Most artists, though, recognize the necessity to steal creatively, combining unlikely influences to make something close to novel. Greta Van Fleet, though, seem to lack even a passing familiarity with the last four decades of recorded music. Despite all the talk of artistic growth, the band have really only moved on from I to IV.

Kesha's willingness to be a little messy with her vocal arrangements make for the strongest moments on the album -- the back and forth on "Cowboy Blues" and "BFF" especially. Sadly, these fleeting moments are not indicative of what High Road is all about. Instead, it's an often infuriating listen, so stubborn in its commitment to cheesy, hunky-dory sentiment that many of its otherwise promising tracks are completely tanked by lyrics that have no appropriate venue.

An aimless collection of half-baked ideas that makes 33 minutes feel interminable.

I'd suggest downloading the two good songs and forgetting the rest of this album ever happened.

Black Album lurches forward bloodlessly, with no clear direction but the sensation of the moment, which is always expiring. There's no getting this zombie back on track.

For those keeping track of the hits and misses, Anthem of the Peaceful Army has a handful of truly memorable moments. ... The rest of the record is a Zeppeliny hard rock mush, the kind that happens with young people that love a thing too much haven't yet put in enough work to truly make something their own.

A handful of decent songs do not a classic album make, much less a good one. While Timberlake can't be faulted for wanting to try something genuinely new this far into his career, the laziness of the productions and overall misguided lyrics make for an awkward fit. ... Timberlake's worst album to date.

Most of it just feels utterly disposable, a series of tracks put next to each other for no discernable reason, leading nowhere in particular.

With Witness, the sleek production and rigid sonic textures end up doing more harm than good, vacuum-sealing her voice and most of her personality into dry, readily-forgettable numbers.

Unfortunately, Mount Ninji is an album that’s too obnoxious when it’s not boring and too boring when it’s not obnoxious; there’s seldom a competent middle ground and over the span of an hour, it doesn’t hit a single stride.

With the continually progressive and impressive places electronic music and its satellite genres are going, Operator is a regression to the uninspiring basics.

Long-running bands that maintain success--a rarity in itself--do so by varying their sound and by exploring new ideas, by maturing with their audience. Boxes is a sloppy attempt to follow that charted path.

Perfectamundo is essentially tepid blues rock (featuring many warmed over standards) with a Latin rhythm section slapped on for some longed for but unrequited funk credibility.

Here, every piece of music not connected to the human voice is diluted to a nearly unrecognizable form.

It’s best three tracks--“FALLINLOVETONITE”, “HARDROCKLOVER”, and “1000 X’S & O’S”--are, in the context of Prince’s amazing catalog, average at best. The rest are mediocre to bad to horrifying.

The result is mystifyingly boring and scrubbed completely of any evidence of human touch.

It’s simply the worst of generic pop music--the kind that’s existed for decades, just with a fresh new coat of EDM slapped on.

Outside of “Flight” and “Breath Out” all of the good moments are quickly washed out by waves upon waves of utter slog.

The overall sound is thin and tinny.

The lyrics are absurd, and are often problematic to women.

Anti-Flag may still have a good album or two left in them, but this one certainly is not it.

Following a rigid set of programming, they’ve stripped away the artifice from their ostensible Americana aesthetic to reveal the boilerplate alt-rock that forms its core circuitry.

It’s impossible to ignore the actual music, it’s so damn loud! And so stuffed up by the production, which is all there is. The end result is songs that that are so bright you might imagine you’re about to be blinded.

The aforementioned [producer Joe] Thomas does know who those people [guest singers] are, and he brings them on here basically to bring some media attention to a collection of limp, lifeless songs.

Kintsugi is the sound of a group resting on its laurels.

What we’re presented with here sound an awful lot like early 2000’s “folktronica” drowsiness inducers that the indie-electronica movement has worked so hard to rid itself of.

Anything but this soporific schmaltz, Diana. You’re better than this.

Unlike Led Zeppelin’s Mothership or any of the Kissology sets, Forever isn’t a particularly well organized compilation album, nor does it inspire listeners to go out and explore the band’s full catalogue the way the former two did.