The reality of A Pill For Loneliness is that it gets carried away with flights of fancy that are, more often than not, boring. In the past 14 years City and Colour has released some vital albums, and while this certainly alludes to them, it isn’t quite on a par.

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.

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.

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.

The majority of Fear Inoculum’s songs are more or less interchangeable, achieving the same overall effect in slightly different ways. ... Toolheads will find much to enjoy here, I am sure of it.

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.

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.

i,i is an album meant to please their least demanding customers; a session of pure, light nostalgia, and given the band’s rabid following, it’s still certain to succeed, even to receive knee jerk, overeager accolades. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard not to recall just how much more these guys are capable of.

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

Younghusband's new record shows the band can turn out a great sounding bunch of songs and the odd moment of brilliance. If they spent longer letting their songs grow before unleashing them they might have produced something more distinctive.

‘Unspoken History’ and ‘I Want U’ show she has real talent. With more work, and more pain, she might graduate from The Best of Luck Club.

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.

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.

While calling Fishing For Fishies stale at first may be a bit harsh, it becomes pronounced once you consider the adventurous image King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has carved out for itself over the last five years. With this passive listening experience, rarely was I ever intrigued by the band’s songwriting.

CrasH Talk is an unfortunate example of what can happen when someone gets the creative validation they’ve desired, only to find themselves at an impasse.

At their core, the songs are fundamentally concerned with unguarded and confessional intimacy yet the manner in which they are presented is a hindrance as, on the whole, there is a sheen to Designer which it could well do without.

Sometimes he lands on stanzas worth savoring (“All that I fear is that all that I have given you is a ship out to nowhere that wants to be out of control/but I see the light in oh so many things out here, and a lifetime so gently now sits on the stairs to my home.”) Other times, timelessness gives way to stuffiness, with lyrics that act more like riddles he doesn’t really care about solving (“When every wind is an afterlife out here, what language do you dream in when you’re drunk?”)

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.

Hourglass Pond is an off-balance album. If you played the album to someone who didn’t know Tare had a new album, it would be very unclear where it belongs in his discography.

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.

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.

The result is a mixed bag of songs with which the group continue to earn their moniker, through moody orchestral pop pieces adorned with the group’s signature electronics, but we’re left wondering whether the soundtrack might have been more interesting.

The band still show the glimmer of potential they’ve always carried, and it’s nice to know that consistency is possible with the band. ‘Doctor’s In' ends with an abrupt fadeout, and your memory of Tasmania can depart at a similarly unsatisfying rate.

If, after an absence of 19 years, you are happy to engage with a band who are reprising much of their musical and lyrical themes whilst also dipping their toes into unexplored (and poorly realised) terrain, then no doubt there is much within White Stuff which will tick all of the appropriate boxes. But, oh man, that Kool Keith track.

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.

Individuality has been smoothed out by production and a lack of lyrical diversity. Undeniably a star, Maggie’s light has been dimmed here.

Only ‘Peanut Butter’ stands out amongst the morass by dint of its crashing introduction. Even that track eventually settles down into the record’s bloated template. It’s a shame, because there are some lovely moments.

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

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.

Overall, this is an album with fleeting moments of joy, but these are not sustained.

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

The main problem with Shiny is that half of its tracklisting is dedicated to mid-tempo rockers that are only fractionally better than 'Knights of Malta.’ ... With some more time and care, ‘Silvery Sometimes’ could have been an unimpeachable addition to the Pumpkins canon. As it stands, it suffers the fate of being packaged in what will likely go down as one of the worst albums in the band’s discography.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

In general, Young Romance is a record that wears its influences plainly on its pulsating sleeves. It may not astound you, but like a pleasant day by the pool, it’s more than pleasant enough to be worth it.

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.

There’s nothing wrong with harkening to ‘80s synth-pop once in a while, but it seems Wild Nothing have explored every nook and cranny of their current sound. It’s time for the incredibly talented Jack Tatum to move on to something more forward-thinking.

While the atmosphere of Slow Air enthralls with captivating layers of sedated synth and breathtaking reverb, the stunning production quality can’t save Still Corners from sinking into the increasingly crowded waters of the dream pop scene.

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.

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.

It’s refreshingly spur-of-the-moment on an album that’s let down by constant overthinking and underestimating of her abilities. If Minaj wants to make a mission statement of an album, worthy of this title, she needs to figure out a mission statement for herself.

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.

Sundays may not be a collection that will live long in the memory, but when it rises out of its spiritual funk there’s a glimpse of something sparkling in amongst the fuzz and breathy introspection. It’s certainly not a dog of an album. But perhaps it’s not as cute, or as diverting, as a Tanuki.

So Sad So Sexy is by no means a bad record, but while the Li of previous records was refreshing and stark showing us her vulnerability, the slickly produced nature of this means that’s often lost and in its place is cliché as Li tries to hang onto the weighty romance of youth.

It’s not that Scorpion is bad music - it’s exactly what you’d expect, and too much of it. Its maximalism offers plenty for the converted (and the charts), after all, this far in, nothing is going to turn those set against him. For those of us with more complicated relationships with Drake’s music, there’s also nothing here to overwhelm the sense of stagnation dominant since Views.

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

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.

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.

Too often there doesn’t seem to be a definite roadmap. Other than a few brief moments, this record feels like a missed opportunity.

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.

Ye is an ambitious misfire.

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

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

Despite the lack of variance from song to song, each of the 10 songs here are finely written candidates for radio. ... The issue is that it’s not worth it to dig through all 10 of these tracks to find the nuanced intricacies that so frequently play second fiddle to loud rock and roll.

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.

Standout tracks, melancholic interludes and stylistic jumpiness add elements of unpredictability to Everett and co. that they’ve sorely missed. But these same things also make it an overarching mess.

The Detroit quartet's debut album for Woodsist is at times striking and catchy, but also finds itself digging up the same nostalgia-seeking melodies that showed some promise from Bonny Doon to begin with.

None of the tracks on New Material could fit any such textbook definition of "bad". It’s stylistically inconsistent and at times bafflingly chaotic, but each track has a certain quality that defines Preoccupations as a willingly evolutionary band.

On I’ll Be Your Girl, The Decemberists do a few things well, a few things poorly, and most of them acceptably and nothing more. The fact that it never goes completely off the rails is almost as disappointing as the fact that it never finds its footing or seems interested in doing so.

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.

Though it definitely has its moments and manages to grapple with the horror of modernity there’s a split keeping this from feeling quite as cohesive as it should.

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.

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.

The production is tidy but one note, the instrumentation resolutely professional. The vocalist has a few touchstones and reverently shifts from one to another without exactly lighting any fires of his own. Back in 1992 they would call this alternative rock.

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.

Cabello is finding her footing, and with more swings than misses here, the album signals a hopeful future for a fledgling pop giant.

It’s palatable, well-performed, but rarely involving. It’s a shame that the most exciting thing about a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore is that it’s a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore.

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.

As a continuation of U2’s work at this point in their career, Songs of Experience is a decent addition to their legacy that longtime fans should be generally pleased by. However, it still suffers from the same issues that have made U2 so polarizing in recent years, and is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about the band one way or another.

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.

Overall it’s a fun album of two halves. The first half tows the line between the cheesy elements of radio pop that even the snarkiest Slayer fan secretly loves, and some truly inspirational, if not fleeting, compositional substance. The second half, although still very much a fun listen, somewhat strays.

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

Haiku From Zero offers up plenty of mesmerising moments, but they come with a damaging amount of baggage and ultimately the record falls a little short of the tropical dream that it envisages.

At its best, Antisocialites is a raw effort from a band who swears they've been around longer than they have, composing a handful of very good songs, with a majority of flukey, bored-out-of-my-fucking-mind songs that seem to drag one after the other. Alvvays' main flaw remains their lack of authenticity, a tragedy for a band with this much potential.

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.

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’.

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.

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.

Public Service Broadcasting's intentions are to be praised, even if the result is weak and unfocused. If the SDP leadership had formed a band, it would sound like this.

Unfortunately, aside from a couple of other stronger tracks (‘Gonna Get Better’ and ‘Towers and Masons’ – one of Brendan Canning’s contributions), the rest of the album isn’t something I have a desire to return to.

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.

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.

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

Sadly, the songs on the back half would sound much better as instrumentals. I miss the incoherent wailing of their 00s output. The Guillotine remains a somewhat worthy listen via its front four tracks.

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

Nektyr is a tough record to like. Fans of Cocteau Twins may be better placed than I to pierce the veil and properly appreciate the wonders within. For me, trying to pull away the mud and heavily-baked conceit left me exhausted.

Although She-Devils falls short of the high expectations it had built up prior to the release, all in all it is a solid album, one packed with loads of potential and major signs of forthcoming genius from the Montreal duo.

Green Twins is impeccably tailored and has some gorgeous ideas. What it lacks is the confidence to stretch its colour palette into areas the listener might not immediately associate with other, trailblazing artists.

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.

To be sure, his willingness to descend into darkness, both regarding the world and within himself, is a large part of the man's appeal, but here he seems to have misunderstood, or simply ignored, what makes him truly great.

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

Volcano's songs seem to lack the spontaneity Sun Structures was built upon.

Where Nothing Feels Natural suffers is in the R&D department. Many of the ideas only make a couple of appearances. ... Still, there’s quite a lot to like here, and it’s mostly due to Greer--the speak-sing existentialism of ‘No Big Bang’, the Everything Goes Wrong-era Vivian Girls homage on ‘Nothing Feels Natural’, the ragged heartbeat of ‘Appropriate’.

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

Heads Up feels like an album bound to be forgotten.