All at Once is every bit as self-important as its predecessor, but its anxieties can sometimes feel rote and stretched beyond recognition.

Regardless of if you were hoping for more from Del in his latest offering, Golden Era is a good summer album and a reminder of all of the things you loved about hip-hop growing up.

With the extraordinary you get the perfunctory.

It ain't a perfect, cohesive statement, but Major/Minor packs too much power to be ignored.

With the melodies of Preparations displaying the most striking progress, it’s the beat less bonus disc that stands to be the most exciting part of the package.

Blood Moon is a quiet album made at a time when everything else churned out these days comes with pomp and circumstance at wake-the-dead volume levels.

First Serve isn't a disappointing album by any means-that is, unless you make the mistake of expecting a De La Soul-quality LP from something the pair obviously made for fun-but it isn't a very remarkable one, either.

A solid and passably interesting piece of work by a band that long ago learned its niche.

The album is good that’s for sure; Sheeran is too talented to deliver a sub par album. It suffers in terms of consistency.

So what's the problem? It's too, uh, perfect.

The Bats have become an exciting band in their own right, and The Guilty Office is another solid installment in their discography.

Struggling with the purity of its chosen narrow genre against the potential commercial appeal it helped bring about, Tightrope fails to reach the heights of 2010’s Wildwood, delivered in a time before their progeny took hold.

The first disc finds Kelly honing his already well developed skills at creating effortless dance hooks, but on the second disc Kelly seems to be trapped in staid evangelical idioms and drowning in itchy church choir robes.

While nearly any song on Burn the Maps works effectively, the album as a whole can't quite maintain its momentum with such structural repetition.

Like most of Lidell’s discography, it seems simultaneously old and new, retro-minded and attuned to contemporary trends.

Three’s Co. offers enough “new stuff” to ward off complacency (and criticisms thereof) while further strengthening the sonic and lyrical groundwork the band has already laid.

Echo Ono is a good slab of rock and roll that wastes no time doing anything other than being genuine.

Bay is unable to ever quite match the sheer fire of opening stretch of the album, which is a bit of a bummer. And revisiting that whole matter of treading new ground, well it just doesn’t happen. Still, the pieces are just too good to resist--Bay has plenty to offer.

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.

If Happy Hollow doesn’t astound lyrically, though, it swings with force musically.

Aside from some standout songs, reactions to The Search are largely due to how you feel about the grungy, alt sound.

While Spiral, like Psychic, includes moments of virtuosic integration – songcraft complemented by innovative sonics, innovative sonics contextualized by songcraft – there are other (and more) moments where the album seems to lack a unifying aesthetic.

If nothing else, Rae is to be commended for branching out and trying new styles, but it's that final song that really makes this record worthwhile.

At 16, Taylor Swift already seems too mature to be considered a child. It's to be hoped that when she finds both her place and her full grown voice, she's able to find an accomodation between the country tradition and her very obvious pop sensibilities, because Taylor Swift suggests she has much to offer.

The results are never short of lovely, but the chosen limitations do sometimes lead to less lasting impressions than those left by their more fleshed-out counterparts.

Samson doesn't break any new ground on Provincial; it's familiar stuff, warm and well-worn. That means it can be alternately immediate or unexciting, sometimes within the same song.

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.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with a formulaic sound expertly executed, especially in metal, and in spite of a dearth of truly ambitious moments, Lamb of God sounds as consistent as ever on their fifth album Wrath.

Overall, though, this open-hearted and engaging record boasts enough memorable moments to suggest that Scattergood has a promising future ahead of her.

After a very strong first half, Family starts to get a little shaky in the home stretch.

There's not passion, or spite, or fever, or anything exactly. I'm not sure what to feel when listening to it.

This time, the band added a dash of retro synths that, ironically, help the music sound more fresh.

The Bundles are happy just to follow wherever their unique, usually vivid, sometimes perverse pop imaginations take them all by themselves, but there are enough good reasons for you to go along for the ride, too.

The music isn't what anyone would call edgy. .... Sun on the Square's greatest strengths are Karen Peris's vocal melodies. After repeated listens, they have a pleasant way of nestling into your brain, regardless of the lyrical content.

God Loves Ugly might not be the freshest or most innovative hip-hop album you'll hear, but it does have an edge. It's also more complicated than it seems on the surface.

Sadier seems to have taken a new direction with Something Shines, finding a nice middle ground between her last two albums, yet somehow erring a little too far on the side of safety.

This is just a good album--and at the end of the day, sometimes that’s all you need.

While it’s thoughtful of Nicks to dig deep into her unreleased catalog, the middle third of the album drags on a little too much as the middle five songs can, and should have, all been cut down by a minute each.

Hyperview finds them wandering in a more melodious direction, sometimes for better or worse. The album may not be completely game-changing, but it rings like a natural (occasionally unsteady) evolution.

Soft Will, like previous Smith Western albums, still brims with hooks but it never quite resolves if it’s still just good-time summer pop, dark-night-of-the-soul rumination or some sort of Summerteeth-esque middle ground.

Unraveling may not be the best We Were Promised Jetpacks record, which still goes to These Four Walls, but it is the album that demarcates a clear if ultimately less certain direction.

Though Even If It Kills Me remains far from breaking ground any time soon, MCS’s third full-length release definitely stays true to the format Mr. Pierre and his band mates have seemingly perfected over the years.

On the whole, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life is a truly good album and a number of the songs on it are notable successes, but the stark shift in sonic style sets it apart from the rest of Tune-Yards' discography and not in a good way. It seems safe, it seems almost timid at times.

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.

This album is a testament that shows Mahal can still make a solid folk blues record. One just presumes a maestro should do more than that.

Desire Lines is a silver lining record, one that isn’t particularly compelling (especially relative to My Maudlin Career, which felt like new emotional territory for the band), but is impressively maintained.

Living Things is a very good entry that's simply not as special as its precursor. All in all, Linkin Park has always been a bit unique and the best at what they do, and they continue to excel on this album. Just don't expect too much from it.

Unfortunately, All Jacked Up is everything you might expect from a hurried follow-up to a record setting debut. Shunning ambition, it aims for consolidation.

It’s absorbing and fascinating, but for as much as it would seem to be the polar opposite of Surrounded by Silence, it actually suffers from a remarkably similar affliction, that being that we, as listeners, are offered no insight into what Herren is trying to say.

But for every misstep early in the album, the final tracks deliver a compelling argument in favor of Evelyn’s continued creative relevance.

On the whole, it’s a good second step, but hopefully step three is more in line with the shock and awe the first album contained.

Honest emotions become sentimentality, as Bedingfield is constantly singing about herself rather than as herself.

It’s another batch of seemingly uninspired grunge rockers lacking the sinewy venom that was the hallmark of early Mudhoney.

The album, one that focuses on and attempts to make peace with various anxieties, is at its best when the distorted and confused clash with sunburst pop structures.

When the World Comes Down houses a pretty vacuous core. If you are young and/or naïve enough to dig this whole shtick, though, you’re going to have the time of your life.

That’s not to say A Fool for Everyone is a below-sub-par record by any means. Its just that there is more potential for these songs than he allowed them to have.

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.

You can chock the long track list up to zeal, because Harlem gives that off in spades on this album. They don't sound hidden and bored behind all the haze, but instead work their way through it, and in the end offer up a solid record with Hippies.

While it’s a long way from the heights he once reached, ununiform carries more promise than Tricky has shown in some time.

With this record, it’s nice to see [producer] Ant... branching out into hints of reggae and jazz-rock.

Cardinals III & IV is not a bad album. If you are willing to put a little bit of time and effort into the listening experience, it might be better than not bad.

Allez Allez doesn’t lack for energy, but the moments we expect--i.e. the bluesy shuffle of “2 Guitars Sing”, the sheer speed of “Loud Dumb and Mean”--while they may sound good individually, create some ear fatigue as they pile up one after another.

The Will to Death is an existential song cycle that finds Frusciante more dedicated to the "song" than ever before -- and even though the record isn't exactly perfect, his unwavering desire to create and explore, to cut an album and move on to the next pending project, is admirable and easy to appreciate.

The best parts of Among the Leaves show Kozelek stepping out from behind the blurry, echoing melancholy of his sound and showing us his humor, his insight, his knack for storytelling. There's enough of that to make this record solid, but the sad fact is that Mark Kozelek is also trying to put walls up between us and him through too much of this 73-minute record, and the truth is he succeeds there too, to his own detriment.

It's yet another example of talented people looking backward for inspiration and getting stuck there.

The album is diverting, pleasant, and completely undemanding; it’s the perfect soundtrack to a sunny afternoon or a road trip down the highway.

If Normal Happiness isn’t prime Pollard, neither does it fall into his voluminous discard pile.

Before, the most crazed cacophony could impossibly capitulate into swooning grandeur, but now that disparity just isn’t so striking. The dynamic is still in play, but with the edges rounded off, any tension is diminished.

The best parts of Midnight Rose are scattered throughout, which thankfully diminishes the impact of its weaker moments.

I'll Be Your Girl would stand as a fine but forgettable work on its own, yet when compared to the pedigree of its predecessors, it's quite disappointing in every way.

If you're not as melody-obsessed and anti-repetition as I am, Little Joy could really make your day. However, despite some high moments, the ostenati is too rampant to really pique my interest.

While the new audio mix that accompanies this reissue (no bonus tracks included) might entice the audiophiles and give observers further reason to delve into its inner meanings, the sheer profundity of Waters’ weighty subject matter still leaves little room for immediate attachment. A noble experiment from an edgy, outspoken prophet and pontificator, Amused to Death isn’t exactly the stuff of easily consumable entertainment.

Sure, there's some filler here and there but it's far from a Frank Black B-sides collection.

Skills, bells and whistles are getting in the way and the music needs to go through its own electronic breathing process.

Ski Mask is a solid Islands album, but it lacks the thematic and musical cohesion of Thorburn’s best work.

Overall, Voyageur isn't a bad effort, and it kind of creeps up on you the more you spend time with it.

Turin Brakes have by no means become a bad band. They are still writing great songs and Knights' harmonizing is still alluring. They just seem a little lost.

Here Come the Bombs is a fine solo debut. Though it mostly makes you recall Coombes's previous heights and doesn't really add much of a new sound, his songwriting has always been good, fun, and catchy.

It’s great to have Kristofferson back writing songs again, although it still feels like he’s only half the way back.

There is something timeless about Erasure’s sound that provides a certain comfort if you musically came of age listening to them.

If Yard evinces any steps forward for Slow Pulp, they are baby steps. There is an argument to be made, though, for being consistently good rather than only intermittently great.

No Chocolate Cake snatches the baton from Major Lodge Victory, which pretended a decade-long hiatus didn't happen, but this new record is better and stronger (if neither harder nor faster).

Mohn isn't a release that feels entirely essential, but it definitely provides a variety of moods and has a fairly dynamic three-act swing that makes it well worth perusing if Kompakt's sounds have pleased you in the past.

It's possible that 13 songs are too much for the sort of vision that Hinson is chasing, but it's a fine heartfelt effort that rewards as richly as it disappoints.

It doesn't take a genius to see that this is a wicked concept on paper: Marshall's got the voice and the vibe to make it work, but there's a nagging sense that it wasn't properly planned out.

Situation is a cool, collected set of songs from the veteran Canadian rapper, but you shouldn’t be expecting anything revolutionary--at least, not from the music.

Unfortunately, Free Kitten’s ambivalence toward rocking--not even the occasional guest appearance from Dinosaur Jr. guitarrorist J. Mascis can convince them to do it--becomes a liability when Cafritz takes the microphone.

Living on the Other Side is a delightful slice of sunny, hazy, California rock, the perfect soundtrack to a lazy Sunday afternoon spent daydreaming.

As a collection, it’s hard to take in Privilege (Abridged) as the best of a larger collection; it’s like listening to an off-kilter best-of record with a theme masked and bound to it.

Origin Vol. 1 lives up to its title in the sense that it shows TSOOL fully immersing its music in its classic rock influences. On the other hand, the disc doesn't have the same epic scope of Behind the Music, and as a result it's still something of a letdown.

Flockaveli is poised to become to the Trap South what Group Home's Livin' Proof means to graduates of NYC's Golden Age: a producer classic littered with verses so whack they become endearing in their special way.

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

There’s real talent here. However, these unflinchingly honest punks still have yet to figure out what to do with all the noise they channel.

Overall, Esser delivers a solid pop debut for a guy who many would have dismissed as “just” the drummer for a lackluster post-punk band.

These tunes offer a nice shift on an album that can sometimes seem more like an imitation of the past than something personally inspired by it.

While Dark Matter is less than groundbreaking, it's certainly fresh, funky and possessed of the confidence of a man who has nothing left to prove.

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

As a hopeful warm up to something more, and something more substantial, the OneTwoThreeFour EP marks the welcome return of a band that had been generally quiet for far too long.