Food & Liquor II is fine and good. It's just not The Great American Rap Album.

Each new album (arriving as it does with the requisitely pompous title: Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, The Resistance) finds Muse attempting to out-blitz OK Computer and Kid A in terms of overly serious Englishmen weeping for modern civilization and its myriad alienations. Which simply makes The 2nd Law's 50-plus minutes of 21st-century-art-rock-meets-sappy-popera business as usual.

Consciously or not, U2-style evangelism is all over the Mumfords' bland but biblically titled second album, Babel.

It's a drag that so many of Mirage Rock's most transcendent moments--the stuff suggesting real maturity--are so quickly undone by such nonsensical toss-offs.

So no, this is not a cohesive crew album, but has there really been one since Marley Marl's In Control, Vol. 1 came out 24 years ago?

Byrne and Clark rarely interact vocally, sometimes suggesting two solo outings spliced together; and the grooves have an anonymous vibe.

They [Adam Young's fans] deserve better. We deserve better. Come to think of it, Adam Young deserves better.

T.R.U. Story contains few surprises, and one less once you realize that its own opening line--"Cut the top off, call it Amber Rose"--isn't threatening decapitation.

As defiant as this gang of four wants to be, they can't help but humbly return to their strengths.

Its sound is bright, slick, and micromanaged.

Fleetwood Mac connected with listeners because their perfect songs enclosed personal imperfections--they created an illusion of glossy best-coast living, then punctured that illusion with brutal truth. Hardly anyone on Just Tell Me That You Want Me summons that friction.

You're being pulled close, but thoughtlessly, reflexively. And you only feel further away.

So, every sha la la-la and wo-o-wo-o still shines, as the brothers McDonald once crooned in Carpenters cover "Yesterday Once More" (which reached No. 45 hit on the charts in England!), or at least sort of shines: Cleaner production might've buried the vocals less.

As a lyricist, Fallon has moved beyond bald cliché to bland commonplace.

The Offspring's nervousness is palpable in their protestations of relevance and liveliness, but no matter how fast or loud things get, there's no energy or wit, nothing to convince you this band could win, or even prolong, a fight with oblivion.

The album's most compelling sounds get saddled with songs either forgettable ("Trumpet Lights") or regrettable ("Mirage," a sinuous reggae fusion that's Nas-boosted but unnecessarily nasty).

Stripped of cheap but effective lo-fi tricks, Mysterious Phonk is meandering and moronic.

For every instance that seduces you with K.R.I.T.'s prowess behind the boards, though, the mixtape throws up a song that pushes things back into an unfulfilling zone.

The rest of the album can't match that evocative pang on [best track No I Don't]--something like hot coals against cyborg flesh--and is generally more direct.

The problem is that the rantier Bemis gets about poseurs, the more he forgets to write hooks for his invectives, which strive for Real Boy's Broadway-punk propulsive grace, but strain under the weight of unsingable lines.

There are just enough bright spots to make this all worthwhile for those too old to wear BAPE.

For all the banging beauty in its beats, Evolve or Be Extinct is too forced and uncomfortable, as though he figured he'd evolve if he just over-thought it enough.

As a whole, though, Careless World is simply mediocre.

The delicate balance of good-then-bad-then-good-again ideas and taste appears rarely on WZRD.

Blööz, blahs and mad-stonerpunk.

TEN$ION, by contrast [to $0$], hews a little too close to the fake-gangster thing to be nearly as fun.

The result is a nightmarish mess, but it's no relapse into disarray.

The earnest but tepid Clear Heart Full Eyes, which as a solo album makes an excellent argument for sticking with your apostles.