It's true that a lot of Musique Automatique can get old really fast.

Though Maximo Park has enough electricity to light Manhattan, there's a faint but inescapable whiff of calculation about them.

An expansive album that ultimately recycles itself.

Last Night is a perfectly serviceable mellow slow-jam R&B record -- and that's a damned shame.

Unwieldy psychedelic dinosaurs like "First Wave Intact" and the title track hint that they're looking to become the new gods of bong-powered thunder -- but then they drop a bomb like the sleek, urbanely scoffing "Road Leads Where It's Led" and instantly re-cast themselves as black-clad top forty gatecrashers looking for a fast ticket to fortune and fame.

Outstanding production, clever lyrics and catchy melodies should add up to the sort of record capable of making a serious splash. Unfortunately, Invisible Invasion demonstrates an unwavering adherence to established musical traditions.

Lovers' vast scope quickly becomes a daunting proposition for its listener.

Warren too often undercuts his successes by trying to impress us with his strangeness.

Finely crafted, if modestly affecting, froth-pop that bubbles over with dreary sexual overtones and loads of youthful paranoia.

The group creates an ornately atmospheric resonance throughout Ambulance Ltd., but their light-weight compositions place the album at serious risk of floating away.

However nice the guitar sounds, though, it's hard to ignore the fact that it's dressing up songs that would be a bit dull without it.

While there's nothing too stunning to be found on Three-Four, there's also nothing really sub-par.

Not all Kinski fans will need, or even want, this disc, and the group seems to understand that.

Six of the seven songs are understated, melodic mid-tempo pieces.... The song that breaks the mold is also the album's best moment[:]"Astronaut."

A curious beast -- dark, confused, displaced and often hopeless.

Wine drinkers' music, you might say -- likeable, pleasant, but lacking in consuming, driving passion.

Inara George's voice is so gorgeous and soothing that you'll immediately believe that you can listen to it forever. Unfortunately, by the fifth or sixth song on All Rise, you'll wonder if you have been listening to her forever.

It's disappointing to hear them following trends rather than inspiring them.

A band more fixated with guitar solos and drunken fist-pumping than in the more nuanced, desperate territory of their former incarnation [Lifter Puller].

Shrill, sharp, twitchy compositions that can be as abrasive as they are compelling.

However, while Looks at the Bird's expanded arrangements are more conventionally "listenable" than much of Field Recordings, this comes at a small price.

When the formula works, the results are quite impressive, but at other times the songs simply fall flat, victims of their own overly simplistic and repetitive arrangements

Mono singlehandedly redefines the concept of dynamics. They are very quiet, and then very loud. It will hurt your head.

The problem is, it all feels a bit contrived.

Look, there's no question whatsoever that this is a well-put-together, carefully arranged and tastefully executed album created by a consummate craftsman. On the other hand, its palette (and, I fear, its audience) is limited to the placid and gently swaying.

The fact that it hides among its excesses a handful of truly excellent rock anthems seems almost like an afterthought, as if, when the band ran out of crazy ideas, they found that there was nothing left to do but write actual songs.

Some moments are exciting, but overall it's a bit cluttered.

The Sleepy Strange offers seven mid-tempo rock songs, most with the inevitable country leanings that a pedal steel creates. These pieces lack anything even remotely resembling a sense of direction or urgency; Japancakes' songs don't travel from Point A to Point B so much as wander up and down the street in front of Point A and dig odd little things out of the lawn. Some listeners will love it, while devotees of single-minded purpose will positively hate it.