In the Dark is a big, loud, dumb record, filled with songs about not respecting women you bang on the bus ("Someone's Daughter"), feeling empty inside ("So Lonely" and "I Don't Even Care About The One I Love") and being for real ("I Am For Real").

There is bad music here, to be sure, and although the intentions are good, they are expressed in the now-common nihilism of our generation, where nothing is sacred and everything is a joke.

Even with slick production the instrumentation is lackluster, missing that rattling punk energy; in their overt politics and complete lack of subtlety, the lyrics are trite.

None of the band’s stylistic flourishes are pulled off well enough to convince you they could do one style effectively, nonetheless the 10 they try out here.

How does this sucker sound? Not very good.

The simpleness just keeps on coming until it's simply deadening.

His lyrics certainly won’t help, but if he wasn’t a Stroke, this album could only be sold out of Fraiture’s trunk at open-mic nights in upstate New York.

Sounds like a band mashing all the current trends and ending up with nothing.

I admire Cunniff's attempt to create positive, breezy music. I just wish it were better.

Twenty seconds into Necessary Evil and I'm cringing, and it's only amplified by the fact that this very same voice once performed 'Heart of Glass' and 'Rapture.'

Mired in the generic neo-new-wave and self-consciously emotive yawn of contemporary fashion indie rock, Athlete's unimaginative music matches up nicely with the shallow lyrics.

[A] ham-fisted attempt at being exactly like everything else.

Earth to the Dandy Warhols is as much of a joke album as "Metal Machine Music," except I don’t see any rock ‘n’ roll scholars finding anything particularly smart in this slop 20 years from now.

Quite possibly the worst record by a great emcee in recent memory.

Timbaland rose to the challenge of making Chris Cornell a solo star by producing arguably the worst album he’s ever had a hand in.