The weight of Tucker and Roddick's reverb-drenched, synth-stuffed production is such that it's hard for their songs to consistently achieve the kind of liftoff that the pair desires.

More of the same, really, and what same is that anyway? His beats, hooks and musicality tread slightly above water.

It's more ideation than practice, which is why the too-cluttered American Beauty/American Psycho won't be this band's American Idiot.

What disappoints most about Full Speed though is how despite the slick sheen, its lasting impression is characterized by a lack of ambition or awareness.

The Pale Emperor plods inoffensively from start to finish with moderate gloom and a similar level of hooks.

The problem is that Bada$$ seems to have missed their lessons on levity. His style--often-poetic lyrics rapped in a blunted monotone over moody production--is skilled, but never very fun.

If only she was as shameless lyrically as she is musically, she wouldn't be feminist (who cares) but she'd simply be worth letting in your ear.

As is, Uptown Special plays a little like a Spotify playlist on random--fun, and unexpectedly thrilling at times, but jarring and never totally satisfying.

Rae Sremmurd are at their best when they're doing what they want, rather than eschewing their oddities in favor of radio-friendly hooks ("Safe Sex") or buzzword phrasing.

It's an LP that makes virtually no sense in the Pumpkins' chronology, but is a satisfying enough half-hour of Alternative Nation-era would-be-smashes.

Cole's keen sense of injustice registers throughout 2014 Forest Hills Drive, whether slagging white artists for artistic thievery or seething over national media outlets pigeonholing black genius into sports/pop either/ors.... But the absence of "Be Free" still detracts. Unless you're the type of moviegoer who sits patiently through the end titles, feel free to duck out of "Note to Self" a bit early and head over to SoundCloud.

Something is definitely missing on A Better Tomorrow: not necessarily the cryptic slang and mythology, but that RZA and the other members haven't found something to replace what stood them apart from the crowd.

The record is 13 tracks long, sounds nice sometimes, and features Ty$, Juicy J, Project Pat, Curren$y, Chevy Woods, and Nicki Minaj, so it doesn't overstay its welcome and has decent taste in guests.

What gets stultifying over the course of 38 minutes can be invigorating in small, pep-talk size bursts.

Much of A.K.A. is still mawkish, midtempo melodrama that does too much to accentuate J. Lo's tunelessness.

Lazaretto's experimentation sounds ambivalent, its songs fractured and distracted.

He's trying to remind you that he's still tough, though these lines mostly just conjure images of Travis Bickle in the mirror: a guy alone and clueless, snarling at imagined enemies that can't talk back.

Songs sag and soar at once.

It's not White Blood Cells or Icky Thump, but at least they no longer sound like they're producing records in a Black Keys factory.

Her attempt at convincing us she's a loving wife and mother of two, a savvy feminist, and a satirical mastermind mostly comes off as disingenuous.

When I Never Learn aims for pop, it's the hazy Shangri-Las variety; the melodies are Li's lushest to date, but the smoke never clears around them.

Whether or not you've made your peace with the datedness of Indie Cindy, as well as the sheer pile of things you did not want to see the band do, are you going to put it on repeat? More than you think, but less than they hope.

Sometimes the album sounds backward when it isn't. Rarely does it sound like one person squeaking out notes in succession--more like a bunch of dudes filling a tape with improvisations, rewinding to the cool parts and haranguing some hapless studio engineer to razorblade it all together.

SZA isn't lost when sharing a song with big names, but she doesn't seem interested in pulling them entirely into her own world either.

The New Classic establishes the Australian artist as a competent rapper with a decent ear for hooks, but that's about it.

Like Seinfeld, as New York a document as Paul's Boutique, Quack presents itself as a comedy about nothing. But Seinfeld's nihilism, as a portrait of the neuroses of a certain class in a certain era, at least represented a kind of ethos (pace Walter Sobchak). Duck Sauce's "brain farts," on the other hand, take refuge in the idea that if you stand for nothing, you can't be held accountable for anything.

Supermodel's failing is that it's copying one of the foundational records of this trend, which is, you guessed it, Torches. It's hard to think outside a box you built yourself.

This is Ross at his least cohesive and most clueless since his 2006 debut, Port of Miami.