The lyrics are particularly generic, even for a pop band, and they render The Broken West’s mission obsolete.

Either way, therein lies Congratulations' biggest triumph: despite being every bit the sophomore slump MGMT damn near willed it to be, it leaves you just enough reason to stay interested in what they do next.

The lyrics can’t support the music, and vice-versa. That’s not to say there aren’t some great moments for people who’ve been following Bejar’s work--“Ivory Coast” and much of the second half of the record have a lot of noteworthy moments, in both their musical adventurousness and lyrical successes. But the interplay between flatness and richness that Bejar describes as integral to his lyrics--and that can be extended to its interplay with his music--isn’t here a lot of the time.

There's nothing supremely bad about this record, but there are no surprises either. It's just--well, there.

Just to Feel Anything never quite seems to justify itself in the way that Does it Look Like I'm Here did, to compel you to pay attention in spite of its apparent familiarity, by whatever method. And as a result, it just feels like a lot of wasted energy.

There’s enough pulling power to draw you in, just not enough to get you hooked.

Rival Dealer might be an intrepid leap for Burial, but the music is ultimately obscured by his intention to share a positive message through the most glaring of means.

Object 47 is not a horrible record; it just isn’t all that good. It has none of the flare found on the band’s trilogy of classics and is never quite able to free itself from not-so-desirable labels like bland and unchallenging.

Although I'm usually a fan of the short and (hopefully) sharp delivery, at 34 minutes the album feels insubstantial in terms of length as well as material.

With The Stoned Immaculate, Curren$y has successfully touched down in the land of commercial weed rap with a solid set of downtempo tunes that have everything they need to be successful: rich soundscapes, witty brags, hummable hooks. It just needs a stronger presence from the Jet-Life juggernaut himself.

The album is full of familiar tropes dressed up in gold and leather, and the songs are wrapped in a plastic that stops our touch--turns it cold, numb from feeling the electricity of the body, of the night.

Like Magic, Springsteen’s last long-player, the best tunes here mine a curious retro-pop angle.

If only conviction had been more successfully transposed onto their music, the band could have produced a follow-up that would not have had to contend with standing in its predecessor's large, looming shadow.

Now, equipped with the stylish, but too-often substance-less Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne seems poised to flip the script on the “rapper racists” (radio stations, MTV) by evolving into the “biggest” rapper alive.

Arrowhead is unfortunately not among the stronger things he’s released.

The problem is that what’s left--the imagined everything about this record--is that it just sounds like someone lamenting a one-night stand that ended too soon, some kind of physical communication that feels like it could have gone so much deeper and become so much more emotional.

Despite To Rococo Rot's placid rejection of any exceptionally radical artistic statement, there is a grace and deft care taken on the record not to buoy the stately jams with textural shifts, but to interlock the two in an elegant way that's impressive to the discerning listener. Nevertheless, this is a somewhat uninspiring recording.

An album that, much like Pinback’s 2004 full-length Summer in Abaddon, is more immediate in its appeal but suffers from repeated listens.

Sure, Phil Ek's production is as crisp and effective as ever, but while it emphasizes immediacy, it also draws attention to the repetitive, redundant elements of these songs.

The Old Believer feels like a creative plateau, all the more disappointing for the fact that the band’s last album left them standing on the cusp of what seemed like an even greater breakthrough.

Though it shrouds itself in chaos, Bottomless Pit is ultimately Death Grips’ most straightforward, morbid, and brutal report from the deep end yet. Like watching a great beast eat itself, there is little in the way of elegance or grand design to this music, yet it remains throttling nonetheless, as relentlessly blunt as it is overwhelmingly meaningless.

Kazuashita wants what psychedelics want of human brains: transcendence. But its fleetingness masks any sort of completion. Frantic impulses come from afar, a random sphere of floating values, frames of signification.

Earth Junk’s parts are greater than their sum.

In spite of every effort and explicit claim to the contrary, it doesn't really sound like they're having that much fun.

The entire album is too claustrophobic for its own good.

There is nothing new for the listener.

Overall, Smother seems to be missing purpose. I hear those careful ruminations on relationships, and I hear the pain that evidently went into this, but it leaves me cold.

This dropped-ball feeling that NehruvianDOOM exudes derives from how it handles and telegraphs (or rather how it doesn’t handle how it telegraphs) its supposedly unifying theme.