Why does it seem like there's more screaming on this album than on Chevelle's debut? More screaming doesn't mean better. I know I'm approaching this as a 40-something 22 years after this record was released, but I'm just bored of angry and/or sad screamy white guys, and this coming from an old Deftones fan. A few well-placed screams have a lot more impact than a record full of them, but what do I know? As someone else said, the songs here begin to get fairly formulaic ... read more

Some of these songs start to sound kind of nondescript and homogenized midway through, but the album opens solidly. Open into Point #1 and then to Prove to You and Mia is a good sequence of tunes.

Lots of generic, forgettable songs here, unfortunately. Over Your Shoulder and In-Between are kind of OK, and the closer, Devil's Holy Joke is pretty.That's about the best that I can say. Orange Ave. really falls off after American Standard and Rock Crown. I'm going through the band's other two studio albums. Hopefully it gets better.

This would have been a much better album if the band had cut it down to 9 or 10 tracks. The last five songs really bring it down and sound more like B side material, but it's still a decent album. Standout tracks are Lucky, Rock Crown, People Like New, Gone Away and Times Like These.

Good, not great, debut from Seven Mary Three. The band's second record, Rock Crown, is a better record overall, but American Standard has some relistenable fare like Cumbersome, Water's Edge, Devil Boy, Anything and Punch In Punch Out.

As others have said, this is an odd hodgepodge of tracks, but it did give us three great songs - All I Want Is You, Hawkmoon 269 and Angel of Harlem - so that's something.

I give a slight edge to War looking at the album as a whole, but The Unforgettable Fire has three of the best songs on U2's catalog in Bad, Pride (In the Name of Love) and A Sort of Homecoming.

Buoyed by the anthemic power of Sunday Bloody Sunday, New Year's Day and Two Hearts Beat As One, War also contains several noteworthy album tracks like Like a Song, The Refugee, Red Light and Surrender, and then concludes with what is a virtual church praise song before praise songs were invented, 40. War is the first of a trilogy of records that is inarguably one of the best in rock history, followed by The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree.

I'll be the contrarian, but I honestly thought this album was kind of bland and after awhile, begins to sound homogenized. There's some pretty soundscapes here, but must of the songs don't go anywhere and kind of just lumber along and then end. Also, the vocals are mostly buried, and there's hardly a good vocal melody in sight. I listened to the whole thing twice, and I'm not finding much to make me want to listen again. I do like the simple little guitar solo at the end of Skin in the Game. ... read more

The anthemic outro in the opener, Gloria, is the highlight of the record for me, but otherwise, U2's sophomore album, October, actually represents a step backward from Boy. I really like Scarlet and how Bono sings "rejoice!" as kind of a rejoinder to the song, "Rejoice" (track 4), but as a song, Scarlet sounds incomplete and the rest of the album is unremarkable.

This first U2 record obviously doesn't reach the heights of their classics, but Boy, a Steve Lillywhite production, still has enough highlights to make it well worth a listen, as it explores themes related to childhood and coming of age.

Even better than Sugaregg. Bully has a real penchant for melody, which is refreshing to see since so many new-ish bands that I review on here either can't or won't write compelling melodies.

Little Bit of Sun is a fine collection of songs, and Dan Wilson is a good melody writer, but there isn't much on this record that's going to wow anyone. A Jason Isbell guitar solo on Out of the Dirt is pretty killer, and All the Time also features a standout solo. Lyrically, the record is pretty mid to be honest, but hell, Paul McCartney, one of the greatest songwriters of all time, wrote some cringe lyrics too, so that's not a deal breaker. The best thing about the record is also the worst: ... read more

I can't really improve on @MarkC's review. I finally listened to Sour, and I don't get the hype. All of these songs are perfectly fine pop tunes, but they all pretty much sound the same with a similar structure and style. Little interesting is happening in the music itself. Narrative-based lyrics, especially on something as overdone as failed relationships, are blase. Rodrigo has a nice voice, but these songs don't offer enough melodic variety to hold my interest. So this is basically pop with ... read more

I love the artwork, but musically, "Cousin" reminds me of R.E.M.'s album, "Around the Sun." The record isn't bad necessarily. It has some perfectly serviceable tunes with some subtle, but decent melodies, but there's no life to it. As I've said before, Wilco has one of the best guitar players in alternative rock - Nels Clline - but listening to "Cousin," you'd never know it. Except for a kind of meandering and half-hearted solo at the end of "Soldier ... read more

Like most metal, the songs just kind of run together and start to sound homogenized after awhile. I guess the "new" thing here - not really new - but adding a prominent piano into the mix with all the incoherent growling and loud guitars. It's fine if you want just want to hear guitars thundering in the background with some melodic piano overtop while you're cleaning house or something, but other than that, there's little that's going to make me want to come back to this, and ... read more

I'm not going to pretend to know what makes for a good jazz record. I haven't listened to jazz much intentionally, and my only personal experience with the genre was playing rhythm guitar - poorly, I'm sure - in a college jazz band. But this laboriously titled album came across my radar on AOTY, so I thought I would give it a whirl.

Burning Grey is obviously supposed to be the showcase tune on the album, and it is a riotous romp indeed, punctuated by the following haunting message, delivered ... read more

This is a serviceable later record from Filter with some decent to good melodies, but I struggle to find anything that approaches great on here. Quite frankly, I think the sole soft song, Burn Out the Sun, might be the best of the lot. Some of it might be intentional, but Richard Patrick's singing sounds rough in spots - not pitchy but like he swallowed a bag of thumbtacks. Check out The Drowning, Obliteration, Summer Child and whatever is happening in the guitars on For the Beaten. Also, Elias ... read more

R.E.M. is one of my top five bands, and as such, I've really tried to like this, their last hurrah. But after many listens, I have to say it just doesn't have the same urgency, poignancy or melodic resonance as much of the band's catalog.

From a songwriting standpoint, the band really felt it when Bill Berry left the band after New Adventures in Hi-Fi, but the next album, Up, was almost or just as strong as the previous one in my opinion. Up still had some very R.E.M.-esque rock elements, but ... read more

This would be played on a loop if I was in Dante's ninth level of hell.