Bianchi's hackneyed lyrics... often overshadow the music's subtle pleasures. [Oct 2005, p.170]

As full of empty bluster as its title. [Mar 2004, p.110]

Cellar Door is clearly the work of a musical mastermind who has never met an instrument he didn't like--or a song he couldn't ruin with it. [Mar 2004, p.96]

Offers few intriguing instrumental twists and only the faintest percussive pulse. [Aug 2004, p.106]

A bit too cleverly loaded with cultural critiques, winks and nods. [Apr 2006, p.207]

What's left are halfhearted Hold steady wannabes and dull stabs at poignancy.

Could pass for a set of lo-fi synth demos Sir Paul McCartney cooked up one long weekend for shits and giggles. [Feb 2006, p.130]

Doesn't make many lasting impressions. [Jul 2005, p.182]

It's hard enough to decipher his demented verses without constant interference from squelchy synth-bass farts. [Aug 2006, p.222]

While the band's heritage has been hanging on by a thread for decades, The Devil's Rain is but an undercharged defibrillator to its decomposing corpse.

Bull drags on with minimal memorable hooks and far too much guitar feedback. [Jun 2012, p.76]

For all of his wild swinging, Jones never fully connects. [May 2005, p.136]

There's no trace of the zany sass that made the Go-Go's an institution to begin with. [Jul 2001, p.68]

Most of Ward's quiet, contemporary folk songs are mere sketches, mediocre if not unmemorable. [Apr 2005, p.126]

The vibe on Broken Bellls is so mellow and laid-back that the album dissolves into mere ambient wallpaper. [Apr 2010, p.122]

This isn’t a record to slap on for kicks or to challenge the bass response of your car stereo; this is the album that makes you want to scowl under gray skies as you slog to your day job.

Tortoise sound remarkably un-Tortoise-like on nearly everything... [and] Oldham's stunning vocals are rarely allowed the space they deserve. [Mar 2006, p.126]

Half this record sounds like a field recording from a daycare play room. [Mar 2002, p.84]

One-man synth-pop act Ernest Greene's singing lacks firm consonants and dribbles out unintelligibly most of the time over the most compelling of his stripped-down electronic compositions. [Aug 2011, p.122]

12 tracks that are so feeble and lifeless, it's actually painful to put effort into reviewing them. [Jun 2005, p.160]

Basically, Odditorium sounds like a giant "fuck you" to [their] record label. [Nov 2005, p.218]

Will make you thankful your stereo has an easily accessible off button. [May 2005, p.136]

This is electronic by numbers. [Jun 2009, p.111]

Candy Ass is a mess, drifting without a rudder between half-baked folk and warmed-over electronica. [Feb 2006, p.120]

In the Grace of Your Love is lethargic and shapeless. [Oct 2011, p.109]

Patton's latest fantasy-headache is a one-song, 55-minute conceptual misfire that careens from acid-casualty chamber music to high-velocity cartoon metal. [Feb 2004, p.82]

Heady Fwends has racked up about one song's worth of decent material-only none of it is in the same song.

The larger flaw of This Is All Yours is the excessive studio ornamentation attached to songs like "Choice Kingdom" and "Hunger Of The Pine" that fails to cover up unbalanced, disjointed writing. [Oct 2014, p.96]