Agebjorn seems utterly uninterested in taking Shapiro to a new place--not even a different dance floor--and though you can't blame him for drawing out a good time, it feels as if we'd been here forever.

Keith is... for the first time living up to the standards of his most important precursor, the shape-shifting funkateer George Clinton. That is, even as he jokes and grooves his way through Octagon’s long-awaited return, he’s also serious as shit.

Up-tempo club jams like "Break Your Heart," "Dynamite," and "I Can Be" sport melodies sturdy enough to support all the digital detailing, and power ballads such as "I'll Never Love Again" and "Falling in Love" do the gathering-steam thing as efficiently as more traditionally presented songs by Diane Warren or Kara DioGuardi.

Spine Hits as a whole is a tighter operation, less intended to soundtrack your mushroom trip, but a worthy attempt to bridge the gap to the mainstream.

In exploring his split psyche, T.I. forgets what made the excursion interesting to begin with: there’s good and evil in everyone, but you gotta mix the two to get a reaction.

The lyrics are nonsense about grotesque surgeries and a futuristic interface of man and machine; they’re sung with a weariness that suggests that even the singer is fatigued with this kind of thing.

It ain't exactly Bill Shakespeare (or Trojans), but it gets the job done.

Future This is ultimately more melodic than its laborious predecessor. But around the "ballads" in the second half, you start longing for a point.

Only the title track bears any resemblance to what Dashboard once were.

Though Daybreak generally fulfils that longing for the simpler days of 2001's Stay What You Are, it's ultimately hard to understand why it's taken almost three years to make such a simplistic record.

Sometimes Out of Frequency wavers into old-school television-theme-song territory, like a ramped-up take on M Squad or some bad dating show at the turn of the '80s.

Sure, you can wonder whether there’s a need for Youth Group with so many bands trying to replicate the success of Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie, but Casino Twilight Dogs is worth a listen.

The fact that Paley and Francis wrote this album together over the course of three afternoons and then recorded it in two is part of its charm. There are no big guitars and not much percussion. What you get is two compelling performers and their songs, backed by a couple of Muscle Shoals aces, bass player David Hood (yes, Patterson's dad) and Spooner Oldham.

More often, however, CooRosie appear uninterested in the listener's experience--and that can make Grey Oceans a bit of a slog. The cost of their commitment is you.

Ritual is so grandiose that it rarely has room to breathe.

There’s something melodious and calm about Will.i.am’s third solo hip-hop/R&B album--but there’s also something boring about its euphonic electro-funk dolor.

B.S. includes far more filler than it needed to.

It’s a ridiculous album, sure, but take "Defenders of the Faith," replace the Metallion with Nostradamus, double the number of awesome riffs, add the occasional pan flute and symphonic embellishments, and you have the most grandiose metal record likely to be released this year.

True to its title, Violence Begets Violence is the Philly powerhouse's most aggressive effort yet, a morally polluted playground that no sane unarmed person should dare to frolic in.

The bulk of Roses is like a spring day in the first week of May - not exactly shocking, but sunny and warm.

There are so many clashing vocal parts and guitar effects that you have to strain to hear the actual songs. Which is a shame, because said songs (all of which Ringo co-wrote) are pretty good.

Beta Love is the best of both worlds: surprisingly slick and danceable, while subtly amplifying their art-school charm.

It might be one of the year's worst albums, an underwritten, overarranged mess of factory-floor guitar fuzz, go-nowhere vocal melodies, limp electronic beats, and lyrical clunkers.

His much-delayed solo debut eschews the kind of risk his productions are known for, and the result turns into one big mash of slow fades waiting for pretty ladies in the video.

By album's end, CSS are back to their old irreverent ways, screaming that title lyric repeatedly, nearly drowned out by sax blasts and cowbell.

Blank is a product of the cut-and-paste era; nearly everything on I Love You, which arrives in the wake of several buzz-building collaborations with Spank Rock, seems like a tongue-in-cheek version of something else.

It’s Frank Black on his first real roll as a solo artist.

Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.