After 35 minutes filled with one kinetic power-chord to the next with the littlest variation, Typhoons spreads itself too thin.

Noctourniquet, while not completely successful, finds The Mars Volta at their most pop and their most reasonable.

If more is to come, it should bring with it a great deal of anticipation - Colour Trip has a great deal of promise about it, and that, it seems, is hard to miss, even through all the noise.

The 2nd Law is a love-it-or-hate-it record. It contains some of the best songs Muse has done in recent memory, but also the worst

Chugging, jangling versions of "Honey I Miss You" and "Life in Vain" are tuneful and serviceable, stripping out Johnston's idiosyncratic touch while faithfully aligning to his simple, primal songwriting style. On the other hand, their version of Good Morning You sticks to the original's scrappy melodicism, and at a minute and a half, doesn't overstate its welcome.

It’s another intriguing entry into the Charli XCX canon, even if it does feel like more of a stopgap than anything. But hey, right now, that’s okay too.

White Stuff is a welcome return even if it is uneven.

It’s catchy, it’s energetic, and it makes you move--all plusses in my book. That said, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a record that sounds so much like everything else.

Maybe it’s a struggle to really get your teeth into Mosquito because of the track listing; the three song dry patch after Mosquito is a huge problem considering the ease these days of being able to find something more interesting to listen to.

At times it can be strikingly absurdist, the benefit of a frontman who knows how to insert humor naturally into the dourest of settings. But Higgs also loses sight of his own lyrical virtuosity when keeping with the band’s regurgitated precision-playing. Everything Everything continue to convey their bottomless ideas effortlessly, chained to the rhythm, even if their dizzying dance is beginning to show signs of fatigue.

On Queen, Nicki spends a lot of time ordering beheadings--which are fun, but get old quick--rather than showing us why she is and should be queen. Here's to hoping the next album gives us a more earnest, more raw glimpse of the head that wears the crown.

These songs just lack that certain oomph to separate Free Energy from the thousands of groups who have sang about girls before.

It's terrific fun while it lasts, and Moon's knowingly gawky charms just about manage to stave off any lingering Jimmy Ray (remember him?) related doubts, but the general lack of content does offer fairly compromised value for money, and raises questions as to if he'll be able to think of ways to expand his repertoire without ruining the central conceit, or just end up being an oddball one trick pony.

For a first try, the Black Keys do a decent enough job providing the backbone upon which this collection of rappers can spit and strut, but the actual musical output is overshadowed by the concept of this collaboration, and that is Blakroc’s biggest problem.

It gets a bit boring, a bit sleepy, and altogether, it's a bit forgettable.... But, you know? It sounds good doing it. That has to count for something.

Ha Ha Sound is occasionally brilliant, often adequate and, on some tracks, so bizarrely irritating that the mind boggles at who Broadcast imagine would actually be interested in hearing them. So, in summation, an almost essential album of largely inessential tracks.

The album's biggest hindrance is a lack of ruthlessness at crucial moments, eschewing cohesion for broad-stroke stabs at too many genres.

Rolling Blackouts is a Technicolor, kaleidoscopic riot of a record but, put in context, it can't fail to be tinged with a hint of disappointment. There's a real risk that The Go! Team may have painted themselves into a corner (albeit with various shades of eye-wateringly luminous paint); it will be intriguing to see where they go from here.

The Thermals promised that their next album would be “loud, fast, incredibly scary and undeniably catchy.” The album we received, Desperate Ground, succeeds in most of these characteristics, but only at the bare minimum level.

Gutter Rainbows instead hovers between a mainstream and an indie vibe, embracing neither and potentially isolating both audiences.

Some of Wanderer is, frankly, quite dull, even if her irresolute darkness can still engulf your senses upon closer inspection. Marshall keeps us at a certain distance as if gazing into an incomplete photo book, leaving too many empty spaces to fill when there are so many other stories to tell.

It’s never a bad record, or even less than listenable--the individuals behind it have more than enough good taste and sense for that to happen--but it is a mildly disappointing one, considering the sheer potential of those early releases.

Craft's vocals feel like they were sent through a french fryer, cooked to a crisp. The result is, like the music that backs him, a voice that is merely functional, an approximation that falls well short of its influences. Craft's first album had swagger— hopefully, he gets it back.

Crawling Up The Stairs has strong riptides that have no qualms over carrying you away, but if you embrace them you may be pleasurably surprised.

Perhaps the best way to approach Theatre Is Evil is not even as an album, but rather a collection of songs--all fairly similar but often good, sometimes very much so.

Dancer Equired trounces for thirty minutes in the same formulaic way as before: one-note exuberance, monotone instrumentation, and washed out pop hooks. Granted, it features some of their strongest songs to date, but it's not enough to salvage the exhaustive, pouring reverberation.

Imperium is more homage than innovation, and while it further preserves the integrity of early indie rock, it only hints that Blouse is more than a revival act.

Kintsugi is unfortunately as bland as they come, and no good amount of mourning, sonorous guitars can excuse the fact it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a relatable common ground in Gibbard’s repressed impulses.

It's difficult to say that there are some great songs on this album, but it's true; unfortunately Lewis fails to take advantage of this fact by lagging behind the innovation and originality of the preceding 80's revivalist movement.

Although it may not sound as groundbreaking as its predecessor, Little Red’s introspection-on-the-dancefloor theme is fascinating enough to sustain multiple records.

YG regains some of the energy that made his early output stand out, though all the new elements he brings into focus--from the spirited features to his tribute to Nipsey--feel tacked-on and half-hearted, well-intentioned but not well thought out.

Abyss isn't a failure--their audacity to upend themselves, contriving each and every step of the way with an expansive sound that masks away the more attention-grabbing arrangements is worthy. Props to them for sounding like everyone else and no one else at the same time.

So while it’s worth checking out, DVA lacks any real core.

Art Brut vs. Satan is somewhere in the middle; good enough to be worth a couple of listens but enough bad at times to frustrate and make you wonder what might have been.

King is worth a listen, but only to prepare yourself for their next visit to a neighborhood near you.

While this leap into the big leagues proves that he’s still very much a rare talent, it unfortunately seems that genuine inspiration is even rarer.

Weighed down by its own concept and bloated with references, there’s just no room left for emotional reckoning. In the end, we’re better off seeing Daddy's Home as purely an homage to the rich ‘70s funk and psychedelic music scene from somebody who only experienced it secondhand. It’s simply unable to withstand the added complexity of the personal narrative that we were promised.

While enjoyable and familiar, this set of songs reflects a band who knows what music they don't want to be making but haven't--at least, not yet--determined what it is they want to be defined by instead.

This isn't a bad album, and these quotes are by no means deal breakers, but it is a little telling that an album about “feeling lost” suffers from a distinct lack of focus or specific vision.

While lyrically ponderous and sometimes grim, (“Am I a waste of life?/I ask the night”), Hubba Bubba satisfies an impulse pleasantly.

Much of it is quieter, cinematic, and, of course, better than Our Love to Admire. Thank God. Sometimes we are impressed by not being miserably disappointed again.

It's like a Jason Statham film, leave your brain at the door, don't think, enjoy it for what it is.

Real Emotional Trash feels like a compromise, for Malkmus and for us.

There’s an unshakeable feeling that they’re going through the motions a bit too frequently and that this represents a step backwards for a once fresh and exciting band. Unfortunately, it seems the curse of the third album may have struck again.

The major problem is that this doesn’t sound like a band that’s pushing itself any more, or at least not making the same sort of pushes that lead to the brilliant sucker-punch of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the vastly underrated A Ghost Is Born.

It’s difficult not to see how this album, in an attempt to appeal to a much wider audience, won’t end up splitting their fanbase. It won’t alienate anyone who wants a fine pop album, but it may disappoint those who had come to expect something more interesting than that from the trio.

In the midst of all the new-fangled electricity that positions Mi Ami for creative growth, there is a spiritedness and innovation to their past output that is missing with this new device.

UZU is further indication that Yamantaka // Sonic Titan aim to get bigger, but hopefully they don’t forget that coherence suits them well.

As an initial barrage of sound, Weird Work can seem overpowering; but as we begin to divulge pockets of sense in the chaos.

The Five Ghosts chooses to communicate in a simpler, terser manner, which counteracts their evident vigor to test out miscellaneous musical approaches. By switching their objective, Stars' fifth effort has become their true reversal of fortune.

The way they attempt to reinvent the idea of the rock band is admirable but quixotic; they;'re intriguing but way overhyped. The album is buried in just a bit too much sonic obscurity--their arrangements are at first elating, but eventually frustrating.

All in all, Painting With feels just far too interpolated, and even familiar, to truly grasp, though through its failures it manages to somehow bring them one step closer to achieving those awe-inspiring moments of yore.

A "more accessible, less-noisy Jesus and Mary Chain".

On their latest album, The New Abnormal, The Strokes have mirrored the career of Beck, offering a mimetic approximation of music they think people want, instead of music generated from their raw, inner demons or whatever fueled them on Is This It.

Trash Talk are still far from a pop group, and the album features some highly destructive moments in its 22-minute span – but unfortunately, 119 features too many weak spots of lukewarm punk that suggest the group is beginning to slip away from the fully realized and perfectly balanced sound the group was just starting to master.

Violence may make you roll your eyes as much as tap your feet, but when everything comes together, Editors manage to sound like a genuinely exciting prospect for the first time in years.

In lengthening the song lengths and trimming the tracklist, No Mas jettisons the spontaneous, off-the-cuff energy that made their debut so incredibly fun.

Whilst the majority of Stygian Stride is an abstract pulsing mass, beneath there is a narrative that draws the listener through an intense display without losing purpose.

At his best, Walsch’s lyricism threads the line between clichés and anecdotal details with ease. There are exceptions to this, as Hesitation captures the curdling of a long-distance relationship superbly. It might be his best set of lyrics. It’s a disappointment that it’s situated between a handful of bored, washed-out emo tunes that hold I Won’t Care How You Remember Me down.

Remove the four or so songs that never seem to do more than bubble happily in an unambitious realm of chanted hooks and rehearsed quirkiness, and the result is an album fit for anyone with the slightest predisposition for fun.

Parts of Two-Way Mirror give me hope for the future, but their seeming inability to hammer out a concrete songwriting method makes me doubt they'll figure it out anytime soon.

Molina and Johnson proves to be inessential listening for fans of either artist, but should prove suitable listening for those of us who want a mild-mannered soundtrack to our lamentations of modern city life.

As a collection of odds and ends, No One’s First… is a necessarily disjointed album. It’s alternately disappointingly simple and refreshingly unique from song to song, torn between country, radio rock and classic Modest Mouse.

This was an interesting direction to go in and it definitely has a lot of potential. But the duo will need to do a better job balancing the synths and the songs to succeed.

Outside of the soaring Retrograde, a prime example of how Pearl Jam has ultimately matured, most of Gigaton shows a band whose collaborative efforts and expertise can still resonate if they open their minds to the challenge.

Ultimately, Marble Skies is a hopscotch of metamorphosizing sounds that can be rewarding for the most part, but only if you can muster the energy to make it so.

Ruins is an affecting, comforting listen, but not one that will imprint itself too vividly in the memory.

If this was a band’s debut album, it would be a nice, pleasant first shot. But with the knowledge of what came before, too much of it sounds toothless or neutered.

In their insistence on trying to mix quirky, quiet electronica with beer-swilling pop, without the two informing each other, Athlete too often fall into a formulaic and predictable model.

At present, their light out-of-the-box exploits feel more like comfort food, but there's no denying that once they develop their experimental ways they'll move out of stagnancy.

Down in the Weeds is at odds with itself—where the band balances music that is ambitious in scope with some of Obert's most nakedly personal work. But just like his complicated and sometimes narcissistic persona, there's a good argument to make about how his over-the-top approach perfectly suits him. That aside, Oberst and his cohorts' generous offering does take them on new, unexplored territory while remaining true to his wry prose.

Despite the wealth of glowing beats and rhymes, AIM would have benefitted from some unpredictability. Arulpragasam's sound is distinctive, but because she never establishes any kind of progression of ideas or strategically unites her songs around a theme, the album remains repetitive instead of cohesive.

What I hear is basically a mildly enjoyable set of songs, whose lackadaisical delivery and spacey major second chords could easily accompany my Sunday afternoon nap.

It's not quite bad enough to be dubbed an honest failure, but it's flaws are too debilitating for me to recommend blowing a tenner on a copy.

he Way We Separate is an undoubtedly intimate and romantic synth pop album that, for better or worse, pulls no tricks on the listener.

Any band that can turn over vocal duties as often as they hold onto them and somehow make all the music sound like their own is a band worth watching, and despite its inconsistency and even its lack of imagination, there are a lot of thrills to be had in this hour.

Devil Music sounds like a compilation of unpolished ideas taken from scrapped recording sessions, and though it highlights The Men at their best it also portrays them as lazy underachievers. And they’re too smart to be labeled as such.

Some the hooks are among the best the band has ever written... [Yet] the 10 songs never feel like an Album so much as it does a collection of songs, more like productive jams from a group of middle-aged friends unwinding or celebrating than actually adding any kind of blues to their songwriting chops.

El Pintor isn’t a rekindling of old fires, more so a chilled, mutual acceptance from a band that is letting things roll as smoothly as can be.

The problem is that Ishibashi isn't idiosyncratic enough to make this a memorable record... That said, he gets it so right on Manchester it's unbelievable.

Notes on a Conditional Form is a fantastic 12 track, 45-minute album. It’s just a shame that The 1975 decided to make it into a 22 track, 80 minute one. There’s certainly enough going on to recommend repeat listens, but the quality level waxes and wanes so much throughout that it won’t take you too long to find your favorites and start returning to just those.

As it stands, Deerhoof seems to have lost its footing a bit with this one.

They show the beginnings of great ideas in almost every song, and a few get the full treatment and stay great all the way through. The good songs are very enjoyable, the rest of the album is, unfortunately, pretty forgettable.

There is, however, a cleaner edge to this version of bedroom rock, but its Neapolitan mixing results in a less organic sound than you feel could have been achieved with a little less of a sharper edge.

CALM is occasionally inspired, sometimes incredibly stupid, and most of all: surprisingly fine.

Although Trev gives Stuart Murdoch's songs a freshness and clarity that is entirely complimentary, the decision to unleash a flurry of TV melodrama string arrangements or flashy showbiz brass on half the songs leads to results that range from tolerable over-egging at best and annoying inanity at worst.

What they’ve given us is an exquisitely polished blur, enjoyable at times, mildly challenging at others, but nothing that you couldn’t feel comfortable piping in as background for the Sunday barbeque with the Petersons.

At its best, it blows Chemical Chords out of the water but at its worst, it's uninspiring and dull.

Listening to it can be exhaustive, particularly during its clumsier second half, in which the narratives are duller (particularly Dossier), the musical progressions more stagnant (422). It’s undeniable, though, that this is a very original, fruitful record

Bell House covers many musical facets, both old and new, but what it truly showcases is Shy Boys' growth and malleability as songwriters.

Enter Wu-Massacre a fun, but mostly forgettable affair that comes from three of the clan’s most prominent members; (Ghostface, Raekwon, Method Man) and for the most part ends up being little more than good-natured fan service.

The lyrical flaws are not a fatal stab, but it’s an enormous burden.

Ooh La La sharpens that edge with a straight-up shot of soul rock revivalism followed by a chaser of electro-groove. Ditto is at her peak at these moments, where she finds a balance between creativity and sneering attitude, and it would have been great to see more of that, and less of the studio-slick professionalism of the album’s sound.

Is this record the cure to the ails that is the sophomore LP? Yes and no. Yes, it's new and fresh and spilling over with more of their unique brand of high-energy rock; no, as there's some missteps and growth is often traded out for immature jabs.

While it starts strong, the weaker second half makes Serpentine Prison a mixed bag. It doesn’t feel like a definitive statement album, more like an opportunity for Berninger to stretch his legs. There’s a good amount of work to enjoy here, but it’ll mainly make you want to listen to The National instead.

Stay Dangerous is an off-the-cuff chronicle of an artist who's gotten too big - at least in his mind--for his own good.

In all, ERAAS, though fully invested in the possibilities of their vacuum and their vocal prowess, are at their best when the instruments can breathe.

From The Valley To The Stars is simply a collection of mostly good and occasionally great songs that just doesn’t quite work as a whole.