The sound is a little too familiar, and--like a lot of Scandinavian music makers--the Deer Tracks are more style than substance.

Hearing “Love Is the Drug,” “Virginia Plain” and “The Bogus Man” this way embalms the material. And many lose a key dimension without vocals.

Too much space and too little aggro makes for a dull Faust, alas, and by the end of the album attention spans may well drift toward grocery lists or navel lint.

The sonics, as you might imagine, vary from one track to the next, coming as they do from multiple sources. In general, though, they’re quite acceptable, so rating them squarely in the middle seems logical enough.

It’s a little too smoothed out and indistinct now--most of the songs are well crafted but a little TOO well crafted.

As a tribute, Dead Man’s Town: A Tribute to Born in the USA is fine enough; just falling short of the material it champions.

Brazen and breathless all at the same time, Nina comes across as the weirdest record of the entire year, and might even be the strangest album most people might encounter in a lifetime.

The real problem is that there’s little, if anything, to distinguish any particular track from the one that precedes it, omitting anything of hummable worth for vague, languid repose.

In isolation, he finds beautiful music; with a band, he discovered confusion, pretentiousness and ultimately an average record.

Sometimes Django Django's ingredients cohere into an actual song, but a lot of the Scottish quartet's self-titled debut album is frustratingly sketchy.

It’s merely average, one likely to fade into memory once the buzz dies down and the fire goes out.

Oftentimes, it’s an odd juxtaposition, and one that isn’t always in sync.

Local Business represents a new chapter in the band's saga, but it's one you're better off skimming.

It would seem as if she’s making music from a disengaged point of view.

Many of the songs on here just aren’t very memorable.

Policy is actually all over the musical map.

This is a record of experimental sound, no more or less, and is arguably as important an element in Batoh's musical makeup as anything involving guitar chords. But that doesn't make Brain Pulse Music particularly compelling, especially not to anyone craving a helping of Ghost music.

Soft Will is certainly pleasant enough (which shouldn’t really be what you’re striving for with a rock album), and I’m sure is being hailed by indie taste makers everywhere who like their rock on the sterile side.

Listeners are best advised to head directly to disc two and regard the set with strings as a curiosity and an example of eccentric experimentation best left on the shelf.

Talent and skill overflow from the fingertips of the members of Trans Am, but that doesn’t mean they should let it make a mess on the carpet.

These are lonely outposts in a landscape without distinction, where the most depressing aspect isn’t what happened to Landes and Ritter, but what happened to Landes’ songwriting.

The band draws from the members’ mutual admiration and concerted input, but while it’s an admirable first attempt, it never quite gels into anything of enduring interest.

More a series of half-drawn soundscapes than actual songs per se, No Elephants comes across as an exercise in the abstract, in which the artist makes almost no attempt to color inside the outlines.

Though there are portions of We Are Undone which could definitely be considered unhinged, nothing here suggests they’re even close to being undone at this stage.

Afraid of Heights is ok, it’s Wavves most sophisticated, it’s fun for one or two spins on a sunny day and the duo due take a few chances but at the end of the day, the thing that Wavves are most afraid of isn’t heights, its originality.

It has a good sound to it, but as a whole, the misty quality in many of the songs doesn’t have much of a lasting impact.

Like other such endeavors-acoustic re-imaginings, that is-the results aren't that poor. They're just boring.

The problem is that Pearl Jam at this point is just repeating itself--or others.