The songwriting is certainly not poor and Glenn’s voice is far from shot, but what makes this album so average is the combination of the lazy arrangements and the poor production which makes the album sound as if the veteran vocalist is singing over a backing CD.

There is no time to make sense of preceding chaos, probably because there is nothing worth making sense of.

Actress is known to be deliberate and, one might argue, almost ponderous in how he paces his work, but AZD is especially bottom-heavy in concept. Like in an adult store, the best stuff is at the back.

You’re Not As ___ As You Think feels like the conclusion to something that was never started in the first place, it hasn’t earned any of the things it takes without asking, it’s a shallow pretender desperately fumbling in the deep end, and it’s an unfortunate development for a band that used to write dumb, fun songs about girls.

Frankly, Mercer’s unfiltered production makes Heartworms an exhausting listen.

NAV is front-to-back one of the blandest takes on the genre so far.

By pop standards you could do a lot worse, but ÷ is not an album that will test the ceiling of Sheeran’s tantalizing potential.

Near to the Wild Heart of Life succeeds only in proving that the Japandroids of 2017 will have a hard time matching their former glories.

While the instrumental mastery still impresses as always, the end result remains enjoyable but ultimately missing a key aspect of what made the driving, mechanical sound of Meshuggah so worthwhile in the first place.

A few rays of light cut through the murky and mediocre experience, but when all is said and done, Light We Made is like that dream you struggle to remember in the morning: forgotten.

The bloat of Transcendence seems to be a problem inherent to post-2011 DTP, and appears to be symptomatic of a group trying to deviate around a winning formula of the past rather than one keen on developing the innovation they were built to achieve.

For This We Fought the Battle of Ages doesn’t feel like it surpasses space and time, or bridges a gap between consciousness and dreams. Once it’s over, it’s forgotten fairly easily, save maybe a couple of Vernon’s stronger melodies. It digs its nails into your scalp, but doesn’t truly grab at the psyche.

III is acceptable only to the loyal fans, as it ultimately does little right and sees Periphery at an all-time creative low, failing to improve on any of their faults. For all the instrumental complexity and quirky songwriting choices, it will just sound forced to most.

Not unlike The Heroin Diaries, their latest effort suffers at times from inconsistency and filler, but at its very best, it’s a collection of highly engaging anthems that accomplish exactly what they set out to do.

It’s a shame Eno had to make so much of The Ship’s artistic vision. Divorced from pretence and divorced from the rest of the album, his final moments here are enjoyable.

The bookends of this record show flashes of potential--with gems sprinkled in between--but far and wide, this is a disappointingly vanilla offering from a group that has already proven itself to be capable of ensnaring our minds and ears. If you’re looking for a silver lining, though, at least these guys have matured.

It’s a pleasantly relaxed portrait of a band kicking back and stretching its legs.

Ultimately, Promise Everything is a solid collection of songs written by a band that, over the course of 3 albums, have shown that they rarely write a bad song. However, the majority of the songs feel a little too secure within their own skin; a little too tentative to deviate from the safety of their rough midtempo origins.

Strings, masses of fans, and stadium-size choruses make up the patchwork for the majority of this album; the end result is pretentious and overblown, but that doesn’t stop This Is War from succeeding--well, for the most part anyway.

Swallow the Sun should have released this as three separate albums. The connection between the three pieces is frail, and given the relative lack of direction this is not a surprise. The album’s strengths are numerous, yet scattered, and its weaknesses are unfortunately a lot more concentrated.

It has moments of genius (‘Grand Canyon’, ‘The Remedy’) as well as questionable missteps (‘Simultaneous’).

Despite its frustratingly monadic nature Howl does hold attention.

Unfortunately, it’s an LP which simply lacks reward... Both for listeners and, ultimately, the band.

Polaris is well-produced (even if the bass is dialed in several clicks too high), decently written, and properly executed for what it is. Critically speaking, however, it takes few musical risks and fails to launch any sort of vocal or instrumental melody, relegating it to a position as the sort of album you could take or leave in an artist's discography.

It’s too harsh to suggest that the band are coasting, since there are once more fragments of ideas, concepts and melodies which arouse.

As a result of their indulgence, The Night Creeper feels somewhat forced to be something it isn't. The mindset is far from what we heard on Vol. I and Blood Lust, although the ideas are the same. Recycling is good, however, 4 albums later it turned against them.

On balance, Lost Worker Bee simply does not do enough to distinguish itself from the rest of Elbow’s oeuvre, and therein lies its greatest failing.

M is painfully bland and too on the nose.