There's something here, but it's not totally revealed and unfortunately, the record feels more like a notebook of unwhittled concepts than an assertive statement.

Despite its strengths, Kintsugi fails to leave the same lasting impression as so much of the band's prior discography.

A return to the garage rock that has propelled most of his musical endeavors, the primary thrust of Let It Reign is guttural. There are, however, tempo and minor style changes along the way that stop the album from being one long string of yells.

At least with Content some dots connected to the band's groundbreaking heyday, and while What Happens Next isn't too far removed from the former, the shift has left familiarity behind. That's not all bad, but the chosen direction isn't anything revelatory.

It's listenable and pleasant, and has promising snatches of creativity, but mostly it's unremarkable.

It feels more like a mix of diverse songs than a cohesive album, but there's enough here to keep fans of different genres happy.

Vestiges and Claws is a succinct evolution for Jose Gonzalez and his solo work, an album that promises much more for the next stage of his career. [Nov-Dec 2014, p.65]

Transfixiation generally features fairly quick songs that don't wallow too much in self-indulgent noisemaking. [Nov-Dec 2014, p.62]

If there's a drag to this first record, it's that it lacks many distinctive tent-pole tracks beyond the two previously mentioned [songs: I Wear You and Keep Me Alive]. [Nov-Dec 2014, p.62]

[Olivia Merilahti's] talent is mostly wasted, though, as the album's highlights (including sparkling lead single "Despair, Hangover and Ecstasy") simply can't justify the bland, overdone sound proliferating most of the tracklist.

Highlights are too rare here, and not entirely impressive in and of themselves. [Nov-Dec 2014, p.68]

[They're unquestionably still the same band, but--just like many of their longtime listeners--they're all grown up now. [Nov/Dec 2014, p.63]

The problem with Classics, then, is that they call attention to the bleeding sincerity of that bygone era without being able to quite do it justice.

The result is another ambitious chapter in the career of a a man who doesn't appear to be quietly going away. [Dec 2014, p.90]

This synthesizer-driven collection leaves you wondering why the male duo can't just recruit an awesome female to hit the notes with gusto and leave behind the airy vocals. [Dec 2014, p.90]

As the album progresses, it becomes hard to listen to without wishing each song had its own kinetic, creative video. [Dec 2014, p.88]

While many moments on the new LP are arguably musically as good as much of his back catalogue, it no longer has the same visceral, evolutionary energy of something truly new. [Dec 2014, p.88]

While not essential to casual listeners of Segall, $ingle$ 2 is a fun compilation that avid fans will undoubtedly want to add to their library. [Dec 2014, p.67]

It's an interesting trip, but at times Peaking Lights seem close to phoning it in. [Dec 2014, p.66]

It's more a big tent revival for existentialists than anything else. [Dec 2014, p.66]

Stateless often feels like a soundtrack searching for images to play off of. [Dec 2014, p.64]

For all its intriguing flourishes, it's hard not to think of Our Love as a slightly limp but occasionally brilliant follow-up. [Dec 2014, p.62]

The Best Day is a little backloaded, and after the dour first 25 minutes, things pick up.

Sounding like a cross between the synthesizer pop of Erasure and the stadium anthems of U2, Big Music could have been released in the late '80s and stayed at the top of the international charts.

It's the familiarity that's the winning element on Inspiral Carpets. There isn't any attempt at updating the group's sound with glossy production.

It's a tense, fierce, relentless piece that delivers sections of quiet space, brutal groove, and beautiful cacophony. But, like looking at a sculpture online or watching a prerecorded broadcast of a play, the element of danger and excitement is lost without the heat, sweat, and movement of a live performance.

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is similar to The Eraser in its electronic aesthetic; it's cohesive but hardly the most compelling album he's released.

The pace rarely picks up on this latest LP, but She Keeps Bees prove as well as anybody that the slow and steady path will still win a lot of races. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.105]

At 15 tracks, pom pom is a bit of a funhouse slog; too malevolent and toxic to really get close to.

The band's stylistic exploration is brave and admirable, but Home suffers most from a lack of consistency.

They know their indie rock template very well. The fault is how little distance they're able to create from any other given band.

They're easy to classify, to drop on your "Sounds Like Sarah Records" playlist and, thus, a little derivative. But that doesn't stop them from being a fun time.

Her off-kilter stance on traditional soul-pop helped her stand out from the crowd. Now, it's hard not to think she's content playing the part of another pretty, predictable voice.

The whole album is tinged just as much by melancholy as it is by hopeful optimism.

At least this time Otherness is a touch easier to define: disappointing.

Trick is more a straight rehash of '90s R&B than any kind of homage, and without the tunes to justify it.

Too often on Muna she falls back to silence, when she should be singing and playing with force.

Playland breaks no new ground. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.77]

It's not a bad LP, more a case of diminishing returns. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.81]

This isn't so much a bad record as a boring one. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.78]

Pretty and dreamy, Melted Toys dips into shoegazer introspection, but with an upbeat attitude.

We have here a nice mix of balmy love songs and enthusiastic foot-stompers with only a scarce few clunkers. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.81]

Admittedly, it's an intriguing attempt at reinvigorating an established sound. But far too often it fails to connect, with many numbers drifting out as the feeble efforts of a band that's lost confidence in itself.

Ultimately this is a record that fades into the background for almost its entire running time. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.81]

Departure gets by on diverting--not mesmerizing--drone. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.106]

The sets recorded here focused on then-new material written after 154, but Wire never even bothered to develop some of thee directionless sketches. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.82]

Ultimately the result is varying from a group known for its tightness and intricacy. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.81]

It's an indulgence for the ABBA fan inside us all, and sometimes we just have to give in. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.77]

The end result is a little too loose, maybe, missing the urgency of their previous effort. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.74]

El Pintor is an Interpol album that does exactly what it says on the tin, with no alarms and no surprises.

Adrian Thaws won't covert the uninitiated, but it is a worthwhile addition to Tricky's already proven oeuvre. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.80]

Given both men's positions as post-punk and goth progenitors, Lion sadly isn't up to snuff with the black magic these two have been so capable of creating in the past.

While it's less a painting than a promising sketchbook, these Crush Songs are still perfectly lovely sketches.

It's hard to imagine many people reaching for this album even for times of pensive reflection when there's such a preponderance of terrific mellow music out there.

The Man Upstairs is nearly dominated by unremarkable covers, often of songs dating from Hitchcock's own heyday and formative years.

So samey are these tracks that you could sequence them all in a completely different, random order, and the album would still sound exactly the same.

On Muzik Die Schwer Zu Twerk, they're underdeveloped, and the result isn't nearly electric enough and just too perplexing.

Mostly a lot of the same stuff that made you enjoy Grrr...

O'Connor never really goes big with any of these songs and never passes the limits of the uninteresting backing music.

At least Pixies didn't try to fake their way into recreating every aspect of their former glory. But the music here is so unfortunately forgettable.

Doesn't quite hit the heights he's aiming for, but ultimately it's a pleasing (if plodding) listen. [Jun-Jul 2014, p.95]

At 31 tracks, it's an occasionally interesting but laborious listen.

As is stands, High Life has the sound of a half-finished addendum to a half-finished idea.

Still--stumbles aside--you could hardly ask for a better summertime LP.

Creatively, Working Out doesn't cover a lot of ground, but it's really good in the little space it's carved out for itself.

Throughout Ultraviolence, there's a sense of musical haziness that rests in a safe zone that Del Rey either can't or won't escape from.

The intention is to go for the cheese on Do It Again, but the impact is so much stronger when restraint is exercised.

Sure, appearances by resident clever sad boy John Grant and Belgian singer Gustaph stir the pot a little (particularly on the catchy lead single "Do You Feel the Same?") but ultimately the final package ends up fading into rhythmic background music.

This is beautiful music, but after so many nights of losing teeth, it all too often is without them. [Jun/Jul 2014, p.84]

It's all moodily pleasant but never immersive. House of Spirits is a slow-burner that ultimately chokes on the ashes of its own grayscale lethargy.

The hardcore supergroup rips through 16 songs in a tad over a half hour ferociously, but also maintains a tight song structure. [Jun/Jul 2014, p.95]

The Drop Beneath is a little uneven, but it's engaging enough. [Jun/Jul 2014, p.95]

All the usual thematic motifs make an appearance, for good or ill. [Jun/Jul 2014, p.84]

It's just a little too easy to wonder how Black Hours may have evolved with Walkmen drummer Peter Bauer's restlessly inventive percussion propelling the lulls, or how a democratic approach may have suppressed a few indulgences. In other words, imagine if this had been a Walkmen record...

Those expecting a fresh haul of output are likely to be left disappointed. But for those not so close to the ins and outs of a band that's managed to stay effortlessly hip through the ages (despite creating The Powerpuff Girls theme tune), there's enough here to warrant renewed intrigue.

Oberst's unmistakable voice, songwriting style, and melodic tendencies ground the album, but you have to wade through generic instrumentation and glossy production to find it.

Ultimately Do to the Beast lacks that gritty, seedy bite that defined The Afghan Whigs' greatest moments.

Reflecting entirely on a misplaced relationship, The Cautionary Tales of... is a personal record that lacks few comforting cushions.

The music sure sounds like Squarepusher, though, which is to say: it is good. It's just not as good as what the man can do with his regular gear.

Lo-Fang tries to do too much on his debut album, Blue Film.

Cuts like "Must Be Leaving" and the purring "Wanna Know" are symptomatic of an earnest record that means and says absolutely nothing.

Perfect Pussy is almost definitely a band to be experienced live rather than on record, but as statements of intent go, Say Yes to Love is an incredibly powerful one.

Kaiser Chiefs keep making the same record, but most of the energy ran out in the first tow. [Feb-Mar 2014, p.72]

Teeth Dreams isn't a failure. But it's an album that doesn't play to its creators' strengths. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.72]

It's a welcome evolutionary step for them, if not universe-redefining. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.79]

Tame by their own high standards of disorder, this record's roomier, rootsier approach lands The Men at the left of the dial. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.73]

There is a sameness to the songs, but it doesn't work against the album as much as makes it a cohesive listen. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.75]

It's a debut that both dips and dives heavily but benefits from a strange lack of artfulness. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.75]

Much of the material here harks back less to the 1960s acoustic folksiness it's shooting for and lands disappointingly closer to the more plodding end of 1990s Britpop also-rans. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.80]

This new approach does not work consistently, however. Occasionally it sounds unfulfilled, like melodies drifting off into nowhere only to find their way back and repeat, lost in a gloomy haze of steady rhythms.

"MFN" the only track which approaches the off-kilter energy of a classic like "Birthday Cake;" too much of the remainder dissolves into one another, and little else captivates. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.70]

The problem is that there is too little to dig into, to revel in. In many senses, Too Much Information is ultimately not enough. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.73]

The problem plaguing The Age of Fracture is inconsistency; the filler material is unmemorable and a little bland.

Its pulse never rises above soporific levels.

Sadly, post-rock heroes Mogwai continue to plod along by either replicating their former triumphs in a less effective, less effecting, and generally sheeny-shinier manner or by loafing around with the cack-handed utilization of "progressive" electronic elements.

Overall, your enjoyment of this album will depend on your patience and appreciation for Kozelek's idiosyncrasies. Sometimes he pulls it off wonderfully, and other times listeners might wish he'd left a little more to the imagination.

So, yes, album number two is a step in the right direction, but once again the journey doesn't always feel worth the effort. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.70]

Has God Seen My Shadow? collects Lanegan's solo work, but makes it more apparent that when left simply to his own devices, there's a dynamic missing. His voice is so powerful, in fact, that it needs something to set it apart, or to duel with it.