This is what ultimately makes Alphabutt a top-notch kids record: that it was recorded by a woman so in love with her kid and with being a mother that you’d happily let her babysit for your wonderful little creature.

Amputechture, though not near as spam-handed as Frances, is a bumpy ride, registering somewhere between the latter and debut full-length De-Loused in the Comatorium.

Keep things simple, reminded by older folks of a time when it was totally acceptable to admit being part of the KISS Army.

Musically, the album mines its entire aesthetic from a bargain bin of classicist hip-hop clichés.

It feels as if Smith is drawing from long-gone, innocent, pre-fame events in his life, but as they recede, his stance becomes more wistful and increasingly confused. The music, unfortunately, follows suit.

Many of the tracks are begging to be played live in full force, as most of them, to be sure, sound unfulfilled here on CD.

Despite its positives, the album falls far short of the impressive musical peaks of Kelly’s discography.

I would stress that this conglomerate of half-baked songs should in no way reflect on the rest of Cursive's canon -- there is a reason most of these songs have gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated.

Mirror Eye is just as solid in its own pop culture reductionism as Moon Safari or Before The Dawn Heals Us. It’s just that the hooks here are more textural than musical.

While far from easy listening, the mechanics of NYC sound positively pastoral, and the interplay between Reid and Hebden, formerly spastic and indebted to the free-est of jazz, is now melodic, the give and pull of the rhythmic forces against the melodic textures gentler, and the songs more likely to cause subtle head-bobbing and confused stares.

While the overall record is much more song-centered and even features honest-to-goodness vocals on many of the tracks, he's still basically stockpiling scraps from his childhood.

Scattergood’s voice is the star, but it can be utterly distracting, a vessel for an expressive, prolific writer who may be too afraid of the revision process.

Unfortunately, there's not much here to distinguish Ruins from the group's previous work, and too few of these compositions stick once the album is done.

A Girl Cried Red replaces Nokia’s NYC authenticity for her inauthentic take on a genre that struggles to maintain itself.

You can’t fault the band’s energy or enthusiasm, but You and I doesn’t bring enough of its own ideas to the table to make it essential listening.

You can add this record to the pile of fun, entertaining albums that is sure to get people moving at any party, although it offers little else.

Expektoration offers a strong tracklist, heavy with fan favorites (opener "Hoe Cakes," "Accordion," "Rhymes Like Dimes") and peppered with rarities ("People Places & Things," "Change the Beat"), but it's not the type of strength you can't feel from going back to the originals.

There are a number of songs with enough stuff to listen to many times, but there isn’t anything grand enough to linger in the mind like an inamorata.

It lacks an authorial voice. Since no one made this album, no vision binds it together with its identity--it doesn’t cohere.

ARTPOP wants to hide that it doesn’t have much to say.

No matter how you want to face it, the secret is out: pop isn't Friedberger's bag.

Unfortunately, what starts off like clockwork ends up as predictable as the inevitable passage of time.

Because the album risks so much in its all-in politics, the songs on their own are more difficult to judge. For that reason, the album is enjoyable almost solely in small doses.

T.I. vs T.I.P. is mercifully light on the requisite skits illustrating its dichotomy, but you almost wish there were more of them to explain the album’s weird alchemy of simultaneously overwrought and undercooked production and flaccid, self-absorbed lyricism.

Pared down and stripped to its primal rudiments, the latest Timberlake saga could have been something truly epic; instead, it just feels unnecessarily immense.

Dumb Luck is an album that desperately tries to be spontaneous and carefree but eventually ends up sounding stunted and alienating.

The playful experimentalism and inherently subversive nature of Dead Petz is enjoyable (in a sickly-sweet way) throughout, yet it’s experimentation is akin to playing absent-mindedly with a shitty synthesizer iPhone app.

If you've been pining for a fresh take on the libidinous funk of yesteryear, or looking to go back to prurient, carefree days of teenage infatuation, the National Trust is for you, ooo, ooo, yeahhhhhhh.