A mediocre follow-up with nothing as great as "Redneck Woman" or "Here for the Party."

Whibley cleans out his soul closet over operatic hard rock, rain-swept balladry and bad Green Day opera punk--often crammed into the same song. If he's trying to show breakups are arduous, it worked.

It's well-meaning, well-crafted and confused. Sometimes versatility can be a vice.

It's like a Portlandia satire of the world's most studious band.

Frontman John Rzeznik remains an assured singer. But amid his vocal polish is a new sense of strain, and for a band this lightweight, the additional anxiety doesn't flatter.

Unfortunately, the band gets drowned out by weak vocals and synth goop – Steve Howe takes only a few disappointingly brief guitar solos, beyond his acoustic "Solitaire."

A largely vocals-free mishmash of brittle beats, buzzy sound effects and hipster ambience that sounds great when Dizzee Rascal is rhyming over it but cold and tinny on its own.

Wrath opens and closes with spans of placid subtlety--a welcome touch that doesn't make up for all the raging roteness in between.

The Borneo-born Avi gives much of the album a warm, old-jazz feel, but flat lyrics like "I shed tears I couldn't dry" make several of the songs sound like woodshedding material.

Music is the Weapon is a stale, mixed bag that aspires to the global ubiquity and incredible commercial success of Major Lazer’s 2015 spastic moombahton anthem “Lean On.”

Gomez may be the most boring teen-pop star of her generation. She makes Ashley Tisdale seem like Lady Gaga.

Despite a handful of strong cuts, Destiny Fulfilled sounds like the kind of album you make when you're saving your best material for your next solo album.

Long one of rock's most innovative artists, Gabriel has never sounded more out of touch.

Prince does his Hendrix thing over turgid live-band grind, and songs like ''Whitecaps'' and ''Aintturninround,'' where 3rdEyeGirl step out front, have a New Age-y alt-rock feel, like No Doubt in a Funkadelic phase.

It's a crew album--of course it sucks. The depressing thing is how much. [28 Dec 2006, p.114]

Ho-hum singer-songwriterly tunes packed with sentimental poetry. [1 May 2003, p.56]

It's when Staind crank down the sludge and slacken the tempos that things get heavy in a bad way. [11 Aug 2005, p.72]

The production... is as sleek and soulless as the rhymes.

On album number (gulp) 10, 311 are still really freaking psyched to be 311.

The result is the most boring music ever recorded by a teenager.

Smacks of trying too hard.

His handlers clearly hope he's the next Bieber; sadly, there's not an ounce of fun in him. Unfriend.

It's proof that, just when you least expect it, he can still rage compellingly.

Too much of the LP sounds like someone cranked up the brightness setting on her early work, destroying what made her unique in the process.

In an era where disco has found a second life all over the pop charts, Green's throwback barely makes a thud.

The arrangements treat Mitchell's tunes as precious artifacts, making little attempt to seduce the listener.

Dilated Peoples are still painfully tame on the mike, especially Evidence, who hits a dubious milestone in "The Platform" by becoming the first rapper ever to utter the words "between you and I." The vocals sink the music: This is the kind of hip-hop album where the MC compares himself to Steve Howe, and while you hope he means the baseball player, you know in your heart he really means the guitarist from Yes.

The band's performances are utterly competent yet numbingly risk-free.