Thing is, most of the songs on West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, while never outright abhorrent on their own, just aren’t tight enough to keep from being devoured by all the sonic excess.

Relapse is not only a half-baked rerun; it’s only half of a half-baked rerun.

Everyone plays it safe, no one takes a risk, and the end result is the most forgettable pop album to be released so far this year.

Asleep in the Bread Aisle is a piece of Dubble Bubble that loses its flavor before you’re done reading the comic.

In attempting to make a record that avoids the pop fluff he’s become famous for, Jones almost completely rids Pray IV Reign of the redeemable moments from past releases.

In a genre filled with faceless artists, MSTRKRFT only manage to stand out by being exceptionally faceless.

What we get when we put the pieces together: an album where every single song is approximately the same length; an album where you could take apart any one track, combine those segments with other stray bits of the album, and still have the same basic entity you started with; an album whose choruses consist of phrases like “No, that bitch ain’t a part of me” repeated eight times; an album that, above all else, does not want you to think about it too hard.

Overall, the album will be a pleasant sleeping album for casual ambient fans, but connoisseurs of the genre best look elsewhere for their fix.

Whatever the band’s intent, though, Mother of Curses simply doesn’t work.

Even as Lambs Anger rides the wave of ‘80s nostalgia to respectable income and momentarily elevated social status, long-time fans will scratch their heads and pine for the old days, and they are right to do so.

It’s like they’re writing about love solely because thoughtful, sensitive songwriters are supposed to write about it.

iSouljaBoyTellem ultimately fails because it’s barely memorable, lacking any kind of successor to 'Crank That' to keep Soulja Boy relevant.

Pharrell and his Neptunes exert a svengali-like control over the record helping Common release his most contrived and banal album to date.

The Cross of My Calling just sounds like an unfinished assignment.

Dark Horse finds the group at a creative low point. Each song sounds like an older, better Nickelback hit, and Kroeger only once displays his prior songwriting strength with the sad-bastard portrait .Just to Get High.'

Reid’s creative phrasing and pulse games are, as always, a fascinating contrast to the rigid rhythmic grids typical of Four Tet constructions, but on NYC the pair doesn’t seem to find a happy middle ground anywhere.

Thus the biggest flaw on The Fabled City lies not within the music, but with the brusque seriousness of Morello’s rhetoric and delivery that veers dangerously close to self-parody.

Where surprises could be found with each previous release to give even casual fans something to appreciate, Only by the Night delivers an even serving of Ritalin coma stadium rock destined to raise their prime age demographic.

One can’t help but be at least slightly impressed at the precocious skill with which these polished musicians craft songs so completely shiny and empty.

Whenever the hooks dissipate, and the chops are sidelined, Sam Champion is an overindulgent snooze.

Besides these somewhat untraditional, lackluster guest spots--odd that the one thing that used to hold Lavelle above water is now the most notable problem--is the fact that End Titles...Stories for Film has absolutely no flow to it, something Lavelle more or less acknowledges in the liner notes.

It’s nothing more than a slap to those fans, then, that the music is so maddeningly poor, all pointless experiments in how to construct a solid alt-rock groove before burying it in a grave made out of studio sheen.

What’s truly embarrassing for G-Unit throughout T*O*S is the way Young Buck shows up (which he does on four separate occasions) and puts everyone to shame.

So as things go along, the similar, recycled beats meld into one another with little to distinguish them.

For all of the introspection on this record, it sounds strangely hollow and thin, lacking the hefty substance that drew everyone to Rossdale’s former work.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is almost entirely forgettable.

My Bloody Underground is by far the most vapid, drawn-out, and uninspired addition to their discography.

Louis XIV has a considerable amount of work to do for listeners to regard them as more than aimless glam-rock fetishists.