The songs rarely cohere into anything greater than the sum of their individual parts.
If in concept Merry Christmas, Baby is just short of lazy, in execution it’s just short of a Christmas miracle.
LaVette elevates even the weaker cuts on Thoughtful N’ Thankful.
Dreams and Nightmares delivers a few standout tracks and a ringing confirmation of Meek Mill’s skills.
Hands of Glory exists as merely a portion of a divided project that should have remained whole.
Pig Destroyer’s album is defiantly hideous and if you love it, you love it for its ugliness or not at all.
There’s plenty to love on Macy Gray’s Talking Book even without stooping to the messy business of comparison.
Wreck & Ruin tempers its genuine, heartfelt romance with the darkest comedy.
Psychedelic Pill, the first album of original material from Neil Young and Crazy Horse in nearly a decade, comes on like a flashback.
Tony Bennett’s bilingual album finds notes of joy, sadness, and intimacy, only occasionally hampered by the presence of two languages.
If Red is ultimately too uneven to be a truly great pop album, its highlights are career-best work for Swift.
Titus Andronicus’s chaotic, chockablock presentation gets scaled back on Local Business.
This year’s most interesting Christmas album will likely be the Polyphonic Spree’s Holidaydream.
Despite its flaws, The Haunted Man is still a worthy, often gorgeous entry in the Bat for Lashes canon.
French comprises Arcane Revolver’s five most popular tracks, but suffers from a lack of variety.
Traveler marks no departure for Anastasio, but its music moves in a distinctly chamber-pop direction.
Ben Gibbard’s solo debut, Former Lives, is an album tailored to be listened to alone.
Sunken Condos is an album built on monotony that still has a sense of narrative.
Living for a Song allows Johnson to challenge himself artistically even as he pays tribute to a dear friend.
Though insistently pretty, Jason Lytle’s new album is also frustratingly weightless and narrowly avoids floating away completely.
Sundark and Riverlight takes one of the most progressive catalogues in pop and makes it sound like a Picnic with the Pops concert.