The Libertines, with their second comeback, have chosen the other, “safe” direction, and sacrificed their integrity for it. Doherty sounds tired, abandoning nostalgia for kitschy gestures. Barât has fun, putting on his old jacket and playing rockstar, but he’s not rethinking his role as musician, or portraying growth as a songwriter.

If Wilson and crew are trying to invoke a riot, then Easy Eighth isn’t the best manifesto – but it does at least fill the time fine enough until they figure out their cause.

Considering this is her first album since 2014, it’s unfortunate that it can feel a little one-note. A Romeo and Juliet-esque yearning wasn’t necessarily expected or desired, and it doesn’t always serve her best across this effort.

To his credit, he once again proves why he’s esteemed at the former via the blunt insights of “TMVTL”, but the “run that verse back” Benny is all but absent on Everybody Can’t Go. Once more, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but he doesn’t seem sure how to replace that energy with conviction. Even The Alchemist gets dragged down by the pursuit of safe material.

Based loosely around a theme of karma and betrayal, it’s possible that the attempt to tie everything together lyrically came at expense elsewhere. The sequencing doesn’t help: following the Lykke Li-ish opener “Love And Other Drugs” and nuclear trap of “WUACV” (which stands for “woke up and chose violence”) comes a Barbie pink, seven-song sampler of other peoples’ sounds. We don’t get to see Maidza again until the three bangers crammed into the back half, which is very late.

It’s a shame nothing about it screams new pop culture staple the way the movie does. There are fine moments, but the highs don’t rise enough to offset the lows.

With Feed The Beast she has neither progressed past that nor become a lost cause.

This collection of radiant jangle pop songs, burdened by nostalgic love and depressive yearning for something real, ultimately loses its luster. Everything else blends into one garbled, hazy murmur that ensues without much variance.

ATUM is the most controversial and strangest of all Smashing Pumpkins albums: a record that defies expectations but often disappoints in how prosaic and calculated it is.

Ákadóttir has made her own museum here, and each of the songs on the album are monochrome statues that we the listener get to walk around and view, but we leave the building indifferent to any real history and experience they represent. It’s like Night at the Museum, but without any of the magic.

Cracker Island’s forgettable, milquetoast assembly line of tracks – though crisply and professionally engineered – proves that having it all shouldn’t always mean using it all.

It would seem then that Let Her Burn is Rebecca Black just flying overhead instead of victoriously soaring above the ashes.

It remains a frustrating record, though, since it does show Tegan and Sara attempting to pull away, ever so slightly, from the sickeningly shiny days of “Closer”, but they get in their own way in their efforts to be edgy or forward-thinking.

Junior Boys’ track record shows that change is good, but here it feels like the tiptoe before a more significant step.

What remains is a record that feels all too groomed, all polished execution and often not well thought out. Music to nod and tap your foot along to, then turn it off and move on.

Detractors have long said that Harris’ music is tailor made for background summer playlists you can ignore – listening to this project, it’s hard to disagree.

At heart, it’s all too modest, too fatigued, too lacking in ambition and attitude.

There’s so much talent and story hidden behind the mask, but this album isn’t Orville Peck at his truest.

It’s far from a miserable affair, it certainly passes the time, it’s just hard to imagine how so much talent in a room didn’t arrive with something that didn’t feel so staid.

The tracks are still unmistakably Sonic Youth, but in a period where each album had a particular feel and tone, these tracks feel too disjointed to sit together too well.

There’s nothing on this third round that shocks or surprises, it’s all standard formula Barnett except for her witticisms being down-played slightly, and maybe her watered-down mope-rock influences are a little brighter on her sleeve.

On paper, Horizons / East sounds like a return to form, but in the end, this is all miles from what Thrice were doing a decade ago. ... Thrice are going to have to try a little bit harder next time.

It’s a modest debut, and that’s the highest praise as O’Connell could ask for with an album this timid.

Despite the label hopping, the independent releases, the decade of time spent away, Wavves still hasn’t changed much.

The textures are jagged and distorted, the lyrics are mostly nonsensical and feel spontaneously captured, and the whole thing sounds like an awkward genre-fusing experiment that doesn’t feel like it warrants its own noted release. That’s not to say there aren’t moments with elements to enjoy, if not just moments with potential.

Pedestrian may have similar mechanics to Yuck’s highlights underneath, but it’s stripped that fuzzy distortion and slathered in a thick layer of schmaltz as a replacement. The end result is a struggle, one that’s scattershot due to it’s need to include now-ancient methods to survive.

Songs like “Carpenter” and “Set the Fairlight” have some of that old-school Islands mentality, displaying Thorburn’s ability to write infectious grooves. But these moments are few and far between and easily overshadowed by the homogenous tones of “Natural Law Party” and the flighty “Marble”.

It’s not bad music per se, but lacking Weiss’ sharp drumming and the virtuoso guitar work the two are so good at, there’s not much left of what made Sleater-Kinney exciting.

Monthly Friend is serviceable indie rock at best, but it’s hard to meet it with anything greater than apathy and indifference.

When they really let themselves down is on the sappiest songs.

There’s some pleasure to be had here, but for all of those except those of us pawing the floor with anxious, somewhat embarrassed memories – and as the album cover even seems readily to acknowledge – this is perhaps a pill best left unswallowed.

Poster Girl is a step forward in a somewhat more concise direction for Larsson, but it could have used some fine-tuning to fully commit to its vision. She has created an album that is unapologetically romantic and fun but lacking in consistency production-wise.

Believer’s songs push and pull against each other, and the end result leaves one feeling like not much ground has been covered. It’s bolder than most new albums in recent memory, especially coming from a label as big as XL, but too often their sound comes off as a bizarre experiment. They are capable of more.

For those who regard May Our Chambers Be Full as a contemporary gem, The Helm of Sorrow will occur as one of rock’s anticlimaxes. One shouldn’t ignore the winning elements of this release and how the contributing artists’ gifts are alternately put on center stage, but if Chambers is the benchmark for this combo, then one has to point out that what rendered it near-perfect; namely, the seamless synthesis of styles and energies, is on the whole absent here.

What works for Lambchop in the case of TRIP is the level of consistency in their sound that they were able to achieve through years of playing music together. However, it does not exactly bring the album together, because the tracks are thematically very different, and the band’s decision to apply the same approach to them contributes to the plainness of TRIP.

Taylor takes that responsibility as a solo artist and runs with it, throwing everything and anything into the mix; there are the standard sounds you’d expect from him, but there’s also country, blues-based hard rock, punk and some rap-rock thrown in for good measure. And therein lies the issue with CMFT: rather than those disparate influences somehow mixing to become a whole, they’re left to stand on their own. The more you listen to CMFT, the more it comes across as ‘Corey Taylor does (insert genre here)’ rather than something cohesive.

Where There Existed an Addiction to Blood seemed to take the listener down a spiral of harsh violence and vaguely interconnected moments of supernatural terror, Visions of Bodies Being Burned just feels lost.

It gets bogged down in the doldrums somewhere between the personal and universal, and ends without truly having reached either shore.

She’s basically incapable of making a song that isn’t at least pretty, but this album shows that some songs are simply meant to have more meat on the bone, and others are meant to be left out of the conversation altogether.

Judging from these recordings, it’s unclear where Secret Machines are heading. Their strength lies in dynamic live shows, and those are postponed until further notice. Awake in the Brain Chamber possesses the clean-cut sound of a mainstream rock album that can sell large quantities, but it lacks the wild abandon and unique inspiration that leads to fervent adoration – the qualities that made their debut album into an underdog classic of the era. But the potential remains.

Caravan Château is undoubtedly a sonically interesting album to partake in. But Izenberg’s compositions don’t always lend him any favours. They are considered, and everything feels deliberate (despite how sporadic it may be presented to be), but sometimes they don’t wander in any direction that makes for engaging listening.

Everything that made their self-titled debut forgettable has been brought back and laboriously run into the ground.

After three albums about the same thing, Hinds haven’t shown any real progression by shedding their lo-fi trappings; instead they’ve just unearthed their shortcomings.

There is a disappointing flatness to the songwriting, the performances and the general drive of the record. It is the sound of a band going through the motions, scared to make much of a show of themselves for fear of making a mistake.

Surprising title be damned, High Off Life can’t seem to help feeling like a rerun – albeit an enjoyable one.

Sticking to a playbook can be a great approach, but Diet Cig seem to be always aiming for “proficient”, while the “exemplary” boxes languish unchecked.

What hurts The Don Of Diamond Dreams is how they get ahead of themselves with minimal regard to where they’re going.

Unfortunately, after years of anticipation, the reveal is an overtly tedious shell of everything Parker has ever charmed into existence. In fact, tedious may be an understatement.

The timbre or the texture of the sounds they make is worth noting while working through Smilewound, but hardly worth returning specifically for.

The experimental mindset is evident in moments of Right Thoughts, but only a select few, and like Tonight, it’s most prominent on the last few tracks.

Nocturnes rates better as an album that sounds better with time, as opposed to Hands’ sugar rush appeal. However, it also retains an uneven quality that can make getting through Nocturnes feel like someone trying to drag the party on a little too long.

While the fury remains, there a perceptible dip in quality in nearly every aspect of the Thermals’ formula.

The most frustrating thing about these eleven songs is that it sounds as if Lidell is shackled by the aesthetic, and it’s totally self-imposed. He’s capable of more.

As brief as the moments of goodness may be, they’re lost in a sea of noise that becomes near indistinguishable when taken in one sitting.

As it stands, the rest of the record proves to varying degrees that it’s not necessarily reverb or effects that alienate--you can sound just as distant armed with nothing but clean instrumentation and an impenetrable air of disinterest.

It sounds like he's trying to sound less weird, when he doesn't seem to understand that this very weirdness is part of what made him so endearing as a solo artist in the first place.

Like Silica Gel, Sushi isn't a bad album; it's just disappointingly mediocre, and I expect better than that from the psychedelic underground's clown prince of Cool Runnings and backseat-of-grandma's-Oldsmobile Top-40 jams.

They start off well, though, with a trio of solid tracks.... The remaining tracks on the album are equally inoffensive, but they don't have the same half-minded unassuming appeal to help them glide along, and too often there's one too many head-in-your-hands cheesy lines thrown in.

There's nothing wrong with seeking to accomplish the same things your heroes did, but when a band tries only to imitate a few aspects–in this case, detached singing, jangly guitar interplay, and lyrics about teen angst–without offering many of the other aspects that made that band great–like clever storytelling and interesting perspectives--it's always going to fall short. Which Come Of Age does.

Time and time again The Luyas set themselves up in a soft kraut-like groove and fail to progress the song into something different, allowing it to fizzle out after four or five minutes.

It's shiny but fluffy, and sure to be a disappointment to those hoping that O'Regan could build on the promise of Special Affectations.

The Wilderness isn't really a sum of its parts in that songs might sound okay, if not good on their own, but taken altogether it makes for an album that fails to make it off the ground.

Rave Age is an awkward half-step in a couple directions for Vitalic. It's texturally half-baked and predictable.

Local Business isn't a bad album, but it doesn't completely pull itself off either.

Banks is showing some desire to move beyond the design that his career has sustained itself on, but this album shows he's not quite ready to cut the cord.

TEEN is another in a long line of mildly interesting but ponderous offshoots from already established bands.

Descriptors are hardly necessary for any of these songs because they're all a stone's toss from one another in pretty much every respect.

God Forgives is consistently, pleasantly underwhelming: the plodding R&B-rooted efforts aside, there's nothing much to complain about.

While Major has a good solid handful of inspired moments, none of this material comes close to approaching the plane as that Fang Island were operating on before.

The National Health is not a poor effort, it's just woefully undistinguished.

It's an album that alternates between being rewarding and punishing.

The record sounds tired, dreamy, and wasted in the daylight at five in the afternoon– it tries to be breezy, but instead still feels like 99 degrees of heat.

There's a lot of kinda clichéd and heavy-handed stuff.

For everyone else, the predictable melodic twists and some truly awful lyrics will likely prove too much to endure.

The end results are still pleasant enough, but can wear thin, even just after five songs.

Ultimately what this record lacks is any sense of audacity or ambition.

There's potential here but it's sadly unrealized.

It can become background music all too easily: while Silver's work will always have a degree of ambience to it, Exercises can completely disappear from your consciousness if you don't pay enough attention, especially during the last few tracks.

As compelling as their musicianship may be conceptually, it rarely goes the distance on Remembrance of Things to Come.

Instead of charm you've got big dramatic gestures at every turn.

They sound like too much like themselves and too much like the others, and even if you discount the pinpoint instrumentation, it's depressingly calculated.

Unfortunately it's largely downhill from here [after opener "Silence"].

There are occasions in the album's 45 minutes that are pretty good.

Beal appears determined to make his debut as inaccessible as possible. Intentionally crappy instrumentation holds the album back, stealing the focus from what is an incendiary voice--a lot of casual fans will be dumbfounded by this grating, uneasy listening.

By draining the grunge and punk influences from their sound and then over-producing every single song, Lucero have effectively become every Southern rock, blues-inspired bar band you've ever heard.

While One Second of Love contains this personal touch of sound, it isn't used to potential.

Wrecking Ball is an album that will reinforce most everyone's preexisting opinion of The Boss, whether they be good or bad.

As an album, it's ultimately too bogged down by its professionalism and erraticism to come together very well.

These are stories we've already heard told better, and in the same voices.

Toward the Low Sun staggers to get that momentum, though it does achieve atonement through progression.

The moments of brightness--some poetry here, a brief pop moment there--will get most listeners through the album, but won't inspire them to keep coming back.

All the talent in the world can't cover up the fact that Queen of the Wave simply tries too hard and succeeds too infrequently.

It gets repetitive after a while.

Apart from the aptly titled "Film Credits," which, worthily, plays much like a ode to Max Richter, the music on the remainder of the album is left to unsatisfying and grey piano suites that don't sound destined for a more open setting nor benefit from the intimate setting of Arnalds' own living room.

Astronomy sounds like a healthy stroll down 90s Alternative Alley, and is as comforting as it is overly familiar; giving it a listen won't change your perspective on music, but it might make you pine for the good old days.

Unless you really enjoy music in commercials, you should avoid this disc.

Hopefully we'll hear something redeeming from Gonjasufi, because MU.ZZ.LE is a step in the wrong direction, or even worse, a step backwards.

This kid may not have the voice of a generation, but there's certainly a demographic he could mean the world to. Once he figures out that it's what he has to say that should guide his singles, rather than what he imagines we want to hear, there may well be a great artist in Yelawolf.