Rick Ross’s work too often comes off as a conspicuous mishandling of both assets and signifiers.
Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger is likely the most unabashedly fun album since Caribou’s Swim.
Today’s computer piloting polymath is yesterday’s acoustic guitarist.
Whatever his genre, Sebastian Blanck proves to be an adept compiler, creating arresting collages from carefully selected parts.
For M.I.A., Maya feels like a crossed border.
Heart of a Champion wrings numbing banality out of the most familiar of subjects.
Sir Lucious Left Foot succeeds as both a character summation and a declaration of independence.
Thank Me Later nails confused introspection in a genre famous for willful misrepresentation of self.
Total Life Forever is successful because of attention paid to the things around it.
The ambition level of Crunk Rock, Lil Jon’s long-delayed follow-up to Crunk Juice, is revealed almost immediately.
Mostly, Ariel Rosenberg effectively exploits his new environs to create a sense of comfort.
The lack of a distinct voice, one of many trouble spots on their first effort, cements itself here as the band’s biggest problem.
There are certain things that, once dead, should probably stay buried.
Deer Tick has never quite crossed over from playacting into making a sound totally their own.
A Memory Is Better Than Nothing is at times effective while feeling persistently inconsequential.
About as cleanly resplendent as music comes, Jasmine is whisper-quiet but not necessarily simple.
Marching Band plies inoffensively rudimentary tunes that remain persistently anonymous.
Sea of Cowards is something of a jumble, but it’s an entirely ecstatic one.
Sage Francis spends a lot of time talking on Li(f)e, a troubled album whose strange production choices expose his biggest weaknesses.
Too often these songs appear as wasted canyons of distended nothingness.