It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just what they’re doing, and they run it down with an unfettered zeal.

It is not all this good on Shots, but when it is, Ladyhawk show they can stand with most any rock band going today.

Her sound sure is pretty, but it doesn’t hook you in the way, say, Cat Power’s self-destruction does.

It may not quite match up to their best work—which is, for my money, The Ghost of Fashion—but it’s a sure sign that they’re on their way back to that high-watermark.

Overall, it’s tough to tell what the band was thinking here. If their intention was to branch out, they’ve done it, but the songwriting quality has definitely suffered.

Simply put, Enjoy the Company isn't an overly grossly spectacular record; it is just good time rock and roll.

They found new ways to get to the drama and even paused along the way for some subtlety. You won’t find such traits on La Petite Mort. And although it resulted in a good James album, something tells me that they probably won’t be able to get away with this again.

Three of the 19 songs on Our Country are recycled from Davies's past. ... The remaining 16 tunes range anywhere from not bad to terribly awkward. A great many of them are marred by spoken-word introductions or interludes that only show Ray Davies's age while imparting none of his subtlety.

It’s catchy and shows faint glimmers of his true talent, but it comes off like a tossed off, half baked batch of outtakes from sessions where his more impressive music was produced.

The homogeneity is so pervasive that the few exceptions stand out.

Starboy has something for each individual, this is without a doubt, but it has nothing for everybody as a collective, a balance he managed on his first three releases.

[There] is lovely thematic unity, which comes close to making Our Version of Events a satisfying album experience rather than just a series of songs that are largely easy-to-love. Unfortunately, by the time Sandé finishes up with "Hope", an unusually cloying, overreaching secular prayer co-written with Alicia Keys, ballad fatigue has already set in.

There is certainly a lot of dumb going on across #METIME‘s hour, but its seamless transition from absurdity to a more pathos-oriented final third creates a dimension that acknowledges 2 Chainz doesn’t have to be a jester to entertain us. He just enjoys the ride.

High Life doesn’t suffer from any real clunkers and is more consistently sonically rewarding, so that makes it the ‘better’ album. And that’s what ultimately makes it the more frustrating of the two; even the more successful collection put together by Eno and Hyde is mostly just further proof that they haven’t yet made the album together that they’re clearly capable of.

Kingdom Come is a solid record, and entirely worth the cost just to hear Jay-Z spit a new song, but in the end it just can’t live up the expectations it tattoos all over itself.

Blow Your Head, then, is your basic pedestrian DJ mix of old and new tunes, though it is merely collected rather than mixed or interpreted by Diplo himself. As a result, there's really not much to get excited about here: some songs stink, some songs sound neat for a minute or two, and it all goes by without provoking much attention from the listener.

Her first first full-length record in four years is a risky, yet utterly sincere, retro-pop gem.

Even with only four songs, Meantime displays a mastery of subtle variation, achieving sonic complexity through the repetition, layering, and balance of disparate rhythms and textures.

Volume 3 is so incredibly derivative of their previous two original recordings that you could easily splice in any number of older tunes in this new tracklisting, and you’d be hard pressed to discern which songs are old(er) and which are new.

It’s a solid collection of beats and it’s interesting to go back and see how Araab reworked a song from another artist in order to make it something original. Poor design choices, however small they may seem, hold this back from being as enjoyable to listen to as it could have been.

Bottom line, this is harmlessly pleasant commercial-ready indie pop at its most vapid that will probably be heard quite a bit this summer.

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

The electronica genre wasn't a bad one to dabble in, but what Was I The Wave? is missing is more punch and pizzazz, more depth musically.

While Ja is unquestionably a gifted vocalist, he won’t be in the league of the Luthers and the Teddys (or even the Anthony Hamiltons and Maxwells) until his lyrics overcome cliché in the name of “ghetto realness”.

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.

At the end of the day, however, Pebble to a Pearl is still a great record, radiating and capturing a nostalgic vibe that would sound faked and forced in the hands of others.

On the latter half of the album the "guests" become the primary vocalists and Perry wafts in and out, a guest on his own record. Put it all together and though the legendary Upsetter of Perry's golden years has not been resurrected, on Rise Again he's closer in spirit to Perry than he has been in quite some time.

Whilst Aloha Moon isn't quite the immaculate conception, its "Crystal visions, astral hearts and stars" still conjure enough supernatural, spellbinding spectacle to charm the most ardent of sceptics.

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.

It’s Alive may be rockabilly ‘Royale with Cheese’ but it’s still rollercoaster fun at times.

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 songs on History are great, the arrangements lovely, if occasionally a little overly slick.

The outward textures here are not raw rock but processed pop, more maximalist than anything the band has put forth since. Still, the bones are the same; this is as sincere a face of the group as on any of their international commercial releases, no matter how surprising its sounds. Tinariwen, it turns out, fares well in a number of different aesthetic frameworks, and Kel Tinariwen serves as a testament to their artistic strength.

Evil Urges sounds like an album that falls short of its mark, committing the whole to a sound that ultimately weakens and breaks down its parts.

The songs on Noise Floor don’t rank with his best, but there’s a reckless spirit to the endeavor that’s alluring, and representative of his music overall.

He is as American as apple pie and as crotchety as Grampa Simpson. You will not find anyone in the music business today who is more real than Seasick Steve.

It's a complex, challenging album that does not meet its listeners halfway; if you're up for spending some time in Watt's world, though, there's really nothing else like it.

One might argue with the programming and selection in a “should have” sort of way, but it is more beneficial to just appreciate the good stuff that’s here and give thanks to Texas as well as Jackson Browne for their respective contributions to music.

If at times Rennen suffers under the weight of its own trendiness, it finds redemption in SOHN’s unmistakable craftsmanship and ear for nuance.

Mister Pop isn’t going to set anyone’s world alight, but it might make yours a fractionally nicer place to be.

There are several solid tracks and almost no terrible ones. A good portion of the disc, however, is just plain mediocre or leaves you with a feeling of musical blue balls.

A couple of the songs manage to step above '90s nostalgia, mostly due to Alexakis' lyrics working well.

Even though Infestissumam isn’t a masterpiece by any means, this infernal troupe has written an interesting if not immediate record that while lacking the translucent hooks of its eponymous predecessor, shows that the shrouded conjurers of Ghost B.C. have plenty of tricks left under their black robes.

Overall this is a surprising, satisfying set, one gives us another angle on a band that seems to be always shifting.

So while tastemakers are spinning his records and partygoers are responding (though it should be noted, that the biggest response, unsurprisingly, came to “Bad and Boujee”), the actual act of getting through Big Sean’s latest album is a tiring one.

Adrian Thaws is one of his most successful attempts to achieve reconciliation between the strengths of his established sound, and his need to progress as an artist.

With Love and Squalor is pretty much everything you've come to expect from neo-post-punk music: disco beats, prominent basslines, and those ever-angular guitars, all playing under some clipped vocals that have a distinctly British cast to them. And yet, interspersed among the more-of-the-same is a sense of more recent rock history.

What Rainer Maria have lost in scope and audacity they have perhaps gained in sheer accessible melodicism and urgency on Long Knives Drawn.

A new pop classic...

An intriguing effort.

Often, the space created by their work feels like a teenager's bedroom with the door shut; while you know some serious sulking is happening on the other side, you know also that the misery is an indulgent luxury, a comfortable retreat from the real pain that comes from actually struggling to fix things.

This is a very solid effort from a composer who's got his mechanics figured out and now has to find new ways to expand them.

The album is classy and appealing, and although it’s not particularly challenging, it’s still a lot more than just background music.

On the rest of the album the strength of his singing is less evident; it never makes your jaw drop while you’re listening. But it’s a key reason this album is so enjoyable.

What’s maddening and frustrating is that Trey has put out enough great material this year to make a truly brilliant album.

Very few bands could come back from such a long break and still create a follow-up album that is even better than its predecessor. Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 have done just that, and in doing so, left fans desperately hoping that they won't have to wait eight years for the third album to come out.

Gravez will compel you, forcing you to look at your own mortality, and leave you feeling like you just saw a ghost.

Despite Rudimental’s non-stop performances, several of the songs drag.

Suuns have created a record which doesn’t thumb its nose at the existential problems of listener in enjoying and listening to music, but identifies with it and mounts the only truly acceptable response: make music reflective of, and worthy of, our scattered brains.

As background music, this is a well-produced rock album where each song has its own feel and often has solid guitar riffs. Sometimes there are even big sing-along choruses. It's only upon close listening that Tasjan's lyrics become an issue.

A bloated misfire.

With a delight/track tally of about one in four, this compilation won't make Lali Puna a lot more fans (nor does it deserve to), but it will keep their fey indie followers convinced of their own dreaminess whilst providing the illusion of alternative cred and strangeness.

So take Remember as a legitimate, new way to approach the group’s solid collection of music, but don’t expect an emotional experience. It’s a text, not a souvenir.

In form as well as content, The Fall is more like a pet project than a full-fledged release.

For a man standing behind the curtain, McLamb is strangely an impotent ruler and wizard, at least here on Ruby Red.

Hannon has largely toned down his extravagant look-at-me persona, and decided instead to rely on the quality of his song-writing.

We Are the Night is not a return to past glories, but a brave, occasionally faltering but massively enjoyable lunge in new directions, the sound of two frighteningly smart musicians emerging with confidence from a period of uncertainty.

There's a sense of passion on Order of the Black that we honestly haven't heard since the band's first album.

It’s a rare album that is not only great on it’s first listen, but just as remarkable on it’s tenth.

It’s a good sign for the band that you’re left craving more so intensely once you’re through with The Singles; in many ways, this is the most promising dance music to come out of NYC in quite a while. Now that they’ve primed us, we can only hope Free Blood can deliver more than half a classic next time.

While Continuum doesn’t necessarily contain a sure-thing pop hit, it’s one of the few mainstream pop/rock albums that’s satisfying from the beginning to the end.

For an album that sounds as unique as this one, at its core, it’s really fairly ordinary.

Achieving that key balance between accessibility and bravely forward-thinking is far from easy in extreme metal, but The Way of All Flesh pulls it off with aplomb.

Overall, the good songs on this album outweigh the average and just plain boring tracks.

Imperium is a mix of the contrarily scruffy and the magnetically mesmerizing.

Overall, this vocal-less EP prefers the introverted direction of the majority of the LP. As such, Luna’s reunion pair drifts into music made for the morning after, or the afternoon of.

Kennedy can indeed wail, but he's a gleaming simulacrum. And this plasticity makes him too smooth against Slash's authentic grit.

All the different ways to think about Tomorrow, In a Year seem to have the opposite effect of the one that was intended. They constrict the listener’s imagination and don’t allow for any room to breathe.

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.

Out of Touch, at its core, is an enjoyable pop album. Kalevi's voice and ever-so-slightly off-kilter electronic sensibilities are what make it distinctly his. He takes the easy and warps it into modern art, and while the sounds can get muddy, especially when it comes to his words, there's something to be said for shying away from the comfort of squeaky-clean sounds. Out of Touch allows for a more luscious aural dive.

An album of solemn splendor, as exquisite as it is emotionally direct, grounded in jazz rhythms and an acoustic guitar.

As it stands, this selection of songs did not translate well to the sterile environment of the studio, and, because of that, the final product falls flat on feeling the spirit.

Many of these songs would benefit from a bit of contrast in terms of dynamics and tempos. And oh yeah, it would be great to understand a few lines of lyrics here and there.

With three unreleased songs and three remixes, it’s not so much of an extension of their latest long-player as it is a way to color in the gaps between the Scottish (mostly) instrumental band’s old sound and their new sound.

Does it succeed on its own terms? In the case of Van Weezer, the answer isn't clear. It's too patchy to be a Yes but far too tuneful and breezy to be a No.

Organ Music feels too much like a mere exercise by the end of its thirty-seven minutes-a melancholic, dark, interesting experiment, but one without conclusive results.

The haunting melodies and string arrangements enhance the CD's contemplative mood, bringing us into the artist's reverie about emotional pain and art's dependence on such painful experiences.

A sophomore effort that doesn't have as many drawbacks as one might assume.

It may not be their best album, but where it doesn’t really add to their legacy, neither does it really tarnish.

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

It’s by turns engrossing, boring, and terrifying. Just let it wash over you and try not to think too much about it. You’ll be glad you did.

One wishes that the group took a little more time, if not in honing their lyrics, then in not ripping off classic bands of yore, as there is something to be said for taking one’s influences and pureeing it in a blender, rather than simply just copying what came before, which, unfortunately, Shonen Knife sometimes lapse into here.

Adams should be commended for doing a fine job of showing off Nelson’s considerable talents on a diverse collection of songs and styles.

This isn't meant to be a record to set the world on fire, it's a record meant to capture specific set of places and feelings, which it does wonderfully.

This has turned out to be the album of their career.

All things considered Reformation Post-TLC feels like a backward step.

Familiarity dominates the group's latest effort, Friends For Now. It succeeds in setting a mood of a rather altered state of mind, but the tunes resemble one another more often than not.

The 2011 album this most resembles is funk-rock guitarist Dennis Coffey's self-titled comeback album--a bunch of pretty good soul workouts with lots of guests, some filler, and just enough personality to get by.