There is still much to work on for OK Go, but at the very least, the progression on display this time around is rather admirable.

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.

Once The Black And White Album settles in, and you've figured out which songs to skip, it's as enjoyable as any of their previous albums.

Distinguishing themselves from the shadow of Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and the like without sacrificing too many of the essential elements of their debut album, The Academy Is… have emerged as a band with ambition and the songwriting skill to match.

It's so smooth, this record, that it's sometimes too smooth, to the point to being slight.

When they are on, they are very good, as their relaxing – yet strangely dance-worthy – grooves seem almost effortless. Yet, way too often, the duo simply bite off more than they can chew, meaning that when they are off, a 2nd listen almost seems like a chore.

Parallax, unrealised masterpiece or not, sounds like the man in his bedroom with a thousand songs to leave unexplained.

Live From The Underground offers nothing game-changing, but is definitely enjoyable (especially on high energy jams like "Yeah Dats Me"), emulating its influences well.

This album is surely a success, its just there is a lot of things that a great album like 'My Life in the Bush of The Ghosts' (which Ghosts sincerely seems indebted to) have that are missing here.

Familial plays its cards remarkably close to the chest, much like Selway's work in Radiohead. Selway never asks for attention, but still receives it through his remarkable consistency and precision.

This remains, however, a good album, and another triumph for Stuart Murdoch.

The success here of being an album worth mention is derived from its encompassment of the past and present Marshall Mathers.

It's safe to say that Darkest Hour are not as good as they used to be--sorry, fans, but The Eternal Return and The Human Romance are both indicators of that. But the band have certainly got their bearings back this year and have made the best album that they possibly could have without Kris Norris.

As a whole, the album is a well-executed pop punk album and shows that Yellowcard are better than the average band.

True to both character and the album’s palette it may be, but it’s far from her strongest statement and fails to carry a set of songs that all too often need a push in the right direction.

The album truly is beautiful within its down tempo setting, and as a soundtrack for the morning after, there’s nothing quite like keeping the lights off and the volume low and simply letting Devotion get you through the day.

Despite the consistency--the one area in which she's improved--it's almost certainly the weakest and most irrelevant album she's produced.

Slaughterhouse hearkens back to the early days of the New York hardcore underground, and it's a travesty that it does nothing more. With commonplace soul-influenced boom bap at the fore, compositions this anachronistic just don't cut it in 2009.

Stroud and Mast are still two of the best beat alchemists around, able to craft layer upon layer of instrument and sounds to brilliant effect, but it still sounds like you've all heard it before. It all leads to LP4 having little identity of its own, with the unfortunate tendency for tracks to blur into one another.

One can't help but feel that Avary's grasp on quality control is waning, with too many of these--admittedly solid and likable--twelve tracks delivering predictable and forgettable results that fail to reach any great heights.

Signed and Sealed in Blood is a pleasant addition to the Dropkick Murphys' discography, but the reliance on their trustworthy, time-tested conservatism is somewhat unfulfilling here.

Filled with fun, catchy, bright & bouncy hooks, they redefined the art of being a guilty pleasure into being a shameful delight!

Basically, Oversteps is solid to chill to. But don't expect to be entertained/enthralled in the slightest.

At the end of things, Morning Phase remains exceedingly lovely but disappointedly insubstantial; not a sea change at all, but just another passing phase in a career that’s made a specialty of them.

With Leveler August Burns Red have reached the limitations of the metalcore rule book that they have been glued to ever since their debut.

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.

Fist of God is very much in step with all the party rage of every other club track album that’s been released in the last year or so--and that’s exactly its problem.

To be fair to the songwriters behind this record, "Make You Cry" is actually the worst thing here - when the sound abandon the '90s and either tries to sound like the '80s ("Heaven" is pure Stock, Aitken, and Waterman), or to be a bit more modern, the quality remains solid. But therein lies the one major flaw of 3 Words - it's simply not consistent enough in terms of sound.