End of the Day is a bit of an enigma. Fans of Anonymous Club may enjoy the atmospheric score and recall some of their favorite accompanying scenes from the documentary. For everyone else, there’s not much to get out of it.

Lyrically Batiste plays it middle of the road, not to offend, and at times that hollowness can seem like a bad parody. ... That title, World Music Radio, pledges a larger scope of sound which Batiste is certainly capable of incorporating, but too often different genres get a quick cameo before Batiste goes back to the dance-ready pop tracks.

Lyrically, this is mixed but has its strong points. Few write with his kind of insight. Yet, musically it fails to generate enough sparks with most of the songs stuck in similar mid-tempo modes. The true ballads are strong.

The slow tempos are fine in doses but that novelty wears off quickly. More variations in tempo would likely work better. When we get to the closer “It’s All in the Game” it just seems that Rickie Lee is stuck in that molasses-like groove. She’s intent on being a torch singer and she’s damn good at it although it takes plenty of hutzpah to take on the Great American Songbook.

Though the album is unequivocally emotionally rich, with most songs building to vibrant climaxes after mellow beginnings, as a whole it lacks the power, swagger, and singalong aspects of vintage soul records.

The resulting unwieldy quadruple album manages to be overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time.

Clearly, the group put time and effort into production (the dance/electro “Flutter Freer” and vibrating “Andy Helping Andy” both sound alive) but made an artistic choice to neuter their more rock efforts. Had the instrumentals been more invigorating this may have been an interesting choice, but as People Helping People wraps, the feeling of No Age just going through the disenchanted motions sets in.

Burnett is not a fan of technology, modern trends, or much of anything in general in the despondent middle offering of his trilogy. As a result, The Invisible Light: Spells oozes a murky uneasiness that floats throughout the album.

While the highs on the album are high, the lows are apparent and hard to ignore. There is a battle between the band’s influences and their own vision for their sound which leaves them with a batch of great ideas that weren’t executed to their full potential.

Hellfire is a decent album, one where on at least half the tracks come from the Black Midi we remember, always on the cusp of something brilliant and humbling and confounding in the best way possible. On the other half though, they are lost in their own precision, echoing their better work and confusing ability with purpose.

This new one smolders but never truly catches fire. Perhaps as a measure of the emotional disarray in which Young found himself at the time—he sounds almost as distracted at times as on that Seventies LP delayed some forty-five years–he couldn’t really cut loose, even in the comfortable company of Crazy Horse.

It’s also overly self-serious, an album begging to be considered above its pretentions and to be analyzed as art. For the most part, it works. It works as a piece of baroque chamber art and it works like a flip side to Hercules & Love Affair, a testament to the pair’s virtuosity. Still, it’s frustrating that with so many talented musicians collaborating on this project, it can feel like a missed opportunity.

As a whole, WE is a fairly good album and would be better received if it wasn’t an Arcade Fire album.

Radiate Like This floats along in the vein of 2016’s Heads Up as the former art-rockers wander in semi-aimless, sleepy pop waters. Warpaint’s dreamy vibe is pleasant, starting with the ambient-looking cover art, but it doesn’t leave any real lasting impact.

On (watch my moves) Kurt Vile lets his wooly freak flag fly, never reigning in his scattered thoughts and never rocking out, content to just drift along in his unique way.

The album is riddled with pretty hooks that are buried under interesting complexities.

Overall Fear of the Dawn (like White himself) never sits still and while exhilarating at moments, none of the tracks stand with the best he has written and feel like experimental jam sessions.

As a whole Screen Time is a curious listen/mood piece, the outings are all semi-interesting but (like the album as a whole) remain one note in tone, leaving a minimal visceral imprint. Screen Time’s sketches and atonal guitar jazz wanderings have moments, just not enough, however, with Moore, all guitar phases and releases are worth checking in on.

Overall Covers is a mixed bag containing strong song choices, but very few must-hear offerings from the artist who will always dig the crates for new covers to unearth.

In an album of mixed results, there are enough brilliant moments that bode to a more meaningful lyrical side for Rateliff and his powerful band, which has a knack for infectious grooves and hooks.

More than anything, the album is simply boring. None of Morello’s solos feel particularly inspired. None of his grooves get enough room to breathe. None of his jams particularly rock.

Unfortunately, the biggest misses are at the heart of the album, as the over-long and manic “Pink Lunettes” is crazed from a bad drug trip or just 18 months cooped up, pin-balling around searching for meaning with grating lyrics. ... The finale recalls the opener with a swirling mix of electro, longing, and strings, pedal-affected guitars and keyboards, doing an admirable job recalling the best of Pink Floyd but skewed through a modern filter, bookending the shaky 9 on an exhilarating note.

The easy rhymes so obvious in “Smile” end the album as it began, on a relatively placid note that unfortunately doesn’t change much over the course of the eleven cuts. As a result, this album title may refer to the disparity between potential and achievement on the part of Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real.

Everything from future horror movie soundtracks, to thrash blasts of rage, to smoky 70’s fuzz flows out of Arrows and while the overall result is a bit hit or miss, Red Fang returns back to their sweet spot; recording together for the simple love of playing heavy music.

Second Line is another strong turn from Richard, a successive trip through the different styles that have made up her evolution over the years. ... Her problem is in her execution of Second Line, an album that feels more scattershot the revolutionary. It doesn’t necessarily feel like regression but for an artist who has consistently topped herself, it falls short.

On the band’s newest release, Open Door Policy, The Hold Steady moves to fully incorporate Finn’s more muted solo offerings, and the result is a disjointed transitional work.

A move to a more polished sound was desired and clearly achieved, yet tracks like “Moment of Joy” and “The Way” both seem to suffer from this newer clean style. “Moment of Joy” lyrically yearns to break out of its mellow musical world while “The Way” simply has too many ideas getting crammed into one song.

The result is a mixed collection; some good, some a little more tedious, but in the end, you can’t deny that Ramirez stayed true to his objective and didn’t skimp on real emotion in the process.