Lackluster sound quality, predictable track construction, and the utter absence of emotional push and/or pull yield a record that comes off more like a product placement than a work of art.

Musically speaking, Bones is a promising young talent with the benefit of access to many other skilled players. Lyrically, however, he’s far from refinement.

Daft Punk have released an album so bland and repetitive that it may actually call into question all their past glory. It doesn't seem fathomable, but alas, the proof is seemingly inscribed in each note.

YOKOKIMTHURSTON displays an issue that affects several contemporary aesthetic forms when they become institutionalized: no matter how transgressive, shocking, or committed an artistic statement can be, it still remains enclosed within the safe, whitewashed, antiseptic confines of the art gallery under the sheltering halo of “high-culture” values, for the admiration of a see-but-do-not-touch enlightened elite.

Neither the downfall nor demystification of the group, the truly awful Ten$ion only further tangles the mess of questions surrounding Die Antwoord.

While VanGaalen seems to be overflowing with great ideas, I’d prefer if he reined them in a little more tightly on his next release.

Instead of in-your-face intricacy and complex rhythms, Travistan displays a much more restrained complexity that doesn't jump up and down for attention; and replacing the innovative vocal lines are cloying melodies that never seem to end.

Divided By Night has few worthy moments and a whole bunch earmarked for the couple of "Fast & Furious" films. The guys still have the goods, but this album will not be well-remembered.

Three 6 Mafia’s aspiration to evolve seems to have manifested itself on Last 2 Walk, from production to sound to lyrics. Having taken their novel sound to its lofty limits, it is time for the group to change and progress towards another musical frontier. However, their aspirations of progressing by melding Hollywood and the hood have largely failed.

Reasons to Live sounds like old summer afternoons.

The Dark Leaves is too uneven to transcend its shortcomings, and that poses more of a conundrum than if it had been simply awful. There are great songs here, but it’s frustrating to see them so outmatched by the lesser efforts.

Although Hagerty's mercurial inventiveness is occasionally electrifying, it's not clear who will have the patience to comb through experiments that generally fall flat.

At its worst, it wants memory over future. At its best, it wants to remember who sings next, after the shades fade.

Hymns, unfortunately, does not mark the logical next step for the band, nor does it exactly tread new ground. Rather, it denotes a descent into self-indulgence that’s paradoxically reckless and complacent.

Completists will appreciate the ability to experience the Art Cologne installation in the convenience of their own home, but everyone else should have no trouble finding more compelling examples of this theme, from the most difficult noise music to the most pleasant synth-pop.

Despite Beep Beep's shortcomings, they do get over on energy alone.

Demanding, absorbing, and, for better or worse, never feeling like a cohesive album, Mother of Curses is a collection of shocking truths set to stun the senses.

While Blood Like Lemonade offers nothing new, its depiction of a seasoned group reveling in their own nostalgia makes for good listening.

Freedomland is frustrating because it documents possibly compelling works by a band whose performances captured here were probably compelling, too. It just doesn’t reach the standards of prior work, so I’ll just keep waiting for their next studio album.

Where Newcombe’s music once sounded fresh and lively, his political message both controversial and effectual, on My Bloody Underground his music is neither fascinating nor engaging.

While Tical 0: The Prequel is an adequate and at times entertaining record, too much collaboration has overshadowed the rhyming prowess and lyrical wittiness of Method Man.

So much of listening to Ardipithecus feels immeasurable by good or bad. Ardipithecus fails as a pop record, because it’s barely aware that it’s a part of that conversation.

The alien, blank dead-eyedness of Britney Jean is frightening, because it feels like it’s all will.i.am trusts Britney with.

Truly, though, I like to think that The Bridge takes the best of early- to mid-’90s hip-hop from New York, the synthesized sound of the last five to ten years, an interesting blend of MCs, and an ear for a slammin’ beat, and puts them together in a package that isn’t necessarily mind-blowing, but that is at least complete, well-intended, and meaningful.

Underneath Lil Xan’s disengaged delivery, TOTAL XANARCHY ends up slogging through his sketches of abandonment, addiction, and, conversely, fame and success, with total listlessness.

In the end, then, it's not that The Devil's Rain is a bad album, but it's by far the weakest link in the band's catalog, and coming at a time when faith in the group is at an all-time low.