The songs are undeniably likeable, their likability almost formulaic, yet still surprisingly retaining a fresh-faced charm.

Unkempt and heartfelt, Terrible Human Beings shows The Orwells have promise and is a fun joy ride while you're on it. You just may not feel compelled to repeat the ride very often.

It's a slow-grower, worth applying oneself too. If one can disregard the brashness, drop the record a few times, and get over the weird for weird's sake, it is possible to embrace the complexities buried beneath in this offering from a group of post-punk, avant-garde cobblers.

Even though there is plenty to love about this record, it is unlikely to inspire a whole lot of devotion.

The beat structures on the likes of "Reverse Faults." "Under," and "Incomplete Kisses" fail to match their vocal counterpart in aesthetic or sentiment. [Jan - Mar 2017, p.67]

If this had been an EP of a handful of tracks, it could have been stunning, but it's a record that frustrates and bores much more than it touches.

It just doesn't have the same personality that American Wrestlers' self-titled debut captured so well.

Wilson sounds overly smooth and croon-y on "We Stay Together," while on "Hole In My Soul" the group's cartoonish attempt at modern sounds is strung together with a sickly thread of saccharine.

Dripping in falsetto and awash in synths, their latest attempt is painfully lacking in the refreshingly hyperactive guitar riffs that made their debut so memorable.

Requiem for Hell doesn't engage this canon with an evolved musical lexicon and its familiarity leaves you flat footed.

Babes Never Die is by every means a solid, boisterous rock record, but their first one was all that and something more. Babes has fewer hooks, and less of the glimmering reverb we grew to love the last time around.

A stripped down album, Lanois' production is pristine and the contoured soundscapes here should be digested as a whole, rather than consumed as individual tracks.

The things the band does right on this album make it worth checking out, but hopefully next time around Warpaint will be able to keep the songwriting as consistently great throughout as the beginning and ending songs.

Much of the material is unmemorable, making this feel longer than the album's 46-minute running time.

The Tennessee boys that used to hang on your back, shouting in your ear with whiskey on their breath have grown up, and now preach wound-down wisdom with an arm around your shoulder. But the charm wears thin over the course of a full record.

All the flashes of brilliance on Dead Blue are instrumental and aesthetic. The cohesive mood is only brought down by the lackluster songs.

As ever, there is risk run by too many tracks and fatigue sets in while listening to AIM. The idea of taking any one of M.I.A.'s albums and trimming its excess to 12 of the most colorfully resonant offerings is tantalizing to imagine. The same goes for this one.

When the workers step into another room, suit up, and begin spray painting the boxes, the music takes on a more soothing, droning, electronic quality with distinctly ripping synths and chirping, muted background vocals. In short: the music finally becomes strong enough to make these unimaginably boring visuals watchable. Sadly that beautifully soundtracked spray painting sequence ends all too soon.

Overall, the ambition and freedom of earlier work found on The Last Resort and Into The Great Wide Yonder is reigned in, and the melodic palette is less variegated and more darkly shaded, leaving you a little uptight. [Aug-Sep 2016, p.76]

The trio pushes sound experimentations forward within the confines of their drum/bass/guitar instrumentation. [Aug-Sep 2016, p.75]

This lack of immediacy is representative of Sunlit Youth as a whole; it feels overproduced, like some of the essence of what has defined this band for two albums has been polished away. In its place is a more palatable but distinctly less exciting listen.

Teenage Fanclub sounds positively content, and even tranquil. It's not the worst fate for a group of rock lifers, but it doesn't make for the most compelling listening.

It's doubtful Sweatbox Dynasty will make it into anyone's regular rotation, but Fec has no doubt carved himself out a cozy little corner of difficult trash music, and a visit now and then is worth the effort.

Dilla's legacy is invincible at this point, a point proved by the endless artists that still shout him out on their records. However, any lesser musician's entire discography would be forever tarnished by a release as lackluster as The Diary.

While both tracks suffer from their length, there is still an underlying hint of Shepherd's innovative mastery. It's the failure of this to come to the fore that means the Kuiper EP is not the best demonstration of what it's creator is capable of.

This is good. And some of it is very good. The trouble being that, production-wise, these songs want more power than they're given.

Apart from when Future Islands' Sam Herring comes out from behind a tree with an old wizard's rumble on "Ghost In a Kiss," most of the remaining lyrical contributions to 32 Levels, even from Vince Staples and A$AP Rocky, range from decent to deleterious.

The loose mood throughout spills into the playing, which at its best moments strikes a sprightly spontaneity, but also lands elsewhere like a weak punch to the shoulder. By Friday Night's end, you've had some fun, just not enough to make it that memorable.