Rather than a through-line back to the Pumpkins’ trip-hoppy Adore, Cyr often sounds like Corgan was going for a new-wave sound that recalls Talk Talk, and unfortunately he has neither the singular vision he had in the Nineties nor the melodic savvy of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis to pull it off. Instead, most of the songs, all filled with neo-goth romantic lyrics, stumble and fumble over meandering melodies with no sing-along choruses to buttress them.

The album ends up feeling like a mixtape put together by a pair of old friends.

The best songs on The Open Door are the creepiest.

It's messy, funny and pretty crazy at points.

Salival's cool appeal is the DVD, compiling four of the band's videos and offering an extra scraplike song.

Harwell may be the only rocker to sing worse than Ja Rule, but no matter -- his mates are experts in the art of the good-timey throwaway.

Lacking 'N Sync's tireless dancing talents or Britney's demented fashion sense, the Boys still harmonize as well as the faceless background singers who prop up lesser pop puppets.

Mostly tepid adult-contemporary black pop. [22 Jan 2004, p.69]

A compilation that never quite jells.

It's on the second half where the Mars Volta catch fire. [21 Sep 2006, p.88]

His voice is a deeper, huskier shade of British blues, but it's consistent in its strength and optimism all over Nine Lives.

The Johnny Rzez­nik-assisted opener 'Declaration' sets the tone--guitars, lots of 'em--and 'Light On' has its Soundgarden-like charms, but without the right hook, 'Life on the Moon' and 'I Did It for You' come off like assembly-line active rock.

There are some highlights--an electro update of the Stones' 'Sway' and a sweet harmony-laden take on Neil Young's 'Looking for a Love'--but other tunes feel too heavy for Malin's reedy voice.

Browne recorded with his longtime quartet in a style that evokes his recent solo acoustic work, and their quicksilver craft leaves no need for overworked arrangements.

On their careening second album, the Rifles prove that they're a band to watch, especially on the title track.

It's proof that, just when you least expect it, he can still rage compellingly.

Ross' eighth album, though, raises doubts about how he'll fare in the era of the confessional, emotionally bare rap superstar. The man who once boasted 10-car garages and uncollected favors from dictators is now trafficking in the same honesty that made Future a critical smash and J. Cole a commercial one.

Death Race succeeded in its most fundamental mission, which was to prove that “Lucid Dreams” was not a fluke. Songs like “Fast,” “Ring, “Hear Me Calling” strike a dynamic balance of raw charisma and profound anxiety. ... While his melodrama tends to grow old over the course of a 22-track, 72-minute album, it is captivating in small doses.

Occasionally snoozy but always intoxicating.

Prince does his Hendrix thing over turgid live-band grind, and songs like ''Whitecaps'' and ''Aintturninround,'' where 3rdEyeGirl step out front, have a New Age-y alt-rock feel, like No Doubt in a Funkadelic phase.

Ghost Stories is set somewhere between depression and acceptance: While Martin sprints all the way out to the precipice, Coldplay--still the same four guys who brought you "Yellow" in 2000 and share equal credit on every track--don't slip over the edge.

Wet get one moment right--perfect, really--then stretch it out into an entire album on Don't You. The Brooklyn trio's debut draws power from a softly lurching weightlessness, the few seconds of suspended animation when the whole world falls away and you have few seconds of peace before gravity pulls you down.

Unapologetic's stark, shadowy R&B is confrontationally honest and sung within an inch of its life.

Not everything is so distinctive, and there's some generic Modest Mouse/Arcade Fire indie histrionics. But the Tapes are finding their voice.

Kells' voice remains one of the most flexible and inventive instruments in pop, but, even for him, Panties veers too frustratingly between horny and corny.

Under Rug Swept just about drowns in psychobabble.

Ashcroft's mastery of balladry makes "Buy It in Bottles" his best since the Verve's "Lucky Man."

In Space is no #1 Record, but at its brightest, it is Big Star in every way.

Sleep Through the Static marks a tentative step forward for this improbable superstar.

Suggest[s] these guys' clatter-and-smash act was worth checking out back when you could have seen them in a basement. [25 Aug 2005, p.99]

At their best, they conjure a California-commune Arcade Fire. But they can also verge on a hippie Hee Haw.

Van Dyks's segues are so effortless it's easy to take them for granted, but the precision with which he moves between styles and tempos is a thing of beauty.

The Beasties could have knocked out all twelve jams in a lazy weekend in 1992, 2007 or anywhere in between.

Here We Stand keeps up its predecessor's swagger, but the album's debts to glam and Brit-rock forbears (there's some Bowie and Clash here, too) give you a vague sense you've heard these songs before.

It's the year's finest pop debut: 10 near-perfect songs that move from power ballads to bedroom anthems to pop-reggae and deliver pleasure without pretension.

With this delicious melancholy, he is nearing perfection.

Producer Youth helps balloon the intensity skyhigh, making McCulloch the Bono of spider-web bangs and black regret.

Even guest turns from Run the Jewels and Skrillex can't add enough energy to make Big Grams feel like anything more than an attempt at landing a better festival slot.

[Road Rock] is one of his sloppiest live albums ever. But since Neil Young is Neil Young, throwaways like this are a Zen spiritual exercise, a way of keeping his aging hippie bones loose and limber.

[He brings] a real, radio-friendly pop element to electronic-based tunes he hopes will cross over.

The guy's not a bad water-treader. Destroyed follows the understated elegance of 2009's Wait for Me even deeper into Ambient land; written on tour during sleepless nights in hotel rooms around the world.

Just lie back and enjoy the sensations as pure aural autoeroticism.

Fun. co-producers Jeff Bhasker and Emile Haynie help Ruess create richly orchestrated bombast with the right amount of sonic wanderlust.

Some skeptics--let's call them haters--might argue that Cyrus isn't wholly comfortable in her new dirty/crazy persona. But that's part of the strange charm.

The drawback is that when he isn’t playing guitar, the music on this disc is oddly muted.

So 18 is neither a retread of Play nor a departure from it. It's pop music the way Moby has always heard it: a frantic dance of different sounds and styles, banging into the wall a time or two but hitting sublimely beautiful highs along the way.

On their first album in four years, Still Got That Hunger, Rod Argent's piano and Colin Blunstone's vocals go for a more straightforward blues-rock sound.

Most of Solarized sounds like a so-so Portishead record with perfect cheekbones, an expensive haircut and rock-star airheadedness even Noel Gallagher couldn't manage.

Duff set out to make an adult dance-pop record, with surprisingly successful results.

She's gonna crank the best pop booty jams until a social worker cuts off her supply of hits.

Yours Truly, Angry Mob is one of the catchier guitar records you'll hear all year... But the Kaiser Chiefs can also be a little shallow.

As usual, his imperial victory-march hip-hop songs are fun, and mildly exhausting.

Durk's major-label debut sticks to the mood of melodic exasperation that's carried throughout his previous work.

The songs here sound more than just professional--they sound surprisingly lived-in and earthy. [9 Feb 2006, p.64]

Reznor's torture-device beats only magnify the push-pull between them [him and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig].

Push and Shove leans toward synthpop-flavored ballads with grown-up themes: relationship struggles, the rewards of long-term romance. The songs are catchy, but Gwen Stefani doesn't have the voice, or the gravitas, for grandiose tunes.

He seems a bit misguided in places, confusing the message and the medium as he enters these uncharted waters.

Morcheeba make a lovely sound, but they seem to be broadcasting from a very bright and pretty hell.

Has a mixed-bag feel.

Glowing tunes about romance and childhood memories abound on You and I, a hopped-up album of caffeinated power pop that is spiked with a lot of youthful kvetching.

On his fifth album, he mostly sticks to that pop-rap formula, cranking his distinctly melodic flow to hyper-speeds and playing the good-natured hedonist on cuts like 'Party People.' But when he tries to come off hard on a handful of Dirty South brawlers, he ends up sounding generic

Their debut sounds like Europop on Special K.

Timberland gives the Fab Five a sleek funk track on 'Nite-Runner,' which could have been a leftover from "FutureSex/LoveSounds." Justin Timberlake even arrives to gloss it up--as far as Duran Duran are concerned, the union of the Timber-Snake is on the rise.

Postcards From Paradise, his 18th solo effort, is a masterful summary of Ringo-ness: his cheer, his cheek, his wisdom.

Morello's still swinging: "Save the hammer for the Man," he advises on his newest, which includes Rage-style agit-metal and a folk rocker where Iraq soldiers take out their commanders.

First Kiss presents few surprises, mostly because Kid Rock's journey from abrasive rap metal to unreconstructed heartland rock has landed him in a sweet spot: big guitars, big drums, big choruses and gravelly vocals.

Even when it's aggressively quirky, Duo De Twang are the most original and fun sound he's slapped out in years.

The result is the most boring music ever recorded by a teenager.

There are punk, country and EDM experiments that sound like Nineties novelty act the Bloodhound Gang without the jokes.

There are a few surprises, like when the sappy "Friday Afternoon" busts a left into Black Sabbath, but for the most part it's formulaic all the way.

There's a little heartbreak here and there, but drinking--a constant theme, naturally--helps wash it away.

Without new tricks, Die Antwoord risk coming across as no more than a panoply of gimmicky voices.

It's a messy album, one that's instrumentally inventive, melodically underdeveloped, vocally overcooked and lyrically just plain lazy.

Their musical influences sound fifth-hand -- distilled Matchbox Twenty, Black Crowes and Deep Blue Something -- and singer Pat Monahan seems like he's boring even himself.

The despair is often easier to admire than to love.

The Last DJ is quintessential Petty, by turns strident and starry-eyed.

Sure, Cruel Runnings is a bit of a one-trick pony--but, you have to admit, it's a pretty great trick.

So are Greta Van Fleet shameless imitators? Yep. Are they also carrying on a musical tradition that’s now endangered, like the young blues players still adhering to the basics of that genre long after we’ve lost Muddy and B.B.? Yes, that too. For defenders, you best show up with a pretty good broadsword.

A CD of biblical rap would have been vastly more interesting than just tepid updates of the Run-DMC sound. [3 Nov 2005, p.96]

For better and for worse, Artpop meets the mandate (of cranking up the cray). It's a bizarre album of squelchy disco (plus a handful of forays into R&B) that aspires to link gallery culture and radio heaven, preferring concepts to choruses.

On their second album, this New York synth-pop duo trumpet the power of "Dumb Disco Ideas." And they've got more than a few of them, expertly cribbed from classic Depeche Mode, Italo-disco, Giorgio Moroder, New Order, LCD Soundsystem and more.

This soundtrack for the hottest show on TV could use more of the beat-you-with-a-broomstick fire of Taraji P. Henson's character.

Both albums could have been trimmed... but there's enough good stuff to recommend to Furnaces fans. [24 Aug 2006, p.95]

The 23-year-old Trinidad- born Brooklyn MC's neo-retro hip-hop mashes up TV on the Radio's vocal cadences, old-school break-dance beats and the forlorn melodic tug of a Smiths fan (he dropped This Charming Mixtape in 2009).

Unlikely but undeniable dynamite.

Octagon's verses often feel unfocused and random, but when he bears down he can be mesmerizing. [13 Jul 2006, p.103]

The music is often quick-paced fluff with the retro exactness, and the soul, of a Pottery Barn sofa. But for the most part, lang's lighter musical tack encourages her to retire the galloping self-regard that can cancel the attractiveness of her voice.

Cruz's singing lacks personality, and Rokstarr is ultimately a collection of decent, but generic, Eurodisco tracks without a star--"rok" or otherwise--to hold a listener's interest.

He's far better in originals like "Gone, Gone, Gone" and his hit "Home," which build from folksy picking to hooting power-ballad choruses, a pleasantly popified take on Arcade Fire. Those songs are redundant too--but the tunes leaven Phillips' overbearing self-seriousness.

The project, a grab bag of new songs, leaks, and material previously teased on Instagram Live, is often bittersweet and deeply contemplative, even by Drake’s standards.

These songs are powerfully felt, even if they probably won't end up getting within sniffing distance of Young's towering canon.

Too much of a hood thing--not to mention rampant self-obsession and too many dark, murky beats--make T.I. vs T.I.P. sound light on fresh ideas.

Perry has always done a great job of letting us know she's in on the joke of pop stardom. Sadly, she doesn't always bring that same sense of humor and self-awareness to the joke of pop-star introspection. The album's raft of ripe-lotus ballads is larded with Alanis-ian poesy she can't pull off.

The title Bounce is meant to be an exhortation to America after 9/11, and if it doesn't exactly offer poetic catharsis, the existence of the eighth Bon Jovi record is reassurance of a different kind: Life goes on.

Hopes and Fears contains more hooks than most pop groups manage in their careers.

Lyrically, Morello still goes over the top, piling on biblical references and Dylanesque nonsense like "one-eyed crow, tappin' on the windowpane." But with a solid band behind him, he seems much more confident in his new role as a modern protest troubadour.

These two Australian brothers deliver Phoenix-like dance pop that's so big on airy hooks that its lyrical lightheadedness isn't too much of a problem.

She still has plenty of fun, even as she’s fully aware that it’s not the Nineties anymore. ... Sometimes the production choices feel conspicuously dated. ... Queen of Me is more successful when its pop references feel attuned to her sensibilities as a global pop O.G.