Reflektor – Arcade Fire – A triumphant defeat with too much music too long songs too many misses and yet with all the ambition and ideas and earnestness of a greatest rock and roll band in the world – A-
Night Time, My Time – Sky Ferreira – Lots of good songs undercooked by this years model on her first album – B
It Goes Like This – Thomas Rhett – Yet another country boy who likes to fish and shoot and drive pick up trucks and partyin and – C
Wrapped In Red – Kelly Clarkson – Just about as good as Nick Lowes Christmas album – B
Black Radio 2 – Robert Glasper Experiment – Jazz meets hip hop with some of the biggest names in the jazz-hop scene: Emili Sande, Faith Evans, Norah Jones, Jill Scott. Pretty good but not pretty great – B
Recharged – Linkin Park – Remix album, the Steve Aoki track is pretty good! – C
2002 – 2013 – Seether – Where grunge met hard rock on a retrospective – C-
From Roaches To Rollies – Waka Flocka Flame – Like Gucci Mane but not good Gucci Mane, all pussy and weed and psychotronic drugs – C+
Everything Is Debatable – Hellogoodbye – Orchestrated emo rock – B
Summer Knights EP – Joey Bada$$ -Till we get an album, this great indie rapper’s fine EP spits it really well – B+
Still Climbing – Leslie West – Geddit? – C+
Lindsey Stirling – Lindsey Stirling – Violin hip hop masher off America’s Got Talent. And she does have talent. Just not enough to fill an album – C
Sex Love And Reggae – Gyptian – Reggae plus sex… given the rhythms a little redundant – C+
The Flood And The Mercy – Ed Kowalcyzk – The Live guy so it shouldn’t be hard to tell whether you’ll like it or not, but if it helps? One song is called “Angel On A razor” – D+
No Blues – Los Campesinos – I’d forgotten how much I loved Garth and family. With less expectations hanging over them, these wordy clever, powerful songs sound much better than if it had followed We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. They fell to earth but they are quite comfortable there – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-