Carrie & Lowell is tough to nail down, but it’s also tough to listen to.

Half of the album is magnificent, and stylistically contradistinct, while the other half exists in some offbeat and off-putting terrain that will either elude its listeners, or alienate them.

It’s a good album, but not a great one, and though the long tail of history will eventually render such a long production time moot, it’s certainly not a record justifying the ludicrous wait.

The Suburbs offers several observations comparable to the ones above but fails to combine them with a greater mixture of moods and topics.

Despite its hype, its expectations, its blown up sound, and its many production flourishes, Bon Iver is nothing more than a solid placeholder album.

With brevity missing from Toledo’s musical toolkit (see the blame-deflecting “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia” and its 11:32 run time), the pain is exacerbated by songs that are simply too long to be memorable; what few hooks exist on Teens of Denial are quickly forgotten.

Overall, the album has held itself up as a solid rock record over 25 years, and that’s quite the success. The demos are of mixed blessings, to be honest. It seems that they were pretty much just run-throughs for the sake of the album producer.

So what's the problem? It's too, uh, perfect.

Remastered by Weston as fuzzy or sharp, this generous re-release (the second in a series by Merge Records, founded by Superchunk) should win Vee Vee another devoted following.

50 Song Memoir might not lift itself into the same orbit of greatness as its gargantuan twin, but it’s still a strong work from one of the most singular songwriters of the last 30 years.

Halcyon Digest is, to my mind, the best we've seen from Deerhunter, and a hint that their best is still to come. It's a fascinating document to study, but I'm not sure that makes it all great music.

At 59 and 48 minutes each, with space left to fill on both CDs, the label’s lack of curiosity about these more obscure sections of the Blur discography seems negligent.

The inclusion of trans rapper Rahrah Gabor on “Closure” is a fun and exciting change of pace but is still a small interlude on a record that is otherwise without features. Likewise, from its production choices, lyrical and thematic content, and overall aesthetic, Raven is less a bold artistic statement than its author might wish to convey. Despite its flaws, Raven is still a worthwhile listen.

We Will Always Love You is less poignant when it's about "politicians calculated, in the tower insulated"—as Cherry raps on "Wherever You Go"—than when it's about that lonely signal bouncing around among the stars, anxious to reach a distant planet before its source self-destructs.

The new record is pretty sparse in terms of its recording tones, very dry, and, in that respect, it owes a lot to skeleton-sparse Smog records like Kicking a Couple Around. But while that EP, another gem, seems to expand in its quiet moments, suggesting all sorts of dark narratives, heartbreak conceits, and hidden dialogues, the distance between Callahan's voice and the material he surrounds it here will leave some broader declarations up for grabs.

Bleach is a stronger record than it is commonly perceived to be, and does deserve to be checked out in some form by fans of heavy riff-driven rock. Regardless, this reissue is underwhelming, seemingly more concerned with enticing Nirvana completists to purchase it for the live material than in illuminating why Nirvana’s first album was an important step in a career that has helped define rock music for the last two decades.

It’s too bad really, that Have One on Me is so overdone because there’s a decent album hidden somewhere in there.

Understand that most of the tracks are excellent. If this were a stand-alone record, I would rate it more highly. As an overview of or introduction to Pavement, it is terribly flawed.

Maybe it's churlish to hope for more than the sound of two friends doing something they enjoy but Sunn O))) have delivered so much more than that, over such a significant period, that it means the biggest surprise here is that a band famed for discovering the nuances and unseen potential of repetition, finally sound repetitious.

It is an album about the ways in which we recover, the ways in which we find ourselves after feeling loss. It’s also an album that, musically, full of fitful and exciting exploration.

While Lambert obviously sees herself as the headstrong country rock rebel that all the little girls will understand, the true joys of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are to be found elsewhere.

Kaputt is eccentric and enjoyable, but it's no Infidels, which is to say it never quite breaks through its sonic limitations.

A record so concerned with repeating the strengths of an album past that it forgets to chart its own path.

There is nothing wrong with bands making predictable music specifically designed to be played live; hell, bands like Motörhead and AC/DC have become rock institutions by doing just that. With this in mind, do not expect an artistic revelation from Fantasy Empire.

There’s enough that’s interesting and/or good about Light Up Gold to give it a solid recommendation, with the caveat that Savage’s voice is likely an acquired taste.

The 11-song, one hour set is packed with all the hits from those classic first three records. However, as you would also assume for a band taking the stage well after midnight, the energy isn't always there for the entire set.

Troye Sivan’s Something to Give Each Other offers pop music enthusiasts a much-needed reprieve from the more emo offerings of Olivia Rodrigo or Billie Eilish. But the record falls short of its own standards, set high by the success of its predecessor and lost in its own ecstasy and provocative imagination.

Laurel Halo’s penchant for abstraction has long served her music well, but Dust veers too far in the direction of academic detachment, suffering from its own inertness.

Wildheart is the sound of Miguel fully coming into his own identity. Now, we just have to wait for him to do something with it.

Takk... is in no way a departure for the band, and it's easy to forget that though the music is very different from most of what's out there, we've heard it from Sigur Rós before.

The album is a classy, low-key affair, with solid, tasteful arrangements designed to show off the singers and the songs.

Yes, the album is impressive. But without much depth beyond its own self-absorption, it doesn't come on as strong as it thinks it does.

More than a patchy but occasionally brilliant album, Multiply is the whisper that the greatest soul music, rather than being trapped in our memories of times gone by, may yet play free in days to come.

Sawayama’s vocal performances are mechanically flawless, a testament to her talent, though they fail to evoke the sublime responses that Sawayama can evoke. Overall, the sequence suffers from a lack of risk and is self-consciously conservative in terms of its execution—a bewildering anticlimax.

For anyone who loved Emergency and I, or any of the Dismemberment Plan's other two records, Change sounds like The Dismemberment Plan on Quaaludes.

Sub Pop commendably delivers an anthology from a prime influence on their hometown heroes Mudhoney, and Feedtime's return to the shelves proves timely.

In their multi-ethnic make-up, the face-painted, twenty-something strong Allstars chant a slightly more devolved game than fellow marimba manglers Konono No.1, but the cumulative effect is similar, a sustained concussion of sound, a kind of sonic vertigo that subverts the cliché of Congo as perpetual victim.

Despite all the critics desperately wanting White to continue being our modern-day rock savior, the record can't have it both ways [being both a pointed statement about the pains of a break up and a collection of daring, wacky and eccentric songs] -although it's still a blast to hear it try.

The intricacies of the original Beatles recordings are easily overwhelmed by the cake-layer construction of Love‘s fantastical jigsaw.

This album is worth a listen. It's too watered down to stand the test of time, but right now, it hits the spot.

Despite the individual quality of almost every song and performance, there’s simply not enough variation of style, rhythm or mood on Like Red on a Rose.

It's hard to scrape the sensation that there's something a little inadequate about Tryptych, even as immersive headphone sessions reveal new levels of depth within the productions.

Despite such strong material, it’s a shame it has to be bogged down by a good six or seven tracks of filler.

Overall, this album is sure to divide opinion on the band and its future; it will more than likely continue to raise Mastodon's star higher in the sky, enough to get the non-metalheads interested, but not enough to pull the group completely out of the sludge where it belongs and where it works best.

While the songs on Peace Sells… hold up exceptionally well to this day, what the "special edition" fans were so looking forward to is nowhere near as special as it should have been.

Cliche love songs, too many similar beats and melodies, and a lack of energy all pull the album down, and when the album is composed in a way that should be fully appreciated in its entirety, the lack of variety affect the album’s success even more.

One is left feeling that the Dodos are selling themselves short, hanging onto prettyboy singer-songwriterdom when they should be letting their freak flag fly.

Accelerator is a confounding album, even a decade and a half later. It's a clear representation of what made Royal Trux so good, but you can also see the limits of their stubborn approach on this album.

There’s simply not enough sonic variation going on here to make Soused nearly as compelling as its respective creators’ past efforts.

This is the weakest of Lambert's four big solo records, and overall it lacks the lively charm of Hell on Heels, her excellent August album with the supergroup Pistol Annies.

Even as only the first half of a delayed double album, A Brief Inquiry already feels like a classically bloated example of the form.

The Foundling is certainly Gauthier's least showy album, which is saying something. It's also a notch or two down from her best, due to a handful of songs (mostly in the album's latter third) that aim for Gauthier's typically hard, simple honesty and instead land in the territory of gloomy repetition of aches and pains one would expect from this type of project.

It ain't a perfect, cohesive statement, but Major/Minor packs too much power to be ignored.

There are good songs here to be sure, but a measure of skepticism shouldn’t just arise from the band’s original fan base.

Broken Social Scene is a gratuitous collection of repetitive pocket-symphony anthems for the indie set and an unsuccessful regurgitation of You Forgot It in People's rareness.

Warm Chris, Aldous Harding occasionally strikes gold but more often falls short of the rich textures and melodic immediacies of previous work.

He's produced an album that takes his current style just about as far as it can go. At the very least, those who have followed him this far should be satisfied.

There could be some discomfort initially, but it's equally likely R&B fans who give Back to Love a shot will soon have it stuck in their rotation, learning to accept the quirks of its lesser tracks and falling more and more for its standouts.

Neither a home run, then, nor the dreaded sophomore slump, The Monitor is, it is probably more fair to say, the album that finds the band maturing beyond the precocious triumph of their debut by first having to pass through their awkward, gangly adolescent phase.

The greatest fault of Do You Like Rock Music? is that it is a statement album without a statement, only a response.

Sunken Condos is the kind of album I wasn't sure Fagen still had in him: surprising and yet sophisticated. Sometimes it does feel that Fagen is running through the motions, but it sounds like he's actually having a bit of a great time with the material.

Echoes of Silence shows that Abel Tesfaye continues to evolve, and it offers a glimpse of potentially exciting future.

Like Remedy, Rooty is either a brilliantly innovative record, or an unlistenable mess, depending on your point of view. To my ear it's somewhere in between, the work of two very talented house producers and songwriters with a taste for old-school sounds that's sometimes entertaining, but often unfortunate.

Sometimes their vocal melodies aren’t particularly strong. Yet those songs seem to be written to have the vocals at their center. Instead, they end up as tracks with really solid rhythmic backing, interesting guitar playing, and a sort of void where the song’s primary focus should be. The good moments here are worth lauding, but the trio could use a few more of them.

Some of the music on A Very British Synthesiser Group is as good as pop music gets, but as a package, you would be better off spending your money elsewhere.

These guys claim to be mad crazy; they just don't sound like it here. Their largely instrumental songs are about parties, but they don't bring the party itself. They've premeditated every "Hep!" and "Hey!" [But] that's not to say I couldn't listen to them for a while.

REVIEW#1: <A HREF="http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/n/national-alligator.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Over 13 doing-nothing tracks, Matt Berninger bumbles out useless lyrics that he doesn't have the guts to put across.</A> (Score=20); REVIEW#2: <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/n/national-alligator2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Alligator is one of those albums that slowly dawns on you. Given half a chance, it's ultimately a very rewarding listening experience that I predict will continue to grow in stature as time passes.</A> (Score=70)

Inferno passes quickly and a little unevenly, but the core of the album burns hot.

Technically proficient but emotionally shallow, Schlagenheim too often feels like feeding all mathcore and post-punk into a neural network and releasing the result. For some, that's why they'll love it. ... There's no doubt they'll mature, but for now, their restlessness results in both the most promising and exasperating record of 2019.

Despite a more liberal use of string sections this time out, Funny sounds like another album made by the 1975.

Interesting, unique ideas squandered by a lack of blossoming. The album's vibe is maybe best exemplified in the three skits where we get snippets of people asked broad questions, and their responses are layered over each other.

At times exhausting, at other times exhilarating, Primary Colours is more an experience than an album and, despite its flaws, one that deserves to be heard.

For an album named Wildcard, there doesn't seem to a standout track. There are some very songs with strong emotional appeal and literate, artful lyrics such as the reflective "Bluebird", the love story "Fire Escape", the teary "Dark Bars", and even the comic "Pretty Bitchin'".

An impressively silly little pop album devoted to happy dance grooves.

Although Allison had a particular vision for the project, it's tempting to wonder how much tighter the final product would've felt had it been put through a more rigorous edit.

If the execution isn’t fully there, however, it’s still more fascinating to hear Deerhunter take on whatever style Bradford Cox endeavors than most other upper-tier indie rock bands.

Put quite simply The Next Day is dull.

Lloyd's most interesting work can be his most rewarding, and Mirror is an example of how little ventured equals little gained. If it weren't for the final two songs, I would say nothing ventured equals nothing gained.

This new installment is solid, fun, and deserving of a listen on its own merits.

There’s a tendency for Crowell’s music to be a tad too literal from time to time and a few tracks suffer from this perspective. The hits outweigh the misses, though.

Unfortunately, a talented producer doesn't a great album make, as is the case with the shabby Under Construction.

Before, the most crazed cacophony could impossibly capitulate into swooning grandeur, but now that disparity just isn’t so striking. The dynamic is still in play, but with the edges rounded off, any tension is diminished.

The quality of the songwriting varies widely, despite the more or less consistent theme of death.

Too much of it -- both on the "experimental" tracks and the "traditional White Stripes" tracks -- feels like unfinished sketches.

Morning Phase very much burns low, differing from Sea Change in notable ways while at the exact same time robbing that album of so many textures, ideas, and poses that Beck’s own claims of this disc not being a sequel to Sea Change prove to be downright laughable.

So Life Is Good becomes the latest Nas album that doesn't quite do what it could. While Nas is rapping as best as he can here, the album as a whole is decent but too inconsistent to be anything more.

In its least engaging moments, Platform feels more like a homework assignment geared to some equivocal set than an album. In its better moments, it’s electronic music for the fourth-dimension.

Goon isn’t great, at least in terms of its ambitions, but it is a fine example of what might evolve from pure pop purpose.

At 15 tracks, Kaytranada could’ve easily cut out about three of the lesser songs here and had a better album.

The likes of Velocity Girl, the Sunflowers, and the Belltower are indie pop that happens to use the odd distortion pedal. Not unpleasant, but only marginally part of the story, if that. By the last couple discs, you have bands like Blind Mr. Jones which are rehashes of the “classic” sound of Slowdive et al, but with a flute.

It's still nothing I'd recommend to the casual listener, but there are interesting ideas at work here.

For the first time in their career, Built to Spill have made an album that is both lyrically and musically indifferent.

Country is a hard genre to screw up, and if there’s anything that this album proves, it’s that Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs have a pretty capable handle on the genre, even if it isn’t quite as perfect a handle that you would come to expect from someone of this pedigree.

If anything clouds the reflection offered by The Boxing Mirror, it comes in the form of a couple of odd production choices.

What really lifts this out of the ordinary is the undeniable craft that has gone into the song writing.

When Andrews focuses on her own story, she's an immensely compelling songwriter. It's when she speaks in a general sense about heartache that her powers are weakened.

J$P‘s strengths might outweigh its weaknesses, but it’s just not enough. Also, this album feels far too long at a mere 60 minutes’ runtime.

The record doesn't entirely succeed, but these tracks are built on durable structures and sentiments that make them deserving of the focus they'll likely receive.