While it introduces some interesting new ideas to The Strokes' repertoire, there are more clunkers here than anything resembling the dizzy highs of Is This It.

2005's Waiting for the Sirens' Call is nobody's favorite New Order record, and it's fair to guess not many people were waiting with baited breath for an outtakes album from an apparently dreary and unimaginative recording period.

The rehashed sound is tight and does a decent job of refining the genre. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.93]

After the sparse and pretty "Bedfellows Farewell," which offers a tender counterpoint to virtually every other song on the album, Academy quickly loses steam.

It is Foals-by-the-numbers, though, and the band's apparent lack of energy renders it cold and forgettable.

Untamed Beast is more of the same but with a ratcheted-up rock-and-roll attitude.

At times the songs are as fragile as fog, and when the vocal tricks of "Daisy" and "Nightskies" become a but much it's like a mouthful of too-sweet candy lasting linger than expected. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.86]

As a scientific experiment, it may have value, but it does not make for pleasant listening. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.94]

While it's good to have Rodriguez writing her own material again, it's also nice to have talented friends. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.94]

Oak Island certainly feels more homogenized in comparison [to his debut]. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.88]

He may employ very few elements, but Schnauss does a good job in keeping your attention. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.94]

Bundick can't seem to escape the downward pull toward conformity, fizzy production taking a back seat to bland pronouncements about love and yes, another damn hype man. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.90]

The album begins very much where The Big Roar left off, thundering its way through five noisy screeds without much variety in pace or power, However, halfway through Wolf's Law, The Joy Formidable veer off its beaten path. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.87]

A terse concept album. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.89]

Explore plays more like the examination of a single idea than the fleshing out of an artistic vision. [Oct-Nov 2012, p.133]

The MC never feels particularly inspired on this disc, his momentum crashing after the first few tracks. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.93]

Our House On The Hill is easy, accessible pop fun. [Jan-Feb 2013, p.93]

Player Piano was received coolly for its lack of ambition and it's depressing to hear a follow-up that stubbornly refuses to learn from Memory Tapes' mistakes.

The studio elements dates System Preferences. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.122]

The group sets into a jazzy groove that succeeds half of the time. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.127]

An increased technical sophistication, a broader stylistic range, and a more ambitious outlook. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.127]

Impressive atmospherics, but could've been improved elsewhere. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.127]

The brothers [are] as painfully earnest as ever. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.128]

Way too easygoing and disappointingly light on rockers. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.128]

Lightning occasionally dips into the annoyingly upbeat. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.129]

The songs occasionally tread similar ground, as with "Sparks" flowing into "Dance Pt. 3" in the same key and playing at first notice like variations on a theme. [Oct/Nov 2012, p.130]

The release fits nicely into the band's evolution while rehashing ever-present themes (like Whiskey). [Oct/Nov 2012, p.130]

MNDR resides somewhere in the territory between a less quirky Grimes and Charli XCX. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.119]

Glass' distorted barks and coos are a highlight of their first two albums and live sets--but any political message the band intends in III is lost under layers of digital dirt.

The original record was decent but not especially memorable, and the remixes rarely rise above the level of a discarded Caribou B-side.

A whole album of this sort of thing, however, feels like sprinkling white sugar on a supermarket layer cake--it's excessively appealing to only one sense and though it's quite filling it doesn't manage to be nourishing.

Trash Talk continue with not reinventing the wheel, and they do so effectively--it grinds, it pummels, and it's tailor-made for another generation of youth to get their circle pit on.

Love and Regret is a tantalizing first step from a group that has all the right influences and hopefully will continue to build on them with fresh, new ideas.

The directionless nature of the songs leaves them feeling half-formed, perhaps better refined or even left on the cutting room floor than making their way to a full album.

Come Home to Mama deserves praise; despite having a bland title, it's the album where Wainwright finally comes out with some ideas. The problem is that when they do work, they don't really go anywhere.

Listeners may scratch their heads over the album in whole; but open minds will discover that the beauty of the standalone tracks saves The 2nd Law from total combustion.

There's nothing that will truly stick with you for the long haul, but sometimes a nice tune and some supercharged instrumentation are enough. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.115]

Bootlegs provides a capsule overview of Lerche's work and a sense of which material from his seven albums he feels might best represent him in a live setting. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.112]

Whereas the previous three Tilly & the Wall albums always featured a certain pop-wise innocence, despite whatever eccentricities they might also feature, Heavy Mood is mostly devoid of such.

If Infinite Arms was this band treading water, then Mirage Rock is the band sinking into mediocrity.

The record doesn't veer far from the template Mann has established over the last decade. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.122]

The wild abandon, lo-fi to the point of being muffled style is Butter's main appeal. It is also its downfall. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.122]

This time out, there are strains of, say, Arthur-era Kinks, all crunchy clean guitars and sturdy vocal hooks. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.122]

The gut-wrenching moments are too often usurped by lost wallets, Instagram photos, and tales of songs on the radio--none of which add up to anything greater than the sun of their parts. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.113]

It's familiar territory for fans, and a fun passage in his substantial discography. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.123]

The end result is a record that feels phoned in. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.114]

One wishes for Clark to let loose a little more, and allow Byrne to mold his galloping rhythms to her punchy guitar lines. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.109]

New record Elysium finds them sounding once again like proverbial fish out of water, only with far less aplomb. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.113]

A solid document of the power of simplicity, resolutely joyous and straight from the heart. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.115]

He still packs dense short stories into each track, but without the humor the drama sometimes falls flat.

Stagnant Pools make a drone-y noise out of only guitars and drums. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.122]

Sun isn't likely to land among the singer-songwriter's best records. It's clear, however, that her heart went into it. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.110]

The album is never able to build its momentum as it gets jostled between a fight over noise rock and soft sleeper cells.

Few records in recent years have sounded this much like a toss-away popsike record from the mid-'60s. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.113]

There's surprising diversity here. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.123]

The results are tirelessly paced, extremely danceable, and entirely modern-sounding. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.124]

The four other songs on Always are not bad, but "City" is essential. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.125]

It's a combination of cheesy digital embellishments and so-so songwriting that leaves you feeling that Spring may be better off a part of a team. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.125]

This is an intelligent, sometimes daring album that manages to convey a great deal of emotion and will surprise even the most skeptical listener. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.124]

Bishop's got an adept pair of hands in everything, it seems, from the shambling to the shamanic. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.124]

{The Temper Trap] lose the sugar high on their eponymous second album. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.122]

It is not an album that will ever be treated with the same awed reverence as the band's first three albums, but it is a work of great talent and a happy note to end the mixtape for this chapter of our lives. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.121]

The album works its minimal beats and retrograde high to near perfection, perhaps only because of it had the ultimate incubation period. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.118]

>> is always lurching forward, riding on a bassline here, a synth pattern there, or marching along on pumping rhythm patterns. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.116]

On the majority of This is PiL, they are overshadowed by Lydon's barking vocals.

A playful record full of pop textures, light nostalgia, and occasionally cartoon-ish dynamics that does a great job undermining many of the tropes of contemporary dance music.

With few traces of human life, this is a dance party the listener navigates alone and undistracted.

Where Just Tell Me is good, it's great, with these moments of greatness mostly coming from the elders on the compilation.

That's Why God Made the Radio isn't a bad album. It's just not the album everyone wanted.

Live In Japan isn't a must-buy, or even a must-hear, so much as a long overdue release for completists and anyone else interested hearing one of the last century's most popular and accomplished performers at the very top of his game and height of his success.

Olenius and Krunegard have created pop soundscapes that bridge the organic with the synthetic, focusing on vocal melodies and harmonies often over electronic or spacey backdrops. [Jun 2012, p.157]

It's a summer record, in the classic sense, constructed from vibrant, laissez-faire love songs. [Jun 2012, p.152]

Fans of all those cold-wave reissues, here's a nice warm wave of funky-ass basement studio soul. [Jun 2012, p.159]

Giving themselves no limit on the length of their compositions, in some cases it feels as if the music is as long as the film it is scoring.

While inoffensive, Barfod's work here ultimately fails to really engage.

For all the drama, this is auto-pilot-rock. [Jun 2012, p.161]

It seems about 10 years out of date, and releasing it whilst Springsteen is mid-tour only serves to heighten their aura of lightweight superfluousness.

Words and Music amounts to little more than an attempt to scale the same heights; sweet vocals, minimalist keys with the odd guitar thrown in.

They almost come lose to approaching their forbears' moments of distorted bliss, but a middy--perhaps intentionally messy--mix doesn't do the record many favors. [Jun 2012, p.152]

All too often, though, it's an attempt at this exact same sound that lacks any ideas; not so much directionless as without destination.

Overall, the experiments on POP ETC fall flat.

There is plenty of good poetry waiting below the poverty line; R.A.P. Music ain't it. [Jun 2012, p.161]

Despite such guests as Jon Spencer and John Langford--and The Sadies themselves-you just want this to be better. [Jun 2012, p.151]

Koima is pretty enough, but feels too frantic. [Jun 2012, p.160]

While a number of tracks offer a solid melodic thread to grasp,m wade deep enough into Ufabulum and you'll find the sweetness a trap. [Jun 2012, p.160]

Impossible feels weirdly adroit. [Jun 2012, p.160]

The record's a dream for lovers of acid-fried psychedelia. [Jun 2012, p.158]

It conjures a listening experience that screams 1996 indie rock. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Nick Waterhouse's debut album gives listeners a more rocking, lo-fi alternative in the growing marketplace of slick retro R&B revivalism. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Shy Pursuit is not completely monotonous--it moves through a handful of styles as well. [Jun 2012, p.158]

It's pleasant, calming sleepy time pop. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Dulcet space pop for an audience, not headphones. [Jun 2012, p.158]

These tunes blur together into a woozy, vertiginous haze. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Orchestral flourishes give additional emotional weight to a collection of mostly soft, sweetly accented ballads. [Jun 2012, p.158]

It gets old quick, but this goofy dance punk record is fun for the first few spins. [Jun 2012, p.158]

Zammuto is a promising step beyond The Books' found-sound charm toward a new organic life. [Jun 2012, p.157]

Out Of The Game is a pretty mellow affair, and although it's hard not to miss Wainwright's "ponderous, pseudo-genius" extravagance, one can't help but be charmed by how lucid and relaxed he sounds. [Jun 2012, p.156]

As a while the songs feel less adventurous and more in line with what you'd hear from the larger crop of rustic indie rockers. [Jun 2012, p.156]