For as strong as McKenna’s songwriting may be, the album quickly settles into a moderate tempo from which it never strays.
Go-Go Boots suggests that one of America’s finest rock bands is in a full-on slump.
On Tell Me, Mayfield emerges as a singer-songwriter with a powerful and distinct voice.
On The Party Ain’t Over, Jack White turns his authenticity fetish on Wanda Jackson.
Another week, another shrill country duo making a horrible first impression.
Lee should be aiming for more than just “pleasant” by this point in his career.
The irony of Delicate Steve’s name becomes apparent just a few bars into the band’s debut.
McMorrow’s smart approach to his craft and his exquisite voice counterbalance what Early in the Morning lacks in originality and refinement.
White Wilderness is the first of Vanderslice’s albums to sound like its production, rather than its songs, is the driving force.
The album plays like a copy of a copy.
There Are Rules aims for an aggressive aesthetic, but it ends up as mostly empty bluster as the Get Up Kids tries to put their pieces back together.
To the Decemberists’s credit, they’re committed to the idea of challenging themselves.
The lo-fi production lacks the overall punch of similar albums by Jimmy Eat World and Guster, but the Davenports still get their point across.
Dann Huff’s predictably too-slick production does the duo no favors.
It may not be the year’s worst pop album, but Strip Me might just be the most exhausting and heavy-handed.
Bowersox has the goods to stick around long after most other Idol alumni have reached their sell-by dates.
If Christmas Special were simply a matter of taking the piss out of the Christmas season, the album would come across as smug.
Robyn’s Body Talk is one of the year’s finest, most progressive pop albums, but it’s also something of a minor letdown as a standalone project.
The shift in the Pipettes’s decade of choice isn’t the problem in and of itself.
Get Closer plays out as vintage Urban.