Everything you’d expect out of the closing saga to the modern-day neurodivergent-teenager-specific Epic of Gilgamesh (the Dena saga). This includes Drag Path, which I can’t believe a band 15 years old was able to make. Brilliant.

I get the disappointment those who had heard the Digital Remains Version felt hearing their masterpiece tampered with, but the nice thing about music is it doesn’t vanish when new music is released. This “standard” version still holds its weight, especially without the context of a more superior version. Don’t pretend that you would have hated this version without the context of Digital Remains.

The difference in ratings between the clikkie diehards who sees this as the most pure Twenty One Pilots album (an opinion which I wholeheartedly agree with) and the reactionaries of 2016 who heard “Stressed Out” one too many times on the radio and subsequently assumed anything the band ever produced was corporate slop (no shade to Stressed Out) seem to cancel each other out.

This is a perfectly respectable album on its own, which any non-fan would be able to tolerate without prior ... read more

If this is divorced dad rock, then I am siding with this hypothetical divorced dad in the custody battle.

Sure, it’s a bit telling retroactively that Shinedown was poised to pivot toward least-common-denominator mainstream rock, but this alone was the perfect follow-up to Sound of Madness (which given the direction late-2000s bands went after hitting the mainstream, is a true accomplishment)

It all cycles back here, doesn’t it?

I don’t think anyone could’ve expected this staple of the 2010s mainstream (for better or worse) to eventually become the hidden opening novel for the band’s own ten-year lore scavenger hunt. It’s been crazy growing up alongside the story panning out, over a significant portion of which I had no idea this group was worth listening to.

(If this review doesn’t make it clear, I am very much a converted clikkie)

If you were to erase from my memory the notion of Noah Kahan, then play me his first four albums, I would have assumed this effort was a post-fame semi-sellout attempt, given the fact that most of these songs go deeper into pop-rock-ish territory than indie folk (save for Kahan’s folkish voice). Truth be told, I don’t mind it all that much, but it is an entirely different sound to Stick Season, with the only parallel being Kahan’s saddening lyrics.

There’s no real way to frame this other than pandering to the conservative eyes with juuuust enough deniability to claim it’s a generic, “authoritarianism-is-bad” blanket claim they were going for, and not an “I’m-getting-cancelled-because-I-said-something-offensive-on-the-internet” one. The fact that they didn’t say anything under the Trump administration’s assault on immigrant rights (plus their initial inclusion in one of Kid Rock’s ... read more

The definitive Shinedown album. Stronghanded both in maximum power and message, well-thought-out, not too far removed from square one to alienate the old guard, and still approachable enough to draw in new fans nearly two decades later.

They certainly seem like they allowed themselves to have fun here, which given the past of this band (particularly their first two albums) is a positive sign. Attention Attention was written by a band post-peak, but also by a band in a better mental state than they had ever been in, like a divorced father making peace with the breakup years after it lost relevance (which coincidentally is the exact target audience for this album).

It's not the Matchbox Twenty its day-one fans will remember, but if you expected a group of very middle-aged men, fresh off their third hiatus, led by a guy who spent the last decade trying to become a solo pop icon, to rehash "Yourself of Someone Like You", this was always going to be a harsh reality check. Still manages to sound like a band and not just another Rob Thomas solo project, which is nice.

Say what you want about this album, but only a lyrical genius like Kevin Griffin could rhyme “Spanish” with “don’t understand it”

The album cover on this one is a perfect representation of the musical creativity you can expect to find on this album.

When “Three Six Five” dropped in early 2025, I braced myself for this one, especially with the backdrop of the incredibly thinly veiled conservative meltdown that was Planet Zero. Then they went silent, and probably did some introspection based on the growing backlash against their direction, which I have to applaud them for. What they produced over a year later sounds like a mixture of the album they almost made had they just stayed the course and what would have been a decent ... read more

It had been decades since the Goo Goo Dolls were able to release an album that felt both soulful and consistent prior to Chaos In Bloom. Sure, it’s about what you’d expect out of a band pushing 40 years of its existence, but in an era of bands slowly releasing less and less inspired work post-prime (which to be honest, the Goo Goo Dolls were doing by the book for the last two decades) it’s refreshing to hear something that resembles the band’s heyday, if only partially.

A different flavor than anything they’ve put out prior, which is laudable for a band 35 years past its formation, but still incredibly hit-or-miss, like Boxes. Once again, they’ve made some questionable choices as to which songs to highlight at the front of their album, and once again, Robbie gets a couple of songs for vocals that just do not fit his voice at all. Still mostly a fun listen, with some towering peaks in the mix.

You know what? I have free will. I liked this album.

In fact, I’ll go as far as to give it a semi-defendable justification for liking it: it sounds discernible from their last four albums, and it was one of the few rock albums that “tried something different” without becoming a glorified pop group. I can’t defend every song here (“Flood” is by far the worst song they’ve ever created), but it’s incredibly rich to review bomb a band for trying ... read more

Twenty One Pilots finally released an album without a lore-based component, signaling the end of a long, historic run, but still keeping their cliq-wait a second. this isn't....

In all seriousness, this is a strong debut for a promising indie-pop-rock band: distinctly flavored as "indie", whatever that means, while still healthily approachable for the wider public. (they also sound a bit like twenty one pilots)

Nostalgia tints all glasses with a rose veneer. There are certainly a few positives in this effort: it was concerted and genuine, actually carried some lyrical meaning, and actually fulfilled its purpose of portraying a manic episode. With that said, it's a relic of a time and era completely foreign to Fall Out Boy and Best, and a complete sensory overload at worst. With an average rating this low, I'm often skeptical of whether the reviews are genuinely a reflection of the ... read more

Fall Out Boy managed to show an ability to react with a mostly displeased fanbase, given the dismal response MANIA (and to a lesser extent AB/AP and SRAR) got. In doing so, they actually managed to portray themselves as stand-up human beings in their songwriting (mostly). Easily their best album post-hiatus, if the pundit we've all encountered on the metaphorical streets of social media knows what they're talking about.

The return of a long-believed-dead collective icon of pop punk, if a bit heavy on the "pop" side of the equation. Also technically a concept album, complete with ridiculous music videos, given they were conceived for an album that sounds like a soft, new-consumers-first launchpoint into Fall Out Boy. Disappointing for the crowd that wanted a nostalgia trap out of Fall Out Boy's return, but fun enough to mostly make up for it, if only for an album.