While the album itself falls short. The ambition is admirable, but what makes the songs commendable is their refusal to thrive. They are deeply melancholic. There's a focus on Rothman's drug addiction itself rather than the desire to resolve it, a resignation to dying rather than a desire to learn how to live.

Pixies have played it straight and stayed in their lane, their once vital weirdness cast into the laundry basket like a vampire costume post Halloween. Head Carrier is 80% classic Pixies. But it turns out the missing 20% is as fundamental as oxygen is to air.

Re-recording one's old songs in an older style isn't a revolutionary manoeuvre.... Kylie's addition to the tradition is also a fairly mixed bag.

Mother finds the band tremendous on all fronts, but the rabid, manic excitement of ‘Only Love’ overshadows everything else. There are no other moments on the record like it, nothing as intensely unhinged or exciting. However lovely and affecting the rest of the record is, as it drifts further and further into more serene climes, the spectre of this extraordinary early blast grows in the back of your mind, and you're willing them to let go of their beautiful refinement just one more time.

On the bright side, at least it isn't as bad as Yuck.

On its own merits, it's a decent enough record with some interesting tracks on it, even if they sometimes sound like nicely turned B-sides rather than top drawer material.

It might be better to think of Hotel Sessions as a surviving collection of demos and rarities rather than a planned project. Handled in this way, the album begins to exude at least some charm.

This album falls victim to the more-is-more syndrome. It douses otherwise stronger and more distinctive songs in far more reverb and echo than it needs.

Ultimately, Hexadic is more compelling as a concept than a piece of music, and few folks are likely to follow Chasny deep into the record's blistering hot core more than a couple times.

The second half of the album lacks the spirit of its first two transcendent tracks. ... But, for those first 19 glorious minutes, Thrice Woven skirts the eye of the storm, flitting between untrammelled power and celestial beauty with a finesse that few can match.

Wahile Girls have returned brimming with confidence and enthusiasm, this record seems to overstretch them.

The lack of immediacy isn't Vile's biggest problem here: it might seem trivial, but Wakin On A Pretty Daze is his first release that doesn't improve upon his last.

Meteorites is still, on initial blush, like all those other albums from Evergreen onward, "the new album from," a reliable entry but not a jawdropper.

It's SMD's overstated attempt to take the listener on a journey that is the album's drawback. In the end Whorl feels overlong, and the excitement and variation of the first two thirds of the album eventually dissipates into a somnolent slog.

Senni presents not so much a cohesive album here, but rather a series of studies on a form, like Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. But not like Scarlatti’s sonatas. More like Marc-André Hamelin’s revisionist Omaggios to Scarlatti. Senni produces music with alternating measures of respect and irreverence. But the results lack emotion. Scacco Matto’s production values are modern and bright. But they don’t move me to move.

Benji would have worked better as a series of EPs, playing to Kozelek's strength as a songwriter of certain stylistic preferences.

A crescendo of electronic drums and stirring strings draws Distant Satellites to a close, and leaves you with the impression that, while inconsistent and desperately overwrought on occasion, Anathema deserve to be heard out with the private members' club that is prog rock in 2014.

In its loose instrumentation and sometimes confused layers (and some questionable lyrics) it does sound noticeably like a side-project from start to finish, and that it was written and recorded in a hurry. There is magic in that of course, but you do feel that is not the way to coax out Finn's A-grade material.

On the album's first half, everything sounds correct but lacks any intoxicating, addictive spark.... [Yet] when its mood alters, somewhere around the metal wasteland of 'Lagoon Leisure', and things start getting sinister, then Regional Surrealism becomes (finally) exciting. The record transforms into a deeply disconcerting experience, all eerie shadows and claustrophobic spaces.

If there's one problem with this pop/rap hybrid it is the skittish way she sometimes departs from the beat, losing her flow in EDM choruses or radio friendly R&B pop hooks. Iggy is strongest when she welds her words to a minimal yet delectable bass boom, spelling out her name with mischievous exaggeration.

It may not be his finest hour, but that doesn't mean it's without value. Yes, there are both righteous highs and tedious lows, but the inspired moments are worth cherishing.

As the title of the soporific, sunbleached skank that is 'LO HI' suggests, 'Lucifer' is more a subdued warm bath of than a plunge into the psyche.

Tyler's latest album remains ambiguous and uncertain, however.

Bloom is in part brilliant but maddeningly safe and, ultimately, is a decidedly unsatisfying listen.

There are moments when Soft Hills' sound slight; even middle-of-the-road bland. But there's a beguiling soulfulness and a darkness to this record that will seep into your heart if you give it a chance.

This is yet another chillwave album. An album so typical of the genre that it even has the audacity to use the word "polaroid" in a lyric. What rescues it from mediocrity, however, is the flawlessly melodic melancholy of Edwards' voice.

As it stands, Trans-Love Energies is too archival.

While there are undoubtedly a number of interesting tracks here, it is debatable how well they work together. With judicious editing U & I could have made a truly killer E.P