It’s a confusing but enjoyable record that sidesteps the rap hand-wringing and telegraphed weirdness of the drama surrounding Yachty.

There’s not even anything very embarrassing about Black Laden Crown, the first Danzig album since 2010’s Deth Red Sabaoth--it’s just plain old boring.

The King & I wastes too much energy centering a known relationship on these formless descriptions, a flaw that turns a 72-minute project into a poshly produced endurance contest.

Styles plays all his roles gamely but unthreateningly.

The fan service can only go so far, though. With each successive spin, the LP’s post-reunion giddiness recedes, revealing the overarching déja vu as a crutch.

He’s not really in a fun mood, and the music follows. The lushness has diminished, and the work evokes increasing comparisons to ‘70s singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, who hid their acidic commentary within sturdy pop structures.

The Far Field can’t match its predecessor, but it isn’t without its highlights.

The most arresting moments on Tears in the Club come when he is working with singers. ... The rest of Tears in the Club is instrumental, aside from the snatches of sampled vocals that Kingdom has long favored in his tracks, and the mix of formats renders the album a somewhat inconsistent listen.

There are more tracks to like than not, even stretching all the way to the end of the record. If you want Starboy to be a good album, it can be that. It may require some personal editing. It also may require that you ignore what even the most sterilized tracks seem to be about.

Most of these songs have good parts--they’re just lost in long, boring stretches of the band faintly nodding off to their distant, better work.

It’s understandable that Joanne finds Gaga performing authenticity, if only because it’s the strongest way to convey artistic evolution to the masses in 2016. The image here--the illusion, really--is as imperfect as it is meticulously rendered.

“Outlaws” is a surprising Revolution Radio standout, recalling some of the delicate, Queen-influenced moments from My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade—sensitive music that feels large. The rest of the record varies.

Mangy Love, his eighth album, now finds him on the Anti- label and like the title suggests, it shows divergent aspects of Cass, at his most subtle, resonant, and resplendent, and at others, his most maddeningly repetitive and scabby.

The new Fishing Blues feels so rote you’ll have to play the old records to remember that it’s not the Atmosphere norm.

Innocence Reaches is lighter than last year’s appropriately titled Aureate Gloom, but it’s less fun than it thinks it is, and in pursuing a more “current,” electronic-inspired sound, it’s lost the psychedelic charms of a better post-peak Of Montreal album like, say, 2013’s lousy with sylvianbriar.

The problem with the fantasy of a major Khaled Album though, is that, like a summer blockbuster, Major Key is too front-loaded.

Both the album’s most grating and gratifying moments sound like they could’ve emanated from a Hot Topic 15 years ago. There’s danger in that nostalgia, but when it’s good, it’s great. It’s a decidedly uncool record from a band that’s long since stopped caring about these things.

Most of the energy of New English is poured into his (trademark?) ad-libs. The staccato yeahs and machine-gun sound effects do a good job of convincing you that you’re listening to an exciting project. But after a while, it just starts to make your head hurt.

The main problem with California isn’t that the songs are bad--it’s just that there are too many (16 for some reason), and not enough ideas to fill them.

Mercifully, there’s no banjo--the Sons of Johannesburg are the less folksy, more decidedly middle-of-the-road band that recorded last year’s tedious Wilder Mind. That doesn’t save them from falling into 100 percent of all their other tropes, like substituting frenzied, overlong crescendos with truly grandiose stadium rock.

The Getaway is about as good as you can hope for from a band who will, without reservation, hang out in a car with late-night-TV cornball James Corden with lavalier mics forcibly affixed to their naked torsos (a bit of movie magic I’d be okay never having properly explained, frankly).

Turn to Gold will undoubtedly translate better blasting out of stage speakers, the medium most ideal for unfettered solos and melting six-strings--their riotous late-night debut could barely be contained behind a screen. On record thus far, though, Diarrhea Planet’s instrumental split-personality excess could use a dose of Imodium.

It is an acceptable listen--on par with the Kills’ previous record, 2011’s Blood Pressures--but your best hope for enjoying it is to manage your expectations.

It’s more of a mixed bag.

Fifth Harmony’s talents do get their shine in spots of this front-loaded hodgepodge.

These songs [“Greedy,” “Into You” and “Touch It”], which unite a strong persona--haughty, insatiable, a little manic, really into you--with a vivid pocket version of one style or another, are the core of a swift, heedless pop album, albeit one struggling to emerge from the false notes (“Dangerous Woman”) and rote 2016 obligations (Future) of what’s probably an executive-mandated bagginess.

The self-infatuation on this album is less attempted-clever and more ambient, a body-posi constant that gives the plethora of tasty palm-muted figures and colorful production settings a semblance of gravity even if it becomes the favorite of the “Yaaas queen”-abusing straight Facebook friend you had to unfollow.

Almost every track on The Impossible Kid is indistinguishable from the next, blending together in a way that converts the man’s talent into his fatal flaw, due in part to the forgettable beats.