way that doesn't bring much new to the palette. ... Somewhere, Fly Pan Am fans are doubtless thrilled the band got back together and picking up right where they left off. Everyone else would be better off going straight to the source.

Together ["You Are My Destiny" and "Pressure Danger"], they round out an album that, even at its least remarkable, ably demonstrates the Juan MacLean's skill with dance beats. It's hard not to feel a little disappointed after the unmitigated triumph of In a Dream. But The Brighter the Light makes for an easy enough sampler of the duo's work outside the aforementioned opus.

What remains are a few fleeting moments of quiet beauty, and they do not appear often enough, nor are they substantial for an album of this length.

Compared to the previous compilations' sense of liberation, Charli sounds at odds with its some of its invested players and parts: the label, the fans, and Charli the artist. ... When its gears click, Charli glides.

For the most part, it sounds like something countless other artists could've made, which is the antithesis of everything that made its predecessors so special.

i,i hangs between surrealism and meaning in a way that's more frustrating than tantalizing.

She sounds set in her ways, reluctant to break free of the trends which made her and so many other acts of today famous.

The 11-song, one hour set is packed with all the hits from those classic first three records. However, as you would also assume for a band taking the stage well after midnight, the energy isn't always there for the entire set.

If there is a downside to the record, it would be the lack of diversity in song style. The experiments and adventure are in Jackson's lyrics while the music tends to have a sameness throughout.

Technically proficient but emotionally shallow, Schlagenheim too often feels like feeding all mathcore and post-punk into a neural network and releasing the result. For some, that's why they'll love it. ... There's no doubt they'll mature, but for now, their restlessness results in both the most promising and exasperating record of 2019.

Nothing on 10,000 is bad, specifically, it's just not that interesting. Which makes it 42 minutes worth of background rock music that won't offend or, alternatively, engage the vast majority of listeners.

On Doom Days Bastille falls into a sonic rut, but its best music gives us plenty of indication that this need not spell doom for what's to come for this still-young outfit.

Chances are that giving 1634 Lexington Avenue a spin will lead to further enjoyable listens for retro soul fans. Ultimately, though, Carlton Jumel Smith's album will probably remind people to pull out their old copies of Al Green's Greatest Hits, Curtis Mayfield's Superfly, and Motown late 1960s/early 1970s compilations.

First, there is almost nothing here that is objectively difficult to listen to. Most of the material goes down rather easily, and indeed some of it seems more than accessible. The paradox that confronts us here (and elsewhere), though, is that this is a largely frictionless experience. It feels as if the album doesn't ever get quite weird enough somehow, and there are frequent rather non-descript jazzy interludes that don't so much provide connective tissue as they merely put us into a slightly vapid holding pattern ("Remind U", "Debbie Is Depressed", "FF4", and passim).

The five tracks combine for a mostly engaging night, devoid of thunder but not lacking for intrigue.

While Emerald Valley is not a bad album, it is not a particularly accessible record, at least not at first.

Maybe it's churlish to hope for more than the sound of two friends doing something they enjoy but Sunn O))) have delivered so much more than that, over such a significant period, that it means the biggest surprise here is that a band famed for discovering the nuances and unseen potential of repetition, finally sound repetitious.

Yes, the album is impressive. But without much depth beyond its own self-absorption, it doesn't come on as strong as it thinks it does.

Epistrophy is a soft, intimate album where all of the subtleties are buried at the earbud level.

Overall, Lion Babe's second album offers a plethora of mid-to-low tempo songs with a few upbeat movers interspersed throughout.

The band's as tight as ever, relaxed but always strong, but Farrar seems to drift in intensity and focus.

Resist does start off on the wrong foot both musically and thematically, and it ends up coloring the experience of the album in its entirety.

The effect is decently entertaining, but it should impress you that musicians with 20-plus years are willing to keep taking risks in their artistic journey.

The ratio of bangers to duds, however, is not great, and Death Race for Love feels an awful lot like an unabridged teenage diary; while the occasional clever turn of phrase and moment of profundity is sure to bubble up, most of it is simple self-indulgence, an onslaught of pure emotion whose sincerity is never in question, but all of which starts to blur together after a mere few pages or songs.

Inferno passes quickly and a little unevenly, but the core of the album burns hot.

As with most DJ-Kicks entries, the record ends up being a bit longwinded, and unlike other DJ-Kicks entries, his flirtation with some occasionally atonal numbers pulls the listener out of the overall listening experience.

No doubt, The Route to the Harmonium is an impressive artistic statement. Too often, and especially when compared with Yorkston's previous work, it is something less than enjoyable.

Helium is known for two things, and one is its lightweight sound. Homeshake makes music the way he wants, and that's admirable, but hopefully, it doesn't get any lighter than this.

Why You So Crazy is indeed a reflection of their uniqueness and disregard for predefined musical categories. In doing so, they manage to be both entertaining and exhausting; likely, an intentional contradiction.

King of the Dudes is well-made and sounds like a band who don't really care what they are expected to do next. But that screw-you-guys point of view cuts both ways. Ironically, Sunflower Bean's most powerful social statement to date ultimately winds up as a diversion.

Even as only the first half of a delayed double album, A Brief Inquiry already feels like a classically bloated example of the form.

The second half of the album dwindles and becomes too convoluted. ... Yet Mogic is Hen Ogledd's most accessible album. The hooks are catchy, and the music reveals fresh and nuanced layers after each subsequent listens. Mogic actualizes an illusive musical haven out of the dissonance.

What Dummy Boy lacks in maturity and creativity it makes up for in energy and vitriol.

By the end of the record, it's clear that the more focused Ling is on presentation and the more work Wrench puts in on actually making songs and not just scattered musical ideas, the better audiobooks are. It's a shame they didn't figure that out for themselves before putting out a full album.

Argos continues to be funny and charming, and the band has plenty of hooks. At the same time, the new record doesn't quite have the character of previous releases, and with the many superficial connections to the start of the band's career, it puts itself in a tough position. Art Brut still gives us plenty of reasons to rock out, but this album doesn't leave enough of its own mark.

There is just enough fun stuff with the band's basic sound and their occasional add-on instruments to make Darkness Rains an easy listen. But there isn't enough good stuff to make it a particularly memorable album. So it ends up being a record with a cool basic sound that doesn't stick with the listener for any length of time.

In addition to the foray into pop-punk, the album elicits elements from several genres without settling on a single soundscape.

Imagine Dragons are confident in their capability and knowledge of pop music, but Origins tries too hard to demonstrate their varied interests with the results generic and indistinct.

There is a marked contrast between the past-its-prime "Solara" and the electronic styling of "Alienation", a division that echoes the departure Smashing Pumpkins made starting with Adore. ... Beyond the instrumentation and the overall sound of the album relative to the band's past work, Shiny and Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 is, in the end, engaging with the visionary spirit of Smashing Pumpkins.

Time 'n' Place is not a long album, and it doesn't have time to get tiresome. It feels like something transitional as if Kero Kero Bonito are working their way into something that is more sustainable than the often wild, sometimes too-cute experiments of their past.

On Halloween, there's nothing bar the title tracks to indicate this is anything more than a random grab-bag of middle-of-the-road electronica.

The surface boldness of the art cannot make up for how exhausting this record is to consume. Lamp Lit Prose is not for the faint of heart.

When Kasher and his bandmates really have something to say, this scream can be a revelation; when they don't, it sounds stilted, silly, like it's issuing from a mouth that has nothing to scream for but still screams anyway. On Vitriola, the band's eighth full-length, there are good screams and bad screams.

Throughout Wakelines, MacIntyre turns his gift for that style of music to good use. He searches through the past even while working to process the present. It makes for an afternoon of wistful reflection with a gifted songwriter, but it could still benefit from a little more meat and fricti

Not all of this experimentation works perfectly, as you might well expect, but the biggest disappointment has to be "House of the Rising Sun".

A memorable, albeit inconsistent, record by an unabashed futurist steeped in funk, jazz, electronica, and everything in-between.

Despite the album's distinct musicality, it's hard to shake the feeling that Miss Red is culturally appropriating Jamaican dancehall. She is clearly devoted to the history of dancehall, and her music is endowed with the cultural and musical themes that are the hallmark of the genre. But at times Miss Red's style is too archetypal such as in "Dust" and "Come Again" where her vocal affect sounds manufactured and trained.

On his sophomore LP Young Romance, Roosevelt, whose real name is Marius Lauber, never recaptures the effortless perfection of "Fever". But, he tries, and trying, for a producer-musician as gifted as Lauber, goes a long way.

Her voice as a lyricist (she co-wrote two-thirds of the songs) tends to drift just a little, with the more specific songs working better. With the thick production on the album, it models radio trends but doesn't advance them. Given Underwood's talents, it would be exciting to see her craft a character-driven album and some quieter production.