There are few truly wince-inducing moments through this tidy little collection, and when they arrive, they’re blessedly brief.

This apparent quest for new sounds produced Death from Above’s belated sophomore slump, a collection of songs that finds the duo pulled in directions that play against their strengths and makes them sound, for the first time, a little dull.

They aren’t content to simply let Cooper’s past speak for itself. Rather they lard the album with references to his best-known songs and try to get his backing band to often ape the instincts of the original Alice Cooper Band. ... The album is, at least, bookended by some strong material.

It’s more of the same. It seems to be needing something more. An extra spark of interest.

In a word, Everything Now finds Arcade Fire in a place they’ve never been. It’s unsubstantial.

Naturally, the beats are excellent across the board, although 21 Savage uses a little more Autotune and makes more of a play for the pop charts with some slinky R&B jams. ... Unfortunately, these reflective moments are outnumbered by repetitive odes to getting high, getting laid, and getting lots of money. What’s worse, some of his lyrics aren’t just bland, but blatantly homophobic.

Likely as clean as you have ever heard it, Big’s flow is the glue that holds an otherwise disjointed project together with cadences that kick the songs into hyperdrive, cement his versatility, and prove that he and the Organized Noize production team--the guys that built The Dungeon and the bulk of the joints on this album-- might be close to returning to form. Their indecision about the creative direction of the project, however, takes away from the overall quality of the release.

Witness has great singles, forgettable singles, forgettable filler, and songs that go clunk.

Gone Now makes it clear that he knows his way around a chorus--he often jumps right into them at the start of songs--but verses are strained and general while impulses are too often freely indulged, rather than examined and pulled apart in the hopes of building something that looks more like innovation than imitation.

Relaxer represents ambition and a willingness to take chances. The downside is that it finds the band in a state of confusion, pulled in all directions and sacrificing a sense of cohesion.

Although it features a few radio-ready summer moments, Waiting on a Song never quite rises to the heights reached by its famous collaborators or canon-approved inspirations.

Ponderous musicality can be both mesmerizing and boring, and Black Laden Crown touches on both extremes.

The missteps don’t detract too much from this ambitious, if slightly unfocused, debut.

An outing as plain as its title. It is the band’s most consistent album in years, never dipping into any true clinkers but never approaching anything close to a risk either.

There are flashes of a more invigorating band underneath, but Season High ultimately ends up the kind of record for festival attendees to pleasantly dance along to while sipping their drinks waiting for the headliner.

Some of the songs feel too sterile and Pornos-by-numbers; others are derivative in a way the band rarely is. Overall, it would have been more successful as a five-song mini-LP than as a full-length.

On the whole, everything proceeds much too predictably and with far too much caution and restraint.

Best to appreciate them for what they are: a noble effort that likely won’t have a marked impact on the world at large.

Each passing cycle saps a little more life from the record, until we’re left with background music, fluff that goes in one ear and out the other. That includes the lyrics, which run the gamut from sentimental, to rote, to downright creepy.

The double album concept only waters down Kozelek’s biting social commentary and exquisite observations on living.

It’s not the glut of product that’s Future’s problem. Future’s problem is that, like his cohort Drake, he’s drunk on his own myth, and unlike Drake, his (intentionally) limited skill set doesn’t have any obvious backdoors to sneak out of for his career’s third act.

AFI covers most of the band’s explored genres, giving fans from every era something to appreciate. Unfortunately, this means no one will be completely satisfied.

While it’s a relief that there’s no supergroup pretension present, it’s also a shame that it sounds like the original projects of its members thrown into a blender cranked to its highest setting. That kind of blending obscures the individual contributions of each musician, which ultimately renders Echolocation a dull effort.

Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’ seems concerned with little more than keeping up appearances. Hopefully, the high points of the album are a proper barometer, and Kid Cudi’s next destination is a sight better than this.

Between the abundant déja vu and the periodical redundancy (doldrums which would be easy enough to overlook on a full-length, but prove problematic on a brisk 21-minute listen like this), Not the Actual Events’ purported “impenetrability” manifests as a riotous retread instead.

As he closes the final chapter in his Oxygène trilogy, Jarre somehow finds a way to fit all its components in a box, but can’t quite tie the bow holding them together.

In the end, the record feels like a copy of a copy, though produced on what may just be the world’s best copier. If nothing else, though, the record works as a pleasing re-centering for one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Darkness and Light loses its depth, however, when Legend skews toward pop (see: “Love Me Now”), even if these songs do maintain a catchy candor. Fortunately for the album, they’re rare and few.