They do work up some magic every now and then.

Heard consecutively, these songs sound disappointingly like one another, and while one good belter about the pain of unrequited love is a blessing, nine in a row turns out to be real drag.

In finding their way back to what works, it too often sounds rehashed to make it a true return to form the band has been yearning to find.

Ruins isn’t a bad record, or a weak one, it’s a boring one.

The genre-spanning approach dilutes what could have been a memorable project, leaving 32 Levels with a storage of untapped potential and only a few beacons shining their fullest light.

Even if we were to give ALLA’s abysmal lyrics a pass, the production doesn't help, either.... Still, Rocky can, at times, be an engaging figure that radiates charisma when he wants.

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is the best possible kind of average record, one that goes out swinging. One that goes for it on every level. A record that, although it isn’t great by any typical metric, is extremely curious and entertaining.

As it stands, Hang isn’t an unpleasant listen, but it’s an oddly frustrating one.

Lurching drum-machine beats, gentle piano chords, and somber string arrangements form the musical groundwork upon which Albarn sighs about the encroaching dominance of technology. If you’re the kind of person who shares this worldview, you may find Everyday Robots an often lovely demonstration of post-millennium tension. If not, the album’s monotony can fast become punishing.

Here, as he seemingly aims for something like hard-won, grizzled wisdom, he often trips over his own lyrical ambition.

Lyrically, High as Hope forsakes Welch’s knack for vibrant imagery and symbolism for more human modifiers and concerns. While it allows her to share more personal information, Welch’s straightforward songwriting means there are no “Howl”’s or “Ship to Wreck”’s present here. ... Despite these critiques, High as Hope surpasses many of them to solidify itself as a decent record.

Rarely does The Documentary 2 feel, or sound, important enough to warrant a double album, especially not one that spans three hours. The Documentary 2 perhaps works best when Game suffuses tracks with growing pains.

It isn’t so much that this record is weak as it is well trodden, and the recipe is out.

This is Diamandis’ break-up album in more ways than the romantic sense. She also severs ties with popular expectation, and the end result is regressive rather than revolutionary.

Unlike the best of the Notwist’s output, Close to the Glass isn’t emotionally nourishing, primarily because there’s no real sense that anything is at stake.

Teeth Dreams is nowhere near the best Hold Steady album, but it shows the band aging in a direction that fills us with… hope? Perhaps that’s all we can ask for.

There’s honestly no real low moment on Life of Pause, but then again, low moments were never this album’s problem. The problem is that there’s really only one high moment.

Banks’ debut, sometimes promising and even wonderful, could have been revelatory.

Clocking in at roughly 47 minutes across a charitable eighteen tracks, Always Strive and Prosper does not seem to break any new ground.

Not To Disappear is an intermittently pretty affair with painfully little substance, an album that spends so much time wallowing in its own self-indulgent loneliness that it fails to offer up anything listeners can actually relate to.

Jack White missed, but in the best possible way. As weak as this record is, its extremely entertaining.

For now, Little Red stands as an example of what happens when the zeitgeist leaves you behind.

It still sounds like The Afghan Whigs, but it sounds more like re-workings of b-sides that may have shined in the sun of another decade.

Neither engaging enough to be exhilarating, nor boisterous enough to be obnoxious, Perpetual Surrender simply gazes at its shoes without making much of an impression at all.

Despite the glorious melodies hidden within so many of these tracks, like the opening duo of “Name for You” and “Painting a Hole”, huge potential is undermined by ham-fisted executions and depths you could wade through.

Static lacks variety. It’s just a short-fused, gloomy rehash, and what little has been changed isn’t really an improvement.

A record that’s all too often content with mediocrity even though its finest moments reveal just how close it came to greatness.

It’s a solid record and one that’s sure to please fans, myself included, even if it doesn’t meet the highs of its predecessor.