[A] slickly produced holding pattern. [Jul 2003, p.122]

Weak. [Sep 2004, p.140]

Where, say, Franz Ferdinand can fill dance floors with a jagged, arty sense of danger, the Bravery are more vanilla in their approach (read: They're Duran Duran). [May 2005, p.132]

Even Westerberg knows that he can do better. [Jan 2004, p.108]

Disappointingly forgettable. [Nov 2005, p.218]

Packed with earnest but impotent stadium rock. [Jul. 2002, p.82]

Easy like a Sunday morning, and just as dull. [May 2004, p.110]

The ladies aren't ready to carry an album by themselves. [Oct 2004, p.146]

Uninspired goofiness... [#154, p.98]

A perfectly pleasant background score for pasta-making, garden work, and other stuff 40-something yuppies waste their time on. Which makes it my definition of hell, actually. [Jul 2001, p.60]

There's nothing on Everything Ecstatic the likes of Madlib haven't already done better. [Jul 2005, p.186]

Five years later, it's easy to be blasé about [Aidan] Moffat's disgruntled first-person narratives. [#154, p.68]

While there are some nice moments of orchestral pop here, that's hardly enough to carry an entire album. [Aug 2006, p.208]

Comatose-inducing. [Mar 2003, p.94]

James Walsh does have a beautiful voice, but unfortunately, it's not enough to illuminate Starsailor from the shadow of British bands like Travis and Coldplay. [Feb 2004, p.90]

This doesn't say the labum doesn't have its moments, but when you consider the amount of time and patience it takes to get to tthat point, it's hardly worth the payoff. [Apr 2008, p.153]

The Southern-rock grit that used to make Band Of Horses spellbinding is in dangerously short supply, but there's nothing else there to replace it. [Oct 2012, p.84]

Good Charlotte have become caricatures of themselves. [Apr 2007, p.175]

Other than "I Ejaculate Fire," the lyrics aren't that funny--it often seems like Small is trying to write real metal songs. And it's hard to see the point of that.

They sound like Devo playing Nazi military waltzes. [May 2005, p.138]

Succeeds only as an inessential novelty. [Jan 2004, p.98]

Sadly, Modulate comes off as a former punk's clumsy and unsuccessful attempt at diving into a genre that relies less on the organic than it does on the synthetic. [May 2002, p.96]

This is strictly a headphone listen--or, more likely, non-listen. [Nov 2010, p.108]

Amount[s] to little more than a facsimile of their forefathers. [Nov 2004, p.149]

It must have been much more fun to record all of these tracks than it is to listen to them.

A barrage of unfocused fragments that prove this album should have been condensed into a seven-song EP. [May 2004, p.96]

It's light, airy, soothing--and imminently forgettable. [Apr 2009, p.135]

Trinity is almost perversely uninvolving on first listen. [Sep 2002, p.90]

Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" loosens up into a glittery anthem, while the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" should have stayed a karaoke favorite. [March 2003, p.94]

Seems like a tarted-up version of 1986's Raising Hell.... This is for diehard fans only. [#154, p.87]

Lee's cutesy folk and piano pop leaves us cold. [Mar 2009, p.106]

The wicked dueling guitars of Dan Jacobs and Travis Miguel are about the only saving grace, but even the wildest arpeggio run can't save Congregation from near-total damnation. [Dec 2009, p.116]

Album, boring. [Dec 2004, p.150]

Longtime fans will be comforted by Nightbird, even if it comes off like the fluff Giorgio Moroder might've rejected after a coke bender. [Mar 2005, p.138]

The sound of an artist losing the qualities that made him unique to begin with. [Apr 2006, p.216]

The biggest failure of This Is PiL, sadly, is the band's centerpiece: Lydon. As fine as he can be (see again "Deeper Water"), he sounds downright unhinged. Not in the puckish, sinister way that made PiL live albums so bracing, either-no, his work here sounds tossed off, and too often just plain off.

Noel Gallagher's songwriting is more derivative than ever. [Aug 2002, p.78]

One-dimensional and full of tired tunes. [Sep 2002, p.81]

Today, yet another album filled with introverted hip-hop instrumentals--even one with occasional moments of beauty radiating from the murk--is doomed by comparison to the more innovative work the label has been offering lately. [Mar 2006, p.138]

Everything All The Time is almost pitifully lacking in soul, and it suffers from a few real snoozers, to boot. [May 2006, p.162]

A dozy dud. [Jun 2004, p.98]

When Red Bedroom ditches the choppy guitar riffs... the results are as much of a buzzkill to Bedroom's jumpin' vibe as cops busting up a raging house party. [Aug 2004, p.116]

Listening to American Central Dust ultimately feels a bit too much like working on an assembly line. [Aug 2009, p.114]

There's not a single song that's captivating enough to hold our attention. [Dec 2006, p.188]

This North Carolina sextet's satisfying angst gets replaced with tinny keyboard effects and Guster-ready bongo drums. With every song, vocakist Adam Baker oozes further into an imaginary indie-lite Pixar flick. [May 2010, p.102]

This is an album aimed at minivan-driving moms who saw Incubus live a decade ago, but the boneheaded lyrical cliches and nap-inducing arrangements are likely to bore even them. [Aug 2011, p.114]

They lard The Printz with rote Aggressive Rock Radio fodder. [Jul 2004, p.148]

It seems like Hinson puts far more energy into conveying some sense of backwoods authenticity than writing songs that inspire any type of real emotion. [Oct 2006, p.200]

Darker, glitchier and garage-punkier... a gamble that doesn't always strike gold. [Jan 2005, p.114]

Sadly, much of Welcome Interstate Managers is bogged down by forgettable midtempo slush. [Aug 2003, p.104]

The result: a CD without hooks, impressive guitar pyrotechnics, or anything else, really. [Sep 2006, p.226]

Disappointing--and worse yet, faceless. [Apr 2012, p.99]

The songs sound more like a collection of B-sides than a new album. [Dec 2006, p.206]

What used to feel timeless now just feels tired. [Jun 2004, p.107]

Shawn Christensen's vocals are buried in the mix, while songs fly by with no memorable structure or hooks. [Aug 2009, p.115]

A cluttered, derivative mess. [Dec 2006, p.200]

Too much of this collection tries to get by merely on Allan's mumble-to-a-scream vocals and a smothering wall of reverb, leaving the instrumentation dull and the tunes indistinct. [Oct 2013, p.86]

The problem: Semi-masked in the Healers, he's short an originality chromosone. [Feb 2003, p.70]

They make OMD sound like Joy Division. [Aug 2004, p.124]

The Church's languid melancholy sedates rather than seduces. [Feb 2004, p.88]

The majority of the tracks are watered down reminders of their indie big brothers. [Jul 2011, p.107]

Second-rate Shins. [Aug 2005, p.164]

Dark Touches has its catchy moments, but sticking a song in the listener's head is not the same thing as creating important music. [Nov 2009, p.109]

Sounds anemic. [May 2005, p.138]

A dispirited, half-baked record. [Jun 2007, p.156]

The Nirvana box set isn't the Holy Grail. The Nirvana box set isn't even Incesticide. [Jan 2005, p.105]

Although M83's ambitions are often great, there is a problem here: Before The Dawn often drags its feet. [Mar 2005, p.138]

At times, borders on unlistenable. [Nov 2004, p.146]

The other songs beg for remixes, guest vocalists or anything to give them more depth. [Nov 2012, p.92]

A novel idea that falls flat due to poor execution. [Dec 2004, p.162]

My Damnation is destined to become another album absorbed by the sonic wallpaper of bands copying a similar, well-worn blueprint. [Aug 2011, p.112]

The unpredictable edge that's helped made the series a standout is gone. [May 2004, p.108]

An album full of songs so lethargic, it sounds like it needs a nap halfway through. [Apr 2002, p.71]

Not much on Magnetophone's debut really distinguishes them from the legion of bedroom-based nerds playing with the same breakbeats and software as they do. [March 2001, p.83]

Finn employs an arrhythmic delivery... sounding like Jello Biafra covering Talking Head's "Once In A Lifetime," or a snake-oil huckster participating in a poetry slam. [May 2004, p.96]

[Dalley] repeatedly dilutes Leave Your Name with empty atmospheric exercises in barely-there vocals and shimmery keys. [Feb 2004, p.80]

An admirable effort, yet this feels like Gang Of Four taking six steps backwards into obscurity. [Mar 2015, p.93]

Clogging their previously supple grooves with banal guitar bluster and noxious singing, VHS Or Beta don't set the Night On Fire; they just dampen your spirits. [Oct 2004, p.148]

Sadly, one can hear decent tunes struggling to get out of this mess. [Nov 2001, p.78]

Whether Black Tide are going heavy or tender, every desperate attempt to conjure a moving moment fails. [Sep 2011, p.110]

Dominated by sparse instrumentation and lyrics that are merely good... relatively lifeless tunes. [12/2000, p.115]

While they are accomplished musicians and combine their growling, death-metal-influenced moments with a wealth of shiny hooks, they fail to do so in a way that counts. [Feb 2012, p.84]

There's little sign of life here, only gently unassuming arpeggios and blanketing softness. [Jan 2004, p.98]

Too many songs rely on sappy love-song cliches, bland arrangements or saccharine lyrics. [Mar 2007, p.135]

Blood is a disappointing step backward from a band that showed real greatness only two years ago. [Sep 2012, p.90]

Bland and undistinguished. [Aug 2005, p.178]

The Libertines just don't live up to the hype. [Jan 2005, p.113]

On Disco Volante, [David Gedge] sometimes becomes as tedious as a typical pick-up line. [Jan 2001, p.86]

For the wide-awake, it's a crashing bore. [Aug 2005, p.164]

The mood, talent, and energy are present, but the lack of lyrics is off-putting and relegates the band's seventh proper LP to B-team status. [Feb 2009, p.103]

Muddy, swamp rockabilly. [Jan 2004, p.108]

How many times can rock return in one year? [Jul 2003, p.122]

Ungrateful comes off as cluttered and confused. [Jun 2013, p.92]

Hypnotic Nights has the feeling of an album created by Venn diagram, with the outer edges of glam, psychedelia, garage rock and hard rock connecting to create "the ultimate rock album…you know, for kids!"

Even [Haines'] coos about war can't make Live feel urgent or save its slanted art-rock outbursts. [Dec 2005, p.214]

Amon Tobin and Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman have created some truly interesting sounds, but the end result is sadly just another trip-hop excursion with lame rapping over the top. [May 2009, p.123]

If vocal distortion is to indie rock what the vocoder is to commercial pop, then Pleasure Forever's Alter is Sub Pop's answer to Cher's "Believe." [Jun 2003, p.97]

Maybe if Keith had spent more time on his lyrics and less time watching reality TV, this would be a better album. [Dec 2008, p.152]