As solid as this album is, without better hooks or more interesting guitar playing or something, I worry that Nude Beach is fated to be perpetual, inoffensive background music.

Their sophomore effort might be a touch inconsistent, but by keeping things simple and sticking to their strengths, Anderson and O’Neill make us all wish that they don’t take so long putting out album number three.

The record is filled with solid, sunny pop melodies.

Ultimately, Cheek to Cheek is pleasant through and through. It’s not the greatest standards duets album ever recorded, but nor is it a dud.

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.

Isn’t It Now? summarizes some of their best attributes. It also shines a harsh light on their self-circumscribed limits.

Where Wolf's songs are sometimes the victim of excess, Vek leaves one struggling to discern what ingredient his songs are missing.

The music itself is far from nondescript, and if judged from this angle, and on its terms, Requiem is a flawed, unique, and immersive experience.

There are moments when they seem to lose sight of what it is exactly that makes them so interesting to begin with, writing songs that seem stuck halfway between dance and conventional indie rock.

If this release is David Gray's self-loathing moment of pure, unabashed misery, that's OK. Besides, where would all of that appeal go if he ever decided to get happy?

Of course, most of the songs by these artists are fun and silly more often than serious.

Wise Ol’ Man won’t go down as one of the essential puzzle pieces to the story of the Fall, but it at least boasts a killer title cut.

Overall, the effect of the album is mostly jarring. Gusty, but jarring.

Even if Joanne fails to connect with you emotionally, it’s nonetheless the album that will make fans and observers once again rethink what they know about the daring diva. Make no mistake: even with all her extracurricular endeavors paying off cultural dividends, Gaga’s greatest achievement is yet to come, and Joanne, flaws and all, feels like the necessary step to get there.

Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing, will certainly gain Urban new fans with its safety net of sweet ballads and radio-friendly songs, yet the album still affords him the ability to have a little fun and take a few risks on a number of the tracks.

One of the issues with Euphoria is that it’s very pretty, almost oppressively so. The beats and the synths are rounded and smooth like baby-proofing edge guards. The vocals are fetching, as Georgia has a delightful voice. However, she has chosen to sing most of these songs in a demure, modest delivery. So, even though the title promises euphoria, it rarely reaches that high of a peak.

hose unfamiliar with the works of Kylesa would be better off to experience the full-force of their psych and sludge collision--as heard on the band's later studio albums--and leave From the Vaults, Vol.1 resting in the hands of the curious and the completist.

Yes, Forever is mostly redundant. But if that’s the only thing you have to say about it, then that’s a little unfortunate.

It may be churlish to criticise Miller for proving and expanding his range, but anyone expecting another superior, overdriven, psych cacophony will be disappointed.

Great Lake Swimmers’ pleasures are deceptively simple, but one can’t help but get held up by the tactile surfaces of their elaborate simulacrum of shamanistic folk.

As a Madchester revival album, Best Behavior is, without a doubt, successful. It drips with reverb. The production is immaculate and the kaleidoscope arrangements loop and morph in vivid technicolor... However, like most drug-inspired music, it often feels unfocused, and ... rather samey here, track to track.

It turns out the emotions here are real, but conveyed through a deeply (and cleverly) contrived performance.

WhoMadeWho could still hit on their defining, transcendent moment if they embraced their restless spirit instead of skirting around it.

It’s the sort of album that might not work all the time, but fits excellently to certain moments.

E·MO·TION is still a very pleasing album if not just a shade overambitious, clearly trying too hard to make the same genius pop moments that Kiss churned them out with effortless flair.

If this record had been 50% weirder or 50% folkier, it would have been 100% better. It's not a bad album, and some of the pieces are stately and beautiful, but once the smell of lost potential reaches your nostrils, it's hard to focus on anything else.

Songs of Mass Destruction is likely to resonate with those who recognize the unique quality of Lennox’s work and there is enough of high artistic value here to allow the album to serve as another guarantee of Lennox’s fine legacy, even if the spectacular musical moments are scattered around a bit more than on previous efforts.

So Saturdays=Youth isn’t an unqualified success, and probably won’t be as warmly welcomed by fans as M83’s previous albums have been. Still, there are plenty of moments on the disc that remind you why this pulsing, layered music is so powerful.

This, Spiritual Emergency, is the real display, rounding out a solid, ever-shifting album from Guardian Alien.

Kiss Each Other Clean might have a sexy title, but it's just a little too effete to be the great pop record that it really should be.

For every moment of eye-rolling overindulgence, there is an equally stunning instance of ingenuity, but the album is so stylistically all over the place, it rarely solidifies as a cohesive statement.

The Beta Band have reached out into traditional rock dynamics with mixed results.

Natural History is a fine album. The other ten tracks offer much pleasure.

Love Will Prevail is an ambitious, often great record, but in its ambition, in the risks it takes, it strives for a careful balance it can't always achieve.

Like all their albums, it's haphazard, but never before have the highs been this high.

There is no direct need to see the film to appreciate the record for its own merits-especially if hushed dark atmospheres and seemingly (but probably not) random key plinks are your thing.

The likes of Velocity Girl, the Sunflowers, and the Belltower are indie pop that happens to use the odd distortion pedal. Not unpleasant, but only marginally part of the story, if that. By the last couple discs, you have bands like Blind Mr. Jones which are rehashes of the “classic” sound of Slowdive et al, but with a flute.

If Real Emotional Trash falls short of "Pig Lib," it’s because we’re spending too much time in the tunnel, and not enough in the funnel to the tune.

Finn has succeeded in differentiating his solo material from his Hold Steady work, but sometimes I wonder if his low-key musical approach highlights the depressing nature of his storytelling a bit too much. But most listeners know what they’re signing up for with Finn at this point.

The album explores multiple reasons for obsession with drugs – spirituality, fantasy, genetics, compulsion, to avoid suicide. None are delved into as creatively as on the debut album.

All other songs have excellent moments in them, assuring that Grapefruit is indeed a good album. Had they happened more frequently and with shorter intervals though, we’d be looking at a great one.

It's more theatrical than early Stew albums, bringing the unique sense of a stage composition: varied instrumentation, clear evocative vocals and honest-to-goodness storytelling.

The slight inconsistency of The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues is enough to convince listeners that if this were a proper album and not merely a stopgap release to satiate the fans, the overall quality of the material would be stepped up considerably.

McCandless has a great voice, and when Young Galaxy gives her strong material their songs really work. But she can’t do it on her own, and the middle chunk of Ultramarine proves that.

Despite being unsure whether or not to cater to the academic impulse of hardcore funk enthusiasts, Earthology is still a unique release that unabashedly flaunts its contradictory influences.

By the end of the album I unfortunately just feel a little numb to the vocals. I’m willing to give this album a break because I love the production here, and when Sufi’s really hitting, he’s certainly a unique presence.

While "Milkweed", "What Hurts Worse", and EP closer "Talking to Fog" are worthy of joining the Beam canon, the remaining tracks tend to showcase the replaceability of many of his tracks, hardly distinguishable from 14 years ago.

Bramwell strings together fine, grabbing lyrics, but he's become too enamored of his literary bent, trying to pack together poetic devices that head off to nowhere.

You’ll want to listen to some tracks over and over again, some just once, and some for 30 seconds or less. Nevertheless, the tracks that work demonstrate what put Surfer Blood on the map in the first place: power pop ambition, surf rock style, and an implacable conviction to swim forward even when the waters seem too rough to handle.

Despite several hackneyed moments on his debut, Hughes has crafted a solid set of songs that causes feelings as it explores them.

Ten Thousand and One Injuries maintains a relatively tepid pace compared to their previous efforts, but Love is All haven’t exactly mellowed either.

It's just that 44-odd minutes of affecting, tasteful acoustic minstrelry is rather, well, inertia-inducing.

Vocals are delivered straight-forwardly, instrumental solos are kept to a minimum, and there’s a general sense of presenting things honestly in a documentary style. That fits the material which would most naturally be at home in a small-town church.

Reputation will end up being another glaring piece of evidence that fits in perfectly with whatever spin someone is trying to sell, but maybe in a couple of decades when we look back at it all, we'll see it for what it is: a solid if unspectacular set of pop songs.

While some may disparage Blackberry Smoke’s generic stance and the fact that Holding All the Roses seems so overtly radio-ready, there’s something to be said for a band that can rock so relentlessly and still maintain its melodic appeal.

Rebel Heart is very much the first Madonna album that’s actually about Madonna with a majority of these tracks commenting on her own history and accomplishments with varying degrees of success.

Luckily, she pushes forward more than she retreats back on this solid record.

African Electronic Music 1975-1982 is, after all, a bit of a hodgepodge compilation, and that Bebey was indulging his creative spirit more than he was creating music for a mass audience. Still, the more structured tracks serve notice Bebey was an accomplished composer who had several big hits in his native land.

Despite its flaws, Our Earthly Pleasures is a good record of mostly up-tempo UK indie rock.

While Tongue ‘N Cheek is easily more instantly gratifying than Rascal’s previous albums, it lacks the unique perspective and replay value of his more nuanced work.

Ash manage to connect more often than not, and when the songs do work, the riffs and hooks achieve a surprisingly effective balance.

Looking backward lyrically while pushing forward musically, Fite's made a mature album that hasn't lost sense of either youthful energy or concern.

Graveola always shoots for the moon, and often hits its mark, playing with electronic and tropical sounds that add layers of complexity and intrigue to its indie rock. Even when it misses the mark, though, there’s something to be learned.

It's still nothing I'd recommend to the casual listener, but there are interesting ideas at work here.

This album will not please everyone, but it is unique when compared to Tankian's work up to now, and that is what's best for everyone.

Guerilla Toss is headed in the right direction with Eraser Stargazer, but the band could sometimes stand to remember that they can make us dance and scratch our heads at the same time. They don’t have to sacrifice one for the other.

For all the progress and deliberate diversification made over the past two years, one lingering vexation remains: Big Harp isn’t doing anything new or outside the norm.

Happy in Galoshes is a fresh start for a rock star who began his career derided as a lightweight, but who is slowly gaining respect and credibility both in hindsight and looking forward.

So while the songs here bang in all the ways you want, they rarely catch you off guard and they rarely tell you where they’re going.

Black Clouds and Silver Linings is a good album. It’s not great, but it’s their best in a while.

It is jangly, and pleasant, and perfect for the approaching summer season.

Pleasing, accessible, but ordinary and lacking depth.

Newcombe, encouragingly, has turned his career around from the dead-end fans feared, and while this may sound more like home studio two years of tracks solo project it is than a band effort, it will satisfy those who have stuck with BJM over the past 20 years, and it seems, will for as long as Newcombe keeps making records, more modest than before, but thoughtfully crafted.

This is the kind of album that, with its endearingly coarse lo-fi set-up, will leave some frothing at the mouth. Others may find the Parrots’ debut album difficult to grasp, however, especially considering the lack of variety that it offers towards its back end.

Perseverance may reward the diligent seeker, but admirers of their earlier arena rock or stoner rock--with a more raucous delivery of catchy tunes--may feel let down by this metal machine music.

"Much Too Late" is a rant that seems to come out of nowhere and doesn't fit in with anything else on this record. Aside from that, though, this is good stuff.

Because the songs are often about the tour or the people, the lyrics are often unrelatable, with one obvious exception: “100 Unread Messages.”

All the songs on Big Black Coat sound like love songs, all eleven of them.

Unfortunately, there are too many misfires here to make Clapton a standout album. You could, however, probably pare the disc down to a 40-minute LP for a memorable listen. It's a shame someone didn't think of that earlier.

The music here feels upfront and dynamic in its maturity, so even if this record full of young people trying to figure themselves out, as a band Modern Baseball has found a unified and dynamic voice. The question is, though, if you trust what that voice says.

While there is much to relish on Lovers Know, the studio-driven nature of the album feels sterile and rote, shoehorning Burhenn’s wide worldview into narrow refrains and clichéd choruses, thus caging a once wild voice.

While not every cut is a winner, Elliott does a fairly consistent job of gaining the listener's attention through her outrageous lyrics and performance style.

Cruel Summer is certainly an accomplished CD, and perhaps by sheer numbers can claim to be as massive as it assumes, but it's mostly a disc that don't have much unifying character other than "yea, this sounds as big as G.O.O.D. Music's ego."

It is powerful but blunt electronic pop; hooks always aimed to tear, melodrama at an uncomfortable volume. Still it often works.

Overall, I get the sense that Sleep Over, with all of its slit-eyed graveyard intonations, is a band that might actually improve from here, but it's padded instrumental sections evidenced on their first album here might make you feel a little bit, well, sleepy.

Gone are the darker, more gothic underpinnings of her previous efforts, replaced by a shimmering, gossamer pop sheen that carries with it only shadow elements of her former sound.

If anything clouds the reflection offered by The Boxing Mirror, it comes in the form of a couple of odd production choices.

This is a Junip record, but it's hard not to see Fields as another solid entry in Jose Gonzalez's discography, and a fitting next step in a lot of ways.

Sometimes it is the sound of lying in wait, ready to strike. Other times it sounds exhausted with shouldering the troubles of a heavy world. Though the space of these compositions can occasionally fall into a droning slack, for the most part this record is buzzing with a subtle intensity and full of buried gems for you to pull out as you listen.

The group successfully takes the distinguishable drums and textures from traditional Kenyan music and put a new and exhilarating spin on it.

At times, these tracks strain to find a middle ground between pop stardom and thoughtful reverence.

The experiments can sometimes push too far to fit, as on “Imperial Beach”, while other moments (like “Blues in the Afternoon”) seem cut off too soon, but overall Ride the Black Wave is another solid, unexpected sound from the San Diego outfit.

While there's nothing on Topsiders that's outright bad (except perhaps "Mango Tree", but maybe that's just me), it is, all in all, a frustrating record.

There are a handful of tracks here that are more memorable than anything on the 2012 trilogy. But it’s hard not to compare Green Day to several of their long-running fellow punk acts who’ve released strong records in 2016.

Some of the pleasures of Kairos come from the grooves and the surfaces, which can be quite beautiful and lush. Yet just as often, the pleasures are in listening past those, being surprised to find how disarming the lyrics can sometimes be.

Robyn is a sharp, sassy star capable of making heartbreaking, cutting edge, electro-pop seemingly with ease.

The debut release from Boston’s Passion Pit is a warm and inviting collection of electro-pop that calls to mind popular acts like Postal Service while still blazing its own path.

A few of the Hard productions are among Fake’s finest to date, but this release--its short running time aside--works primarily on a collection basis, as if it were two separate EPs gathered for one release and nothing more than that.