The songs rarely cohere into anything greater than the sum of their individual parts.
With In Love with Oblivion, Crystal Stilts assert themselves as a unique presence in the modern noise-pop revival.
The best moments on the album find Hunx and His Punx relating to their source material not as tropes, but as sources of power.
The additions of Vig, Smear, and Novoselic end up doing little except reminding listeners of better days.
Make Some Noise” is your archetypal Beastie Boys tune.
As the coolly altered colors of the cover art indicate, Katy B’s On a Mission is euphoric without aggression.
In the quest to find herself, Jessie J seems to have gotten sidetracked.
Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Paper Airplane doesn’t offer an “in” for the unconverted.
Were Kirwan’s production a bit meatier, Bloodless Coup might be able to overcome the lapses in the band’s songwriting.
The album loses entirely too many of the elements that made the singer-songwriter such a singular Southern artist.
The album represents growth for Ponytail, whose music up to now has resembled abstract expressionist painting.
Nine Types of Light is a strong, smart effort from a band that continues to push resolutely forward.
Eschewing the dynamic pop and soul flourishes that made Lemons something of a crossover vehicle, The Family Sign is simply flat.
Whatever C’mon lacks in newness it more than compensates for in intimacy and richness.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when Calvin Broadus lost his relevance.
Leave it to Fucked Up to illustrate so neatly that accessibility doesn’t have to herald the loss of credibility.
In support of January’s resplendent Kaputt, the eight-piece Destroyer landed in New York City’s Webster Hall on Sunday night.
As singer-songwriters go, Dan Bejar is a case study of ironic distance.
Similarly on-trend via the increasingly prominent underground R&B movement, the Weeknd takes the genre to even rawer places.
Hearing ReturnOf4Eva is like living in a fantasy world where Pimp C had never died.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the coverage of LCD Soundsystem has gotten out of hand lately.