A record that’s all too often content with mediocrity even though its finest moments reveal just how close it came to greatness.

Is the Is Are is certainly honest, but it could use a little more optimism, and the music’s circuitousness only adds to the feeling that a single issue is being poked and prodded to exhaustion.

Only the opening stanza of “Waitress Song”--in which a major label signee fantasizes about escaping heartbreak by assuming a romanticized working class identity--is outright egregious. The rest is just innocuous.

Honest is a good deal more middle-of-the-pack for a post-Yeezus 2014 than its creator wants to admit.

The genre-spanning approach dilutes what could have been a memorable project, leaving 32 Levels with a storage of untapped potential and only a few beacons shining their fullest light.

Overall, no risks are taken: all of the lyrics want to be mantras but end up as little nothings instead; practically all of the songs reveal their hands way before their often too-long song lengths; they mistake reverb as a songwriting tool.

There’s honestly no real low moment on Life of Pause, but then again, low moments were never this album’s problem. The problem is that there’s really only one high moment.

While Mensa’s flow is capable enough (especially on the opening two tracks, which are some of the album’s best), he also indulges in some painfully cheesy lines, from references to television shows long dead (“Tryna take over the world like Pinky and the Brain”) no matter how ham-fisted (“If she see her name, she get Goku tough”).

Discarding the albums actually awesome opener, “No Room in Frame”,--which briefly had me hoping for some tangible musical progress from the band--Kintsugi is more or less 45 minutes of boy-next-door, paint-by-number indie pop

Lyrically, High as Hope forsakes Welch’s knack for vibrant imagery and symbolism for more human modifiers and concerns. While it allows her to share more personal information, Welch’s straightforward songwriting means there are no “Howl”’s or “Ship to Wreck”’s present here. ... Despite these critiques, High as Hope surpasses many of them to solidify itself as a decent record.

Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son is long on atmospherics, but woefully short on songs.

Alt-J remain impossible to put a pin in, which makes This Is All Yours almost as frustrating as it is absorbing.

True, not every album needs to make a statement; sometimes it’s just nice to have music to listen to with your eyes closed and your brain off. But they can do better.

Unlike the best of the Notwist’s output, Close to the Glass isn’t emotionally nourishing, primarily because there’s no real sense that anything is at stake.

Despite its outward bustle and injections of colour throughout, the album’s personality is also disappointingly tentative and placid.

This album gets a C+ because I really enjoyed the time I spent hating it.

IV feels subdued and professional, something you would never expect to associate with the quartet.

Atmospherically, Barragán falls to a part of the spectrum Blonde Redhead have never found themselves on before, but half of the songs here feel like placeholders for ideas that haven’t been fully excavated.

Unfortunately, Night Time, My Time goes awry at “Omanko,” a grave misstep that verges on parody. From there on out, the record’s spotty.

Add production issues that have marred the bulk of their discography to the lack of tune and we have something that never lifts off: everything sounds mixed at the same level, resulting in mush.

Teeth Dreams is nowhere near the best Hold Steady album, but it shows the band aging in a direction that fills us with… hope? Perhaps that’s all we can ask for.

New album Hot Dreams still struggles to find a unique vantage point on its assembly of vintage sounds and gothic vibes, but fans will be more than satisfied.

The first product from Crystal Castles 2.0 is a mixed bag of nostalgia, proficiency, and carefully staged continuity.

Overall, In Cold Blood is a pleasant listen in small doses, functioning better in manageable chunks than as a whole forty-minute work.

This record is diet U2. Its pop-rock disguised as Important Rock and the disguise is transparent. “Blackout” and “You’re The Best Thing About Me” are the chief offenders.

At its best, Rebel Heart has an ease, and a long absent softness, qualities sorely missed since her last masterwork Music. For every godawful moment, which come and go with a sad frequency on Rebel Heart, there are glimmers of virtuosity buried within the overworked mess.

The density of Tetsuo & Youth just could have benefitted from even the slightest dose of levity to throw its rhetoric and messages into sharper relief.

The supple dynamic shadings of earlier Projectors material is gone; everything’s annoyingly crisp, with lots of things at the front of the mix that shouldn’t be and Longstreth’s pitch-shifted voice running near-constantly throughout.

Haiku From Zero has none of its strength in songs or clarity of goal. The electro-funk mixed with the alternative dance and light tropicalia percussion ends up tasting like pizza and pie and popsicles all at the same time. It isn’t that this record is bad, its just meh.

It isn’t so much that this record is weak as it is well trodden, and the recipe is out.

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward continue to prove She & Him is more than mere novelty. Now we just need some richness and depth.

Banks’ debut, sometimes promising and even wonderful, could have been revelatory.

When every song is short and recorded in the same minimalistic style, it often feels like just when you’re starting to get into a song, you’re immediately whisked away to another idea, to another moment that should have been spent finishing that first thought that now will never be finished.

Yes, Views is both overlong and underwhelming. But there’s a glimmer of something more poignant beneath its bloated surface.

On Naomi, the Cave Singers don’t really fail at anything; however, save for a couple of moments, they don’t offer up anything all that memorable either.

It’s just a quick way to get to what’s relevant about them, an I.V. drip of catchy tunes from a time when your emotions were still raw and tender.

Despite the glorious melodies hidden within so many of these tracks, like the opening duo of “Name for You” and “Painting a Hole”, huge potential is undermined by ham-fisted executions and depths you could wade through.

In finding their way back to what works, it too often sounds rehashed to make it a true return to form the band has been yearning to find.

The sparks of great art are there, but the brain behind the creation lays dormant. Time will tell where Domo goes, and honestly Genesis isn't a bad beginning.

The art-rock band’s third LP Infinite House combines tentative dips into R&B and soul with a firm foundation in jittery, spindly, angular NYC rock, resulting in pop songs with a deliberately nervous, ungainly, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel to them.

The album doesn’t take nearly enough risks.

On Oczy Mlody they play out like a teenager trying to write a paper while he is high. The lyrics range from vaguely inspiring to cringe inducing, but just like their underrated At War With the Mystics, the record finishes with three strong tracks in a row.

As a mixtape, I understand why Campaign sounds so derivative, but still I wish Griffin had pushed a bit further in terms of musical experimentation.

The aquatic theme of the album is appropriate and in line with the atmosphere Lennox’s quirky, gentle guitar-plucking consistently evokes. But this, nor the occasional flashes of beauty throughout the album, are enough to recommend Buoys’ unremarkable lonely beach music.

On Wonderful Wonderful, there are glimpses of that ambition on an otherwise routine album from a top-notch band on autopilot. But if the Killers want to capture the moment like they did a decade ago, they’ll have to want it more.

A record this nondescript’s just detracting from what we could be listening to instead.

...Like Clockwork is a droning, incoherent endeavor, and it simply doesn’t reward the attention it’s asking for.

The main pitfall of this record is its pacing. Bob’s best moments are lightning fast, like the 28 tracks in 41 minutes Alien Lanes. By contrast, this record is 32 tracks in 71 minutes. Its top moments are when it is moving the fastest.

There’s just too many wasted opportunities, like the peculiar absence of Zaytoven (would it not have been nice to hear Thugger over Zay’s keys?) and Metro Boomin (who has produced beats for both); the usually reliable Mike Will Made It hands in a severely underutilized vocal sample on “Mink Flow” and collects his paycheck.

Born Under Saturn is only intermittently gripping. Certain tracks feel heavily procedural and oddly joyless given the album’s lighthearted tone.

Jack White missed, but in the best possible way. As weak as this record is, its extremely entertaining.

It still sounds like The Afghan Whigs, but it sounds more like re-workings of b-sides that may have shined in the sun of another decade.

Will is a wobbly baby step from a well-honed sound to something greater. There’s not much reason to listen to it over any of her other albums, and it’s less interesting for the music it contains than the music it promises.

For The Future’s Void, she’s traded in the tarnished grace and drug-ravaged ten-mile stare of her past life, but it’s not always such a fair deal for the listener.

Neither engaging enough to be exhilarating, nor boisterous enough to be obnoxious, Perpetual Surrender simply gazes at its shoes without making much of an impression at all.

Liberation never reaches the heights fans likely wanted from Xtina, it serves as a pleasant refresher for a voice that has earned its place in the annals of pop history. That said, it’s a bit sad to feel like her finest moments are, at least for now, also in her past.

Del Rey has struggled to back up her provocations with substance. Ultraviolence was an exception, a singular breakthrough. Honeymoon is, sadly, a slip and fall after a promising stride forward.

As an artist revisiting a previous masterwork, he’s chosen to add maturity in all the wrong spots. Lowbrow nods interspersed with pointed criticisms of nearly everyone of note made Eminem a star, but most of the references and insults here feel dated. It’s about as timely as catching up on last year’s episodes of TMZ on your DVR.

It’s simultaneously daunting, exhausting, terrifying, all at the same time. It’s all a lot to take in, with not a whole lot of the Gambino we are familiar with to help wash it down.

They do work up some magic every now and then.

As it stands, Hang isn’t an unpleasant listen, but it’s an oddly frustrating one.

The problem with The Ride is just that it’s a lot duller than it should be, and it feels even more disappointing given that her most successful work is also her most eccentric.

Supreme Cuts know how to construct a track, but if it’s staying power they’re after, they’ll need to develop a more original sense of what their music is, what it can do, and the places it can go.

At the end of it, this record is a mixed bag. Fans of Weezer’s poppier side will find plenty to like. Whereas fans of Weezer’s more well regarded records will wish they chose another producer.

This is the kind that makes you want to go back and listen to his older stuff, if only to remind you he’s capable of wonders.

Forcefield a passable, fun album.

Blood Bitch commits the ultimate crime of all so-called concept albums: there is undeniable effort in the subject and story it was supposed to tell, but little magic in the execution.

The highlights aren’t as colorful as we’ve come to expect from Timbaland or the Neptunes, or as tuneful as we’ve come to expect from Justin Timberlake.

Until Ex Cops stumble upon a niche and make it their own, their career is going to be eclipsed by listeners hearing influence over innovation in their music.

DJ Dahi, Sounwave and Cardo handle the bulk of beats here, with additional help from ScHoolboy staples Nez & Rio, plus the venerable Boi-1da and Jake One. Except the results are less DAMN. and more Redemption, the Jay Rock album from last year that everyone has already forgotten.

In striving for consistency, he sacrifices discretion and intention.

Clocking in at roughly 47 minutes across a charitable eighteen tracks, Always Strive and Prosper does not seem to break any new ground.

Taking a hard line against any sort of compromise, Sisyphus is equally amazing, confusing and frustrating.

Chrissybaby Forever is the music of Owens’ heart--unfiltered and unpolished, both to its credit and its detriment.

Good Luck and Do Your Best is dull, an affair that lacks curiosity because the answers are in front of him. None of the production is outright bad, just done before by the likes of Four Tet, Nujabes, and John Talabot.

Static lacks variety. It’s just a short-fused, gloomy rehash, and what little has been changed isn’t really an improvement.

As with The King of the Limbs, Beautiful Rewind is always keeping us at arm’s length, coldly allowing us to admire the craft without letting us in on the secret. It can make for a lonely listen.

For an album with both a Eurythmics cover AND a Black Sabbath cover it’s a surprisingly listenable, albeit pointless entry in their discography, Weezer has spent a decade becoming more interesting to read about than listen to.

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is the best possible kind of average record, one that goes out swinging. One that goes for it on every level. A record that, although it isn’t great by any typical metric, is extremely curious and entertaining.

Unfortunately, apart from the delicious pop dance tunes of “Spirit” and “Unhold,” Apar fails to make any real waves.

Songs like this [“Adam and Eve”]--and “Stay” from Life is Good--suggest that Nas might’ve done better had he picked slower, more melancholic beats and rapped like the elder statesman he is, rather than whatever we actually got on the record.

Reputation is, too often, an ugly sounding album. But Taylor Swift has a superhuman knack for a stunning melody. Many of these songs are downright sweet.

It’s a solid record and one that’s sure to please fans, myself included, even if it doesn’t meet the highs of its predecessor.

It feels disjointed and incomplete.

Apocalypse Soon struggles to keeps things interesting over its modest seventeen minute run.

The best offerings here are “Blind Faze” and “2 Shy”, Fleetwood-fashioned tracks that sway playfully, celebratory in their own modest way. The rest doesn’t hit hard enough, and doesn’t even really seem like it wants to.

EVOL is the first time we begin to hear the ostensible rigidity in Future's formula revealing itself.

His flow has gotten really same-y over the years: “Sandra’s Rose” occasionally recalls “Weston Road Flows” and the following “Talk Up” brings “Gyalchester” to mind. It’s also weird that the R&B disc comes with so little hooks, something we used to be able to count on Drake for. It doesn’t help that Drake really likes his minimalistic beats.

For now, Little Red stands as an example of what happens when the zeitgeist leaves you behind.

Simply put, this record has no teeth.

They’re neither particularly evocative nor pleasant to listen to, meaning they fail at being ambient music in all respects but slipping into the background.

Maximo’s strength has always been in scorching post-punk anthems (“Our Velocity”, “Graffiti”) and hyper-literate melancholic balladry (“Acrobat”, “This Is What Becomes of the Broken Hearted”), which work so well when bolstered by Paul Smith’s erudite lyrics and uniquely accented delivery. They pull off the former on “My Bloody Mind” and the latter on the excellent “Leave This Island”, but elsewhere the hooks and melodies rarely match the frontman’s grasping literary pretensions.

Vroom Vroom might have worked had Charli written some better hooks, or actually put some effort into her raps, or just not rapped at all. Or if even Charli had coasted, just as she does here, and Sophie taken the reins.

If you never liked APTBS, odds are you’re not about to start here.

Even if we were to give ALLA’s abysmal lyrics a pass, the production doesn't help, either.... Still, Rocky can, at times, be an engaging figure that radiates charisma when he wants.

Despite its numerous shortcomings though, it’s a difficult album to completely dislike--largely because of its wistful, nostalgia-inducing melodies. But it’s impossible not to expect better from the former Oasis mastermind.

Whereas previous shifts in sound were organic, the product of natural growth, this one comes off as obligatory and cheap, as if there were nowhere else to go. For the first time in their career, Arcade Fire haven’t made a record; they’ve manufactured one.

Ruins isn’t a bad record, or a weak one, it’s a boring one.

Most of the time, Nabuma Rubberband sounds well put-together but empty, all style and no content, the kind of album that won’t offend you while you’re listening to it but which you’d be hard-pressed to remember any of once closer “Let Go” comes to an end.

Ultimately, The Unnatural World is a frustrating album.

The only thing that comes through is that it’s competent. That’s enough to be pretty, but it still has the unremarkable safety of a band that hasn’t broken through to find a distinct voice.

A lack of feeling behind much of Witness’ material does a listener no favors, and much of it gets forgotten once you leave it in your rear-view. However, if you take Witness less seriously, it reveals itself a bit of camp that is in many ways more compelling than the music project it’s supposed to be.

Because The Internet is just a giant non-sequitur, a pop culture gag reel that relies a little too heavily on flippancy to ring true.

Throughout, tracks will leave you with a noticeably bittersweet aftertaste--although it isn’t exactly lacking in flavor. It’s as though the album is missing a secret ingredient, or doesn’t ever find the right blend.

The issue is in direction, and the real issue is that there doesn’t seem to be any.

It can be taken as a full listen, and it rolls along easily enough, but most likely listeners will just queue the songs they like and ignore the rest of the filler.

This is the most disjointed record in Weezer’s discography. Its probably not the worst but its right there with Raditude and Make Believe.

Simply put, it’s just another Kid Cudi album--a scattered collection of songs developed as a concept album, but never fitting together to form something great.

Mastermind passes by as a single, indistinguishable blur. To the credit of Ross and his many co-producers, the experience is rarely leaden and often engaging.

Rarely does The Documentary 2 feel, or sound, important enough to warrant a double album, especially not one that spans three hours. The Documentary 2 perhaps works best when Game suffuses tracks with growing pains.

The most optimistic light to view Only Run in is also the most condemning; it’s not so much a fully realized album as it is a promising blueprint for songs that haven’t yet been written.

“Kevin” and “White Privilege II”, obvious attempts to spark political discourse, see an artist not afraid to speak his mind. It makes meme-chasing moments like “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” and “Dance-Off” all the more forgettable.

Ultimately, Ping Pong, is a disappointing step for a once promising garage rock act. I guess we can still go back and listen to our old Smith Western’s records.

An underwhelming record. Kitschy 70’s synths and live drums abound throughout. The lyrics and vocals continue to distract from the true draw of the production.

A misstep, to be sure, but even more troubling is that Foxygen have distended from tight, trim retro-pop to unkempt, unfocused conceptual goo in less than two years.

The record’s occasionally bright moments are swallowed up by scattered thoughts and stale beats.

Cuomo seems to have found his commercial home embracing a beach-party rock flavor for California kids who’ll “throw you a lifeline” and “show you the sunshine”, and indeed the beach tone persists through the album. This should be fine and modest, but in Weezer’s hands it’s just too overbearingly gross-sounding to let off that easy.

Its songwriting, production, and delivery harbor no risks, and therefore the album safely passes by its listeners without leaving anything but a want for something a little more lively.

Colors is the opposite of The Information. The first time you listen to it, you know its average and you keep listening, begging it to give something that hasn’t had its edges shaved off by a production style that strips all weird aesthetics in favor of aerodynamics that no one wanted and no one will like.

Throughout ColleGrove, the dominant statement that seems to be made is one of discordancy and dullness. Wherever these two succeed, there is always an antithesis to mute the momentum.

It’s not breaking news that reunion music isn’t a revelation, but this album seems worse than the merely dull crop of new Owen material.

For an album that embraces the theme of technology, Beta Love sounds stuck in the past, belonging to an era in which the novelty of overusing the synthesizer has not yet worn off.

[Angel Haze is] disappointing, misguided, flaccid.

As their original creative well starts to run dry, Relaxer’s experimentalism suggests that Alt-J will continue to struggle with other styles.

While Space Project ultimately feels more like a noble failure than an attempted Record Store Day cash-in, its general lack of wonderment adds little to the imaginative legacy of Carl Sagan and the Voyager Golden Record.

This is Diamandis’ break-up album in more ways than the romantic sense. She also severs ties with popular expectation, and the end result is regressive rather than revolutionary.

Lurching drum-machine beats, gentle piano chords, and somber string arrangements form the musical groundwork upon which Albarn sighs about the encroaching dominance of technology. If you’re the kind of person who shares this worldview, you may find Everyday Robots an often lovely demonstration of post-millennium tension. If not, the album’s monotony can fast become punishing.

An impenetrable, overwrought, hit-and-miss product marred by ego.

Not To Disappear is an intermittently pretty affair with painfully little substance, an album that spends so much time wallowing in its own self-indulgent loneliness that it fails to offer up anything listeners can actually relate to.

Ostensibly their pop record, this brisk, 29-minute album album runs out of ideas in the first ten.

Forest Swords' second record is simplistic on purpose, but that doesn’t make it feel less empty.

She needs great material and she needs star power. But this album doesn’t have great songs, and the only thing that’s changed shape more than an R&B hit in recent years is the definition of star power.

Heard consecutively, these songs sound disappointingly like one another, and while one good belter about the pain of unrequited love is a blessing, nine in a row turns out to be real drag.

Mechanical Bull is the sound of Kings of Leon de-fanged, de-crowned, and de-throned, further evidence of their inexorable slide towards artistic irrelevance.

Smith plays it safe, joining the growing crop of British talent with big voices and little personalities. At least he sounds pleasant though.

The album’s 12 bloated, mostly mid-tempo tracks drone on and on, and even when they aren’t technically long they sometimes feel like they might never end because most of them fail to find a hook.

It starts off brilliantly, but by the end of twelve tracks, it tapers off into an incessant and increasingly underwhelming performance.

Nobody’s asking Kings of Leon to reinvent the wheel here, but they could at least make their hubcaps a bit flashier.

Once you’ve heard one track from Waterfall (ideally “Salt Carousel”), you’ve pretty much heard them all, and while such a lack of variety might not be a nuisance to a live audience, it’s a problem when a four-song, fifteen-minute EP already feels a little stale halfway through.

Almost thirty producers were affiliated with the album, yet the music is shockingly simple.

Have Fun With God has greatest potential as nap music on long bus rides, but is otherwise only listenable in the context of its source material.

It’s characterised by the same confused nature that marred much of their last LP--hurtling from one style to the other but mostly falling short of what they’ve previously achieved.

What’s unfortunate is that songs the group co-wrote are the weakest ones here. The exception is the aforementioned lead single, a Journey-inspired ballad that’s catchy regardless of how much my instincts demand instant dismissal. The other slower, anthemic numbers on the album are not nearly as inspired.

It’s well-produced, clean and unobjectionable. Rennen fits this bill nicely, if that’s what you’re looking for. But regardless of whether it’s something you want, it’s nothing you need.

Here, as he seemingly aims for something like hard-won, grizzled wisdom, he often trips over his own lyrical ambition.

Although the overall album lacks cohesion, Double Dutchess’ sonic diversity does remind you of Fergie’s versatility as a performer, one who spits, warbles, and belts all across the project. The only thing is, she brings little innovation or excitement to the many genres she channels.

Prism does have two bright moments of success when everything comes together and we get a glimpse of the better-written album that could have been. First is opener “Roar.”... Meanwhile, on the mostly lackluster Side B, there’s another empowerment anthem, “Love Me,” that’s the polar opposite of “Roar” in nearly every other way.

Grab a latte and strap on your headphones, lovebirds--it’s about to get soft rock up in here.

In trying so desperately to be universal, they’ve ended up with their most stiflingly insular album yet.

Secondhand Rapture was inconsistent and uneven at points, but it also drew some power from its unpredictability. Its successor is twelve straight tracks of mostly the same thing: worn pop clichés. This dullness plagues the album from start to finish despite Plapinger’s best attempts at shouting through the monotony.

Where Fade Away really falls flat is how it lethargically, circularly insists upon the hopelessness of Consentino’s problems without elaboration. Instead, it fumbles for anecdotes that undersell what should be highly relatable emotions.

The fun here is manufactured beyond belief, sometimes for better, but more often for worse.

Some passable stuff here, mostly confined to the second half.

As much as you care and as much as you want to feel sad, you can’t be blamed if after a listen or two, all you feel is manipulated.