Ultimately, it's not a bad album, but not the greatest either.

Ultimately, it feels like too much is crammed in and AFI can't tell if they want to go pop, goth, retro or symphonic. And with something that schizophrenic, it undercuts a lot of what could have been diamonds in the rough.

I think the punk rock attitude is to not easily be impressed with technical musicianship that doesn’t make you feel much of anything. American Head didn’t hit me in the heart or in the gut, but it did make me want to go back and listen to “She Don’t Use Jelly” again and, if nothing else, that’s a positive that comes from this experience.

Quiet Slang was the stripped-down version of the band so we don't need acoustics like "Nobody Say Nothing" or "Nowhere Bus" or the piano-driven closer "Bar No One". They're catchy, sure, but I mean, they're songs we've heard over and over so if it ain't new, at this point, please fix it. I do commend the band for attempting to cut a new road with songs like "Stiff" but again, it's all about sex appeal here and I just can't connect with a band and a vocalist that comes off like a 17 year-old who is now trying too hard.

The songs are well constructed and the playing sounds authentic. ... The issue comes when Corgan begins to sing, and it’s not his nasally voice that doesn’t work. ... He still, too often, thinks his voice deserves to be the loudest in the room. He’s still a city boy hung up on big ideas.

Cook nails it in the earliest stages, making it a bit front-loaded.

A few songs impress but the majority is meant to fill radio stations and leave you wondering where the magic this band held went. Probably outer space...

I did enjoy hearing Jetty Bones' cooing voice on "Icicles (Morning Glow)" but other than that there aren't that many songs to phone home about. There aren't even rock ballads a la "Minnesota" and while the closer "Hallmark" tries to mix aggression with toned-down indie licks to somewhat appeal to folks like me, it's just not the impact I expected from the band this time around.

Thrashing Through the Passion is easily the band’s softest album to date. Where most Hold Steady albums fill the room with sound, there’s a lot of quiet and negative space on this album. While the band’s other albums wrap you up in an awkward hug of emotions and drag you through to a catharsis, this album is passive.

The spine and overall potential for a great record is definitely here but it was all about adding meat to these bones, and sadly, SSPU just comes off way too lean.

It’s not that The Black Album is a very bad album, just that it feels part of a larger calculus that’s so carefully planned out that it lacks any of the artistic spontaneity that their first two albums had, which is exactly what the band’s been missing ever since Pinkerton.

It's classic Fidlar. However, while the musical style's sure to leave fans scratching their heads, peer a bit deeper and you'll see their signature's very much there--it's just, well, diluted and funkier than ever.

If you don’t want to listen to it, don’t. Weezer couldn’t care less. But for anyone that likes a good clean pop cover by a band who is very good at cover songs, hey, here’s ten songs for you.

Good Charlotte know how to write a hit and a hook but their honorable intentions to be memorable fall short.

Ye doesn’t feel like that reinvention. If anything, this album feels safe, a word I imagine is insulting to the artist. ... However, Kanye has an incredible ear for production, more apparent on Pusha T’s DAYTONA. There are some excellent moments on Ye, but with only twenty-four minutes of music, some doesn’t cut it.

As it is, this gives us too many long, dull spots across the nine tracks and 48 minute run time. To be fair, there is some really good stuff here. There’s at least enough that hardcore Ministry fans are going to want to buy Amerikkkant. You just have to wade through a fair amount of filler to find it.

This album and The Party’s Over share many of the same problems that the band can't seem to shake off. Whether you were fan of Public Enemy, Cypress Hill or Rage Against The Machine first I think you’ll agree that this whole project just comes off as clumsy.

While Luciferian Towers evokes a lot of gorgeous imagery to soothe the soul, it lacks a lot of inventiveness and imagination I usually associate with the band.

Good Nature is mellow and laid-back, everything they intended it to be. Hopefully, they add a hard rock or indie edge on the next effort as I think that sound suits them better.

Right now they still seem to be in the reactionary phase, rebelling against the slick pop punk produced for Warner Bros. Ideally they’ll find a happy medium but for now we have You’re Welcome.

Apart from running repetitive with no real memorable tracks in the back-end, it's the cheese factor that ends up hampering the show.

This album continues to keep the Have Mercy brand stagnant and disappointingly makes surpassing their debut a tall order. "Smoke and Lace" and "Coexist" are probably the only songs that recapture the magic of the first record. Everything else tries too hard to repeat the slow/loud dynamic they pride themselves on.

The lyrics are cheesy and uninspiring at best.

Much like peer Frankie Cosmos, the sugarcoated uneasiness works, especially when done well. Swear I’m Good At This is a solid debut.

It’s a solid listen in its own right.

While some of it lacks creativity, expression, and comes off a tad bland, you do get a sense of what could have been, had they just unchained themselves a bit more. Ironically, the songs that stand out the most here are the ones that ape tracks off Sing The Sorrow.

These are songs about everyday life at its most basic level. You'll have to decide for yourself whether that's enough.

This isn’t horrible, but I can really only recommend Dead to the World to hardcore Helmet fans. The rest of you should just go listen to Meantime.