Dwyer’s band are still the masters of genre-leading and genre-defining garage-psych-founded mayhem but Face Stabber veils that slightly behind bloated long cuts and a lack of standout individual tracks.

Bottle It In does enough to keep himself and his fans happy, but it leaves waiting those of us that wish a bit more from him.

The album suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, it is an honest album as the name suggests but it seems Future has difficulties in being an artist who feels the need to balance his street upbringing with his skill at writing, what are essentially, hip-hop love songs.

In Colour breaks no new ground to be sure, but as an accessible crossover record it does a perfectly serviceable job. It's light, breezy and pretty, as ephemeral as the exhilaration of clubbing without really evoking the thrill of it all.

There's nothing particularly wrong with Mass Gothic. There's clearly a compelling artistic voice in there.

You can’t listen to the music found here without dancing, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s fun at first, but eventually you’ll need a breather.

There's a cracking EP in amongst the tracks on Boys, but no shortage of filler, too.

Crutchfield is baring her soul and just about every song shows some signs of greatness. It comes up short, but not for a lack of trying.

This album is just a few puzzle pieces shy of being great, and that’s a damn shame.

Much like funsize Snickers bars, there's a gooey joy to be found in the brevity, but especially for us this side of the Atlantic, there are bands who have improved on the formula of twee-punk/whatever you want to call it.

Lost Girls is fundamentally disappointing. It is an album devoid of originality from an artist who should be reaching for the stars instead of looking back into the murky past for inspiration. No doubt it will sell by the bucketload, but then people like Coldplay and voted in the Nazis so what do they know.

It’s his weakest effort to date. His range of voices, from his familiar craggy baritone to a hesitant pitch-shifted falsetto (on ‘Echo’) are made to do all the heavy lifting because Dear the producer is too content with letting tracks spin their wheels and sputter to a halt.

While, undoubtedly, it took a lot of time, work and engagement to put it together, it still comes across as a throw-away release in their catalogue. It sounds like a band just switching on the recorder and jamming for a little while, then putting out some tracks.

Jassbusters is an unusual album in that it’s not quite unusual enough.

Khalifa’s persona isn’t nearly ready to hoist up what’s essentially a double album, and, yet, this is largely the most focused and invested he’s sounded since Taylor Allderdice.

James and Roddick clearly have their sights set on mainstream success, but are instead in danger of sounding like one of the many pretenders that their first album spawned, rather than smart, subtly innovative band they once were.

Ye is an ambitious misfire.

Rhythm is a collection of great ideas, improperly organised and occasionally poorly executed.

PersonA is an album based largely around Ebert's continued drive to reinvent himself to appease a particular audience. Unfortunately, the Magnetic Zeros and their brand of music is not one well suited to the audience they were attempting to find this time around.

The Saga Continues, despite being a passably entertaining listen, is a grimmer entry, as there seems to be no concern for their legacy left.

Mulberry Violence isn’t a letdown because it doesn’t live up to expectations of what a Trevor Powers album is supposed to sound like. It’s a letdown because an immensely talented and creative spirit is struggling to let his instincts speak for themselves.

There is a pleasing directness of intention to the metronomic drumming and the arpeggiated keyboards that would be sufficient to keep a crowd dancing but look beyond the surface level and there is unfortunately plenty to make you cringe, too.

For the year's most contagious artist, Fetty Wap's debut formula reads as follows: 20 songs x 4 billboard singles - 90% filler ÷ 1 melody = 1738. And somehow, that doesn't add up.

A pleasant, but ultimately unspectacular adventure.

Mr. Davis seems to pull in every direction at once. Gucci himself, despite the attempted show of a triumphant album, largely seems to feel somber.

Perhaps the reason for the feeling of emptiness at the well-meaning heart of No One is Lost is in its striking over-familiarity.

The Òran Mór Session is for Twilight Sad completists only. If you loved the originals, you'll probably enjoy hearing them in a slightly different style. Just don't expect worlds to shake.

This record’s three parts, separated by the gender of the narrator and little else, are muscular, repetitive, exhausting pieces of psych-math riffs that hardly let up. They make me feel like I’m stuck on an endless dancefloor, forced to nod my head into eternity.

While Double or Nothing isn't entirely a miss, it certainly represents a downwards move for Metro Boomin. It makes sense that he'd seek bigger names to experiment with, but the choice of Big Sean was Hallmark safe.

Longtime fans of the band will not find a rebirth in Critical Evaluation but you made find an upbeat improvement on recent efforts.

The success of Emotion and its predecessor, Kiss, was a product of balance. ... Side B does not find that balance, and is most instructive in the ways it illuminates her process. It lets us peek in on the misfits that are the product of every pop album, and hints at the unsexy labor of music-making.

Long time fans of Nadler’s work won’t be disappointed, but overall For My Crimes feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. She may sing about throwing keys, but the reality is this album won’t be taking anyone’s eye out anytime soon.

Doko Mien indeed falls short of the bands body of work but that doesn’t mean that every song on its own has something to offer. For the most part the group is still never derivative as their own unique spin is still apparent on every track. For the most part it is just too subtle to be noticed.

God’s Favorite Customer isn’t a bad album, yet it still feels like the weak link in the grand scheme of things. Fans of his previous work will still get a lot out of Misty's latest, but despite its subject matter, this album feels a little safe and inconsequential.

He and his brother have made an album that’s too impersonal to provide an actual emotional connection but also lacking the vision necessary to provide something out of this world.

It has interesting moments and one cannot really fault Kozelek for looking to present a different narrative than his previous record. But there is no denying that Benji set a high bar and this record borrows elements from it, but does so with disappointing results.

What made M83 so great was its inclination to look forward as well as backward. Unfortunately, DSVII —like Junk— looks backward without bringing anything new to the table.

Heads Up feels like an album bound to be forgotten.

The majority of the track list is made up of songs that run far too long, have beyond cringe worthy concepts and lyrics (see: the attempt at love struck club banger, complete with Beyoncé, on 'Hymn For The Weekend') or simply sound too unoriginal to stand out from the others.

Awake is a very environmental album, but not a particularly emotional one.

This has infinitely more charm than Kane, albeit with a very familiar love of a predictable lyrical couplet.

Their third album, Until Silence, is a pleasant listen, but falls at a couple of key moments.

If you've already heard 2002's tenth-anniversary reissue of the group's debut album, Slanted and Enchanted, then you've already heard everything compiled here.

Communion may be the end result of years of refinement, but you can't help but feel it was reached on someone else's terms.

LANY is certainly listenable and its hour run-time isn’t a total drag (grating voicemail interlude ‘Parents’ notwithstanding). There’s just a deficit of substance in an album that practically seems to be begging for you to feel something.

There was a sense of duty in pressing play on Luminous rather than an organic excitement or desire.

We know what these artists can do separately. We've even had a glimpse of what they can do together, and when held up to that (and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't hurt me to say this) Do It Again just doesn't stand up.

While Tangerine Reef inspires as a pseudo-political statement regarding the deteriorating environment at the hands of mankind, Animal Collective ultimately disappoints with this record--it’s yet another forgettable checkpoint within the band’s recent run.

As a fully formed whole it's lacking; as nucleus around which a future proliferates and ideas expand, it's seriously exciting.

Freedom is nothing more than an exercise in competent stadium rock.

Their newer, glossier pop sheen pedestals them as the makers of proficiently written and intently catchy tunes that are inoffensive and innocuous - and never adventurous enough not to be.

It pains me to overly criticise an album that may be quite enjoyable if you were born in the '70s and have only ever looked forward for your music, but there's no avoiding this particular White Fence could have done with a second coat to better hide what's beneath.

There's no doubting their technical ability, but it counts for little this time around; the hooks that seemed to be the cornerstone of their songwriting last time out are missing in action on this occasion.

It's not a terrible record, but given the weight of expectation and the creativity we've seen from them before, this just feels like a step backwards.

Often the vocal melodies religiously, and simplistically, follow the melody of the lead instrument, leading to a lack of interesting melodic counterpoint and contrast, and, in almost all cases, they’re the kind of Sesame Street sing-songy melodies that no one over the age of five would unironically enjoy.

It feels Mac also went through these motions creating Here Comes The Cowboy, something is lacking, and it feels like it was motivation. That being said, with this record Mac has taken some creative risks.

Unfortunately, the album ends up being a whole that is less than the sum of its parts, making no real impact on the listener as it quietly meanders along.

Relaxer highlights the best and the absolute worst of Alt-J. That’s what makes it such a frustrating, and yet fascinating, listen.

One or two additional flashes of brilliance fail to act as saving graces, however, leaving Await Barbarians a disappointing effort from one of modern pop's mavericks.

File under: Works better if you think of it as a remix album.

To its credit, it's very listenable and the band were having fun while recording it. However, the potential in lieu of this makes it that much sadder that Gardens & Villa didn't take more time to polish the sounds of last year's Dunes.

Woman is by no means a bad listen, it just isn’t a very original one either.

Between horns, strings, synths, guitars and all the rest this record is definitely an attack on the senses and shows Urie's knack for constructing a radio-friendly hit, but delve below the surface and it doesn't have much to offer. Certainly not enough to justify diminishing returns for a long running act, definitely not enough to keep me coming back for anything but the first few beats.

Nothing much sticks out, other than a campy nostalgia for an age when indie pop was still novel and there was a thick dividing line between this kind of guitar rock and the mainstream.

NASIR is the weakest of the recent Kanye output, though perhaps more consistent than ye it fails to put a dent in the current hip hop conversation, feeling especially limp in comparison to the sudden arrival of a one-time nemesis and his wife.

[FIDLAR] could potentially translate many of these songs into excellent bangers during concerts. But for now, Too is an irritating and frustrating disappointment.

Gleams and glances of Albarn’s potential are almost omnipresent, yet never really come into fruition.

The poor lyrics and minimal change in style makes almost all of Luck's tracks sound like slightly more polished B-Sides to his debut of 11 years previous.

Unfortunately, Morby's latest effort seems to purposefully aim for the very middlest of the road.

It is the lack of cohesion between music and voice that remains the most prominent feature of the album and its biggest stumbling point; leaving May a disappointing effort from an artist that we know can do better.

Sir occasionally works as an aggregate of flattering bric-a-brac and is irrepressibly sexy, but when its production’s skin-deep charm peels away there’s little to compel a return.

The production makes everything sound suitably epic and heart-strained, but tends to overwhelm its strongest suit--Gracie’s voice.

Whilst Hard Believer has its moments, this sense of playing it safe permeates throughout the record.

You don't get the sense of elation one might receive for being paid to pose for an art class because to listen to Dawn Golden's debut of course, you pay them for the privilege.

The album features far too many flabby hip-hop/pop and pop songs.

Even given the mixed results it's good to have them back. Listen without expecting the impossible and you'll find ample to enjoy.

Her weary disposition begs for songs that are stripped down and reduced to their component parts--songs that don't fuss around. That's the problem--the fussing, the instinct to add more. It sounds like she's reaching for something, but she doesn't know what it is or where to find it.

Diamonds and company hold on to flimsy synth arpeggios and pop contrivances like a child would an old toy.

As Vic Mensa will continue to be one of hip-hop's most buzzed about figures, his full-length Roc Nation debut is a patchy tale of contemporary rap, as Mensa tries to find the line between intimate self-confessions and "inspirational" anthems.

With Mister Mellow, Washed Out seems to have lost his gift of storytelling that made his debut album a reference to dream pop bands and electronic producers. Skimming through the tracks, they feel soulless and are disguised as part of ‘a concept’.

So many tracks slip through your consciousness, particularly with how much he sticks to the formula of chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chorus. His dullness sucks the life out of typically energetic guests like Playboi Carti, whose feature is less Die Lit and more Diluted.

There are a few isolated moments of satisfaction, like the ‘Freres Jacques’-esque guitar melody on ‘Welcome to My Planet’ and the accordion leading into the discombobulating melody on ‘Queen of Koalas,’ but there isn’t a single track that comes together as a complete idea nor is there a single moment where it sounds like Xiu Xiu and Larsen are on the same page.

Carey is making music that concerns itself with nuance, and yet he has made the audio equivalent of cutting a victoria sponge cake with a chainsaw, doing his best to serve it up to a nervous gathering of increasingly swearing nuns.

A perplexingly bloated, often aimless album is both a head-scratcher and a true waste of potential.

Matthewdavid is forever littering these tracks with too many disparate ideas and sometimes you find yourself wishing he'd taken more lessons from his previous LP and realised that less is more.

What it lacks, though, is a sense of purpose, which is the precise thing this new version of Bloc Party needed it to have; they needed to make a convincing case as to why they still deserve your attention. Instead, they picked the worst possible time to lose their nerve, and turn in something so bereft of conviction and new ideas.

The talented likes of Lisa Hannigan and Sharon Van Etten attempt to breathe life into affairs, but there’s no resuscitating a creature that never breathed to begin with. No less, they for some reason decided to draw this death rattle out across their longest album to date, blindly moping through an inexplicably sixty-three minute run time.

For every lightning in a bottle moment of inspiration or fun, there are several misses. His sound might be lighthearted, but it can at least be memorable. (Don’t try to act like ‘Broccoli’ would’ve been as big as it was without Yachty’s help.) He has nothing to prove but not much to show either.

The laziness of lyrical passages, directionless structures, odd lyric rip-offs ('Goon Line' and 'Void' are culprits), and poor mixing works together with the band to hold this record down much lower than its potential.

Turbo Fruits feel weightless, airless. The smooth production only makes the disappointing lack of clarity all the more unfortunate. I don't know who or what this album is for.

Among the 21 tracks of Close It Quietly there is plenty that is amiable and whimsical, pleasant and inoffensive. There is also, however, almost nothing affecting or memorable.

Whether it's their brutal attempt at gloomy chamber pop on 'My Only', their embarrassingly direct ripoff of a My Bloody Valentine track on 'Anymore', or their goofy, oddly timed guitar licks on 'The Garret', The Echo of Pleasure results in being an incredibly vague arena rock statement, one that's hopelessly gasping for life (and critical acclaim). As Berman's vocals have clearly aged, so have his songwriting abilities.

Come at a pace so consistently slow the album's charm begins to ache.

None of the songs here are particularly lengthy, but the way ideas evaporate almost instantaneously makes it a slog of an album. It doesn’t help that one-third of the tracklisting is made up of befuddling interludes, with only one (a reprise of another, no less) offering any intrigue thanks to some well-rendered telephone rings.

There is precious little personality to be found on this dry, pedestrian record, which comes across as a selection of yawn-worthy Adele-rejects rather than a cohesive body of work from a singular artist.

Darren Hayman has undoubtedly done a good thing here, and so it seems a shame that the musical result sounds so uninspiring.

It is like Prince meets The Allman Brothers Band, on an approximate dosage of 40–50ug of acid. ... And that makes it a certified...

Ultimately though, Messier Objects feels like a collector's curio.