Sixes & Sevens feels more like movie-hopping at an art-house multiplex, an exercise in genre formats and stolen identities.

Waiting for the Sunrise doesn’t signal the end of Vandervelde’s party, but one hopes he gets his second wind rather than becoming satisfied and heading off to bed.

Millan's first solo effort is solid, but it feels like more of an experiment than anything.

The songs could have been chosen more wisely, especially because some significant fan favorites are absent.

We know this routine well; it's comfortable and pleasing to the ears. But throw on a disc by one of the originators (Pavement) or the cream of the modern crop (Wolf Parade) and Tapes 'n Tapes is trumped hands-down.

Ultimately, Harris appears to have simply swapped one formula for another, and if there’s to be a Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 he will need to discover at least a few new tricks. ... [But] there are encouraging signs here that the Harris of old hasn’t been entirely lost for good.

Despite the missteps, the band still emanates a certain cheekiness that's rare these days, especially for a lot of oh-so-serious psych outfits.

Ultimately the album is merely a reward for sitting through a season of reality-show high jinks.

Producer Brian Eno has guided them towards more expansive instrumentation and bombastic atmosphere, but the center of the music often lacks real heaviness.

The Good Feeling Music Of...is good for a few plays and might raise a few smiles along the way.

The album has its moments, like a nice surprise bridge toward the end of the title track and the slowly building, percussive arc of “Circles.” But You Can’t Take it With You just fails to make a strong case for itself.

There is nothing awful here, but Loose never meets the dizzyingly high expectations it was saddled with.

Complaining about a lack of hooks can be painted as unrefined, but frankly Era Extraña hasn't shown me why it deserves hallowed deconstruction, it may be weightier, but there's absolutely no question which Neon Indian album has the most stick.

For better or for worse, Stephens and Tyson Vogel have thrown in their lot with that angst, and thematically, The Bloom and the Blight is less of the departure it hopes to be.

It's disturbing like a Mike Patton record, with blink-and-you'll-miss-it lyrics that serve as confrontational one-liners.

The album often ventures into the cheesiest territories of pop music, but this is Rihanna's strongest effort to date.

With Consolers of the Lonely, the Raconteurs are still content to play record-collection plunderers, but instead of ripping what they can from the '60s, they spend much of the album as twenty-first-century stand-ins for Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Oyster Cult and Three Dog Night, playing big, limp, calculated rock 'n’ roll.

Novak and company are capable of writing great hooks and snotty lyrics, which prevents this album from being a total waste. This time around, it just seems like they got a little too tied up with exemplifying some sort of glam-rock, don't-care-about-anything attitude.

It is entirely listenable, but this sort of album suggests the power to either break or fortify hearts. To that extent, it does not follow through.

An album of sporadic delights much like Dance Hall at Louse Point , this is a footnote in Harvey’s career, but not one that’s entirely unworthy of investigation.

Just as she was becoming irrelevant, Lil’ Kim returns with her hardest, bravest and most exciting album to date.

The members of Tha Alkaholiks may not have wrapped up their stellar career with the bang many had hoped for, but I'll still drink to this.

This mature Ryan Adams gives us 11 songs on Ashes and Fire that are perfectly fine, a few bumps but most of it is solid with a few that really stand out.

It's simply a case of the repetition and lack of attention to detail exposing that, as pretty as Beach Fossils is, it could be better.

It's the schizophrenic sound of a band starting over a decade later.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is supposed to sound like a DJ set from an extra-terrestrial, but it often comes off as a random smattering of thoughts from an over-stimulated producer.

He clearly yearns to evoke the mixture of fun and grit that made "Get Rich or Die Tryin’" such a remarkable effort, but he’s misguided in his approach.

Both Lights, for all its faults and successes, remains a worthy exploration.