Works better as an adjunct for those already predisposed.

Given a choice between listenable power-pop by nobodies and the same product by cult movie stars, who's going to say no to a little glitter?

Soundtrack sounds astonishingly good one song at a time, and surprisingly dull over the course of a full record.

Even the highlights are bogged down by ambitious aims that translate blindness as blandness.

At moments lush and beautiful, at others overly busy, but never less than daring.

The second half largely sounds like a lesser reprise of the first, as The Thrills' appropriation of older styles starts to feel less like inventive borrowing than a lack of imagination.

Not surprisingly, Revolverlution is all over the place, but for much of its first half, the album sounds vital, impassioned, and kinetic, if not overly cohesive.

Just another average album by a band that has proved it can make great ones.

But for all The Donnas' ongoing charms, Spend The Night tempers them with a faint whiff of predictability.

The Orb's latter-day incarnation lands closer to the dance floor than the chill-out room. It also sounds rootless and unfocused, in ways good and bad.

Distinguished, eclectic, and difficult to love.... Mostly the songs beg for a rawer treatment, instead of the polite album-rock for which Jagger generally settles.

As usual in Manson's world, the goal of maximum discomfort supercedes the music, which sticks to familiar and reliably doom-laden but catchy pop-metal on "Disposable Teens" and "The Love Song."... Here, he seems entranced by his own power, which may be why his dark worldview sounds baseless even as he offers sharp hooks others would kill for.

The Delivery Man only sparks to life when it slows down.

Only three songs really, truly deliver.

Pollard does boost the voltage like before, but the album's apparent air of consideration is rare for GBV... This doesn't really improve the slipping hit-to-miss ratio GBV has produced for the past few albums, but it does set Half Smiles apart.

Suffers from both a lack of ambition and a built-in obsolescence.

Scattershot.

For all its impressive competency, Anxiety Always remains a bit too oppressively literal in its electro resurrection.

Little on Halfway is as immediately gratifying, or even as immediate, as its predecessor's hits, but that's not to say that any of these 11 new songs might not meet the same fate.... The Fatboy Slim assembly-line music machine is in full effect, and anyone looking for substance needn't bother. But to call this collection of sweet nothings half-assed would imply that there was much going on to begin with: The disc is business as usual, a big load of disposable fun and funk that's fluffier than cotton candy and just as weighty.

Even in its migration from the groovy '70s to the technocratic '80s, though, Röyksopp has become a lot cooler than it has to be.

The biggest problem with Baby I'm Bored is that getting to the good stuff requires slogging through the initial four tracks.

The fact that Burnside doesn't play guitar provides the first bad omen, and the busy, style-jumping production does the rest.... There's a decent Burnside album buried here, with spare songs like the title track providing the strongest moments.

Establishing a languorous mood right away, the album is all meandering, low-key moods and textures, with precious few focused songs on which to hang them.

Occasionally catchy and exciting. [17 Mar 2004]

As a whole, Throwing Muses still contains too much formless slop, but at least it's energetic.

None of the samples really evoke the years in question, and Lemon Jelly doesn't put the years in any kind of relevant order, so the overall point of '64-'95 seems a little vague.

Without other strong personalities in the band to rein him in, Homme's occasional excesses undercuts what makes QOTSA so great.

Personal project or not, the pretty Pieces In A Modern Style isn't much more than a Hooked On... collection for a digital age.