Birds of Pray just seems clueless, like a high school kid who doesn't realize that his strident need to seem interesting just makes him a joke, and not a particularly funny one at that.

Young's nomadic narrative requires its own Cliffs Notes, and the lack of cohesion or focus (which Young pretty much cops to in the liner notes) give the record less heft than the irate rambling of your neighborhood curmudgeon.

Unmemorable and inoffensive, Death Cab has gone from oddball indie-pop kids to mature professionals who now have a lot more people counting on their success.

As tough a slog as the backend of Part 1 is, it's Part 2 that truly reveals just how rushed, haphazard and ill-formed Adams' stab at morose mope-rock is.

Where Teaches was brash, Fatherfucker is dim; where Teaches was shocking in its gender-bending, sexually charged language, Fatherfucker is bland, repetitive and obvious in its attempts to turn standard conventions upside down.

It's not simply the weakest album of his otherwise impressive career; it's one of the poorest performances from such a high-profile talent in recent memory.

There's precious little rocking to be found, and the turgid numbers that make up Baptism's bulk are bogged down by insipid clichés and half-hearted tempos.

The guitars stumble in a monotone of mid-level, processed rattle; the drums don't propel as much as struggle to disguise an all-too-turgid pace; and the rage is both unfocused and leavened with too much narcissistic navel-gazing.

Make Believe might sound more sincere if the clean, precision-metal production didn’t steamroll Cuomo’s lyrical misery in bombastic arrangements featuring factory-issue power chords and a MOR-safe rhythm section.