The legendary foursome sounds as if they’re merely going through the motions.

A decidedly inconsistent effort.

By trying to apply big rock riffs and 1970s prog structures to Enigk's bare and vulnerable style, the Fire Theft seem to be struggling for a new sound.

Like most music in 2011, it sounds remarkably pretty. And, like just about everything in 2011, it is completely, perhaps compulsively, adrift.

The Olms by contrast is the equivalent of Yorn and King throwing a California rock theme party sponsored by Urban Outfitters: young, vintage-minded people in functional, aged-looking new clothes that fit the part and get their basic job done well enough. But come the next day, it’s the ephemerality of it all that lingers.

The area in which the album most falls short is the lyrics. Earley’s writing has always had a slightly hokey nature to it, but, for much of VII, it veers into truly hackneyed territory.

All DeLaughter is left with is this record of weak dos and strong don’ts. DeLaughter can live in the past, but he certainly can’t recreate it.

Selected Studies Vol. One is the type of album that doesn’t necessarily grab you upon first listen, but there’s much here to come back to and revisit.

The songs are all melodic, and somewhat alluring in how they build sunshine from twinkling pianos, tambourines, and campfire guitars. But they tend to wash away together, under one big, bright sunbeam.

Perhaps if these songs were served with a helping of irony, it would be easier to swallow, but as it is, The Glass Passenger crumbles under its own weight, largely due to the fact that McMahon is no longer writing songs just for fun the fun of it.

It is, finally, the comeback we figured he'd manage eventually, and if his newfound honesty and self-awareness becomes more pattern than anomaly, Recovery will be seen as a turning point in his career.

The end result is that Invicta is pretty much for die-hard Hit the Lights or ponk fans only.

The problem with The Return of Love is that it is, in many ways, a faithful replication of '70s disco and '80s synth pop without doing very much that's new.

For everyone else Retro Hash is a mixed bag.

It’s an album of extremes, often capturing the far fringes of the band’s sound, with little in between to act as a buffer.

Laws of Illusion is certainly not as arresting or as bold as some of the early highlights of her career.

Evanescence may not be doing anything fresh or positively controversial on this new record all about itself. But they sure know how to keep their diehard fans happy by largely repeating the same formula that worked for them in the past.

Long time fans may feel the slight pangs of longing for their less distilled ventures into sonic schizophrenia, but Donkey is a marginally strong, albeit strange, gut check for a band that has a tendency to shoot from the hip and aim for the kill.

Unfortunately, DiFranco's infatuation with the new arrangements enshrouds her literate lyrics.

R&G is about seven to eight tracks overweight, but appearances from Nelly, 50 cent and the album's closer won't disappoint.

Season Dreaming isn’t the complete statement of a group fully formed, but a solid argument for better stuff to come.

Front to back, Immersion is pretty sturdy. But it also belies its title by not really plunging any real depths.

As one might expect, the vast majority of One Lovely Day is familiar territory, confirming that Cope's artistry is found not so much in inventing something radically new, but in refining and arranging various genres.

Something special about music is often lost in the space of the recording studio- namely the spontaneity of an artist problem-solving under limited circumstances.

It’s best moments are far from solo and—like Grubbs work in Gastr del Sol, Codeine, Bitch Magnet, etc.--find him at his best when he’s in conversation with other players, other instruments, other sounds.

Dancing through this post-genre utopia, Canyons never quite finds an identity to call its own.

And I’ll Scratch Yours is interesting in turns, but most of it is really just a disguised form of recycling.

If anything, it's not that Jackson doesn't try hard to impress, but that he tries too hard to on the record.

The melancholy adds a little extra depth to even the most by-the-book of their songs.

While the monster-sized guest spots and lyrics about larger-than-life luxury were intended to give the album an international flavour, the result is merely one of boring homogeneity.

If there's unifying criticism of this album, it's just that too often this quartet is on its way somewhere, but doesn't really seem to have mapped out the journey all that clearly.

Far more organic and tactile than Stereolab's work.

So Joel Peterson’s new-and-improved side project still resembles a guitarist experimenting in between what is probably his more important job.

There’s no story to be told, just a small collection of tunes, some of which work beautifully, some of which fall utterly flat.

On previous outings, with tighter pop sensibility intact, I never noticed how thin Mya's voice sounds. But with an album constantly swishing in languid R&B balladry it sounds like a sugar wafer caught in a lawnmower blade.

The problem is that the lines may be good, but the danger is gone.

There are more good songs than bad, but the bad songs are very seriously flawed, and will likely stand out more than the positive aspects of the good songs.

Sure Isles coasts at times, snoozes on occasion and pales if compared to, say, Taken by Trees’ similarly tropical but superior Other Worlds but its bonhomie and infectious, wide-eyed perkiness still warrants a good ol’ holiday-romance romp in the dunes.

With the release of Not Your Kind of People Garbage prove they are indubitably a one-trick pony who fluked one magnificent album and a half-way decent follow-up, ensuring that they would never again reach that level of authenticity and dark sincerity.

Overall, Time is badly balanced and overproduced, but it does offer signs of life while falling short of a genuinely exciting resurgence.

This album has no focus, so the instrumentals are left hanging on like scabby Band-Aids after a swim.

Sadly, Higher Than the Eiffel's redeeming features can't prevent it from being utterly meaningless. Nevertheless, its bone-headedness is probably a benefit, recklessly cajoling us into enjoying ourselves.

Ultimately, Landline is a small step forward for Laswell that won't result in super-stardom.

Over a derivative, drawn-out hour much of the great expectations for The Door Behind The Door slowly and sadly ebb away.

Even without the immense impact the music tireless aims for, Heirs is a solidly fun and frantic album, a rarity for the stuffy, overserious post-rock genre.

With Abysma, Wiesenfeld certainly succeeds in setting a peaceful and quietly euphoric mood, at least for a time. The mood he constructs ultimately proves facile and a little hollow, however.

It rarely comes off as a direct response to his own discography. Rather, its scattered focus sounds like the result of someone finally letting that past be and trying to figure out what he wants for his future. Boratto's next great album isn't this one, but it holds a lot of promise for his future.

Pocket Symphony is downright somnolent, like Talkie Walkie on Quaaludes.

Gatsby manages to avoid the major mistake that many soundtracks have, which is not keeping a uniform style throughout the album. At the same time, The Great Gatsby Soundtrack also offers variation, though it comes at a small price. Some of the artists that get a share of the spotlight don’t live up to the standout performances of the album.

There is a lot of energy evident in these tracks, but it’s misused. Instead of revitalization, there is misdirection.

It's far more original then any of their previous efforts. However, where Flaws diverges so far from what we expect, it's likely that any further experimentation would make the band lose focus entirely.

There’s still enough stuff on this release to warrant a listen, even if it does seem a little all over the map stylistically.

It's an exhausting listen with all these guys trading the baton back and forth, but taking the songs out of context as individual numbers, most of them come off stronger than they do as part of a front-to-back listen.

There are moments, like “Catastrophobia” or the overly hazy “Hot Swells”, that feel overly indulgent, expanding on textures already fully formed in other songs. Overall, though, Hubba Bubba is a solid record, reminiscent in ways of early Oh Sees records. It’s scrappy, scuffed, and full of promise.

I really don't want to play the game of Name That Influence, but the Stands trot their heroes before your ears so consistently that it's hard not too.

Fans already familiar with Skaggs won't find anything exciting here, and newbies would be wise to search elsewhere for better Skaggs discs. While Country Hits: Bluegrass Style may be pleasant music, bluegrass is not meant to be easy listening fodder.

London Fog 1966 is a warts-and-all look at an iconic band searching for that elusive element that would make them so. For die-hards only, all others can skip ahead to the group’s more polished efforts.

Taken on their own, tunes like "Pool Song" and "Tidal Wave" are hip songs to listen to while getting a tan. In the midst of a 12-song record though, they sink under the weight of their own drone.

It’s as if Keane desperately wanted to move past the “three blokes playing simple little songs” label, but didn’t have the technical skill or the guts to pull it off.

'Last Night's' too slow--its jazzy chord progression doesn’t hold our attention. And so we come to the end of another Moby album. And, as usual, though momentarily incited to remember why we liked him, we’re disappointed again.

Fans of psychedelic soirees ala early Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd will likely find satisfaction. As for everyone else, well, suffice it to say, drugs of another sort may indeed be needed.

Zombie is at his best when he's at his most audacious, and although Hellbilly Deluxe 2 isn't quite a resounding success, it's still enormously fun at times, proof that he's still capable of a few good ideas in this medium.

Flavors of Entanglement is better than expected, but not as strong as we hoped it would be.

The band sounds tentative, afraid to step on any toes and too eager to please everyone, shortchanging themselves in the process.

Time to Die will be filler for most people, a stopgap, a passing interest, at best a stepping stone.

For now, Drones can be chalked up as one step forward, one step back for this British trio.

Lacks the clarity of some of Mono's earlier work.

The album is more scattered in approach, like he's still trying to figure out his best approach to the album format, to his audience, to his genre. In other words, it sounds a lot like country has in general so far this year: comfortable and unfocused.

Like Zappa, Busdriver's creativity means that for every brilliant track he records there will be several tracks that are just plain weird, and Beaus$Eros is no exception.

In reality, [the album] is another sampling of ridiculous guitar riffs, and for Slash, it's a way to keep playing at a level he can dominate. Is it a new chapter in his career? No. It's just a continuation of previous chapters. But maybe that's OK.

While Youth boasts some inarguably catchy moments, particularly when the arrangements are myriad, the second half is too remote and ersatz, not quite living up to the early tracks’ affectionate blur of winsome melodies, blithe grace notes, and ardent refrains.

These songs are ethereal to a fault, unable to gain a foothold in memory. If Portico continue down this path, they’re liable to become faceless where they were once exhilarating.

It’s a good record, just one unlikely to ignite the true love its predecessors did.

The end result is an album during which the main protagonist seems unaware of what's going on, playing second fiddle to the ruminations of backseat A&Rs and misguided grasps at populism.

Kisses on the Bottom may only get you about halfway there, flowers in hand wondering whether a second date is on the cards, unsure if that's even what you want at all.

The Rejects' return features too many reheated elements of their older sound, and often disastrous deviations when they stray from it.

At best, we have a middling collection of songs that are going to sound great in a packed arena. At worst, it’s a pretty significant step back from X, and once the initial novelty of its release wears off, it’s unlikely to enjoy the popular acclaim or the longevity of its predecessor.

If Grainger’s frantic wail is the glue that holds the makeshift contraption together on these tracks, however, its excesses are a powerful anti-adhesive elsewhere.

Sock It to Me isn’t an unpleasant experience, but Green’s only doing things that have been done before and more skillfully.

Unfortunately, “Breathiac” and “Shelf”, while certainly not bad tracks, fail to truly capture the momentum and impressive layers of “Same”.

An overall sense of exclusivity permeates their blithe, sassy melodies, not to mention that its “adorableness” can occasionally irritate (cussing with fey charm is just so earnestly dopey). Still, Alpine’s transformation into a breezier, more cosmopolitan ensemble suits them.

The songs are surely poppy, but their catchiness rests more on the sweetness of the vocals, and the pleasant mix of guitar and piano over measured drums. The hooks rarely stick out in the mix, so that little distinguishes their sound from other bands treading similar musical ground.

The tenacity of it all is admirable. But the result, a self-titled rebirth following a hiatus, is a bit of a mess. Still, it’s a thrillingly inventive and uncompromisingly colorful mess, and isn’t that the best kind of mess?

He sounds bored. So am I.

Although Garza and Hilton have still created a cohesive and enjoyable listen, Radio Retaliation could have used some more variety.

Oohs and Aahs invites us in right off the bat, but once we’re there it spends too much of its time ignoring us, curling into its own sound instead of projecting it out for us to be a part of.

Battle clearly illustrates efforts at sounding new, and undecided listeners may wonder why those efforts bore sweet moments with little resonance, a sugar pill for Placebo’s new era.

Bringing Back the Sunshine is competent, but its sheer lack of variety, and over-reliance on trying to recapture the vibe of his previous effort sinks the album in a hurry. Best to label this one for die-hards only.

Washed Away doesn’t present any songwriting innovation, kicks no holes in the current definition of pop music, but it’s a good record and it’s fun.

For the most part, GhostDeini the Great succeeds in its mission of putting together a formidable compilation showcasing the art of Starksology at its finest.

The result is an album that’s simply too confused to provide the kind of example Doomtree hopes it will and too taxing to properly enjoy. It works best as a reminder that these are some of the best solo talents working in hip-hop today.

These two have always been more about energy than depth, more about the bobbing head than the stationary keyboard. Let's hope it stays that way.

Her voice, at the top of her range, doesn’t have the power to pull off a soul climax, I guess. That’s ultimately why Dark End of the Street is disappointing--not because it’s bad, but because we want this unique performer to demonstrate some of her special sparkle.

Ultimately, Game Tested & Street Approved is all about tracks three through eight, with the rest of it meandering through various forms of decent and straight up awful.

An album that at best struggles to be exceptional and at worst is nearly unlistenable.

Crazy Clown Time is clouded with studio experiments that attempt to hold up weak songs.

It’s quite relaxed and pretty overall, but lacks emotional punch.

Earth Sound System just isn't the place for Jackie-O Motherfucker newcomers to start--Valley of Fire and Ballads of the Revolution would be better suited for that purpose-as the album is a very mixed bag and one of this signal band's duller efforts.