Mostly, though, this psychodrama feels both overplayed and underwritten. [August 2007 p.110]

Bounce may sound flat in a few years, but by then its job--to see another million people, and rock them all--will be done. [#11, p.128]

A rather polite album... but it's also comprehensively gorgeous. [#27, p.138]

The protest ballads plod, and even the song about praying for God to drown the president sounds more weary than pissed. The Nightwatchman is that rare crusader whose secret identity is more exciting than his alter ego.

A turgid modern, progressive rock with superficial hip-hop sheen. [August 2007, p.119]

Reborn, the track leads off the sardonic sextet’s fifth album of apocalyptic buffoonery shot through with metal, new wave and disco, all of it hilarious, none of it a joke.

He's a full-fledged alternative auteur, skipping effortlessly from hypnotic electronics to refracted torch songs to balls-out alt-rock. [Aug 2003, p.134]

It's unfortunate that the balladry is rendered via anesthetized soul instead of the ambitious arrangements of Timbaland. [May 2003, p.118]

Get past the sometimes cloying pastoral arrangements and the often cornball sentiments and there are moments of ragged glory. [Sep 2004, p.132]

A thoughtfully constructed delight. [#8, p.126]

His campiest, and skimpiest, since his debut. [#17, p.138]

There's clearly imagination here, with strange little sonic tweaks and tics at every turn, but only once does it gel into something satisfying. [Dec 2003, p.141]

The best songs here are the least ambitious: love laments that coleader Glenn Frey and bassist Timothy B. Schmit both sing the hell out of.

It's at once a distillation of all that drew tweeners to Dashboard... and a messy, multidimensional celebration of romance and regret. [Jul 2006, p.99]

Only on "Prison Song," a jokey fake-oldie, does the Offspring's weakness for novelty tunes lead them astray. [Dec 2003, p.145]

blink-182 without the humor.

When they slow the tempos and introduce "soulful" singers and the dreaded jazzy flute, their music stinks like old fromage. [Apr/May 2002, p.118]

X is hindered by a glut of ballads and plodders. [#9, p.144]

A prince's share of his royal talent survives. [Aug 2004, p.136]

30STM manage a high-minded space opera of epic scope befitting prog-rock prototypes Rush. [#9, p.142]

The Prodigy’s renewed commitment to first principles portends a future as the techno Ramones. There are worse things to be.

An instrument-juggling, one-man-band approach that recalls the romantic, psychedelic pop of the Zombies and the textured electronics of Radiohead.

[He] falls back on stagnant street tropes and the tinny synth-and-sneer antics of old standby Swizz Beatz. [Sep 2006, p.139]

Linkin gain from their hip-hop daring, and the dance domos get to wedge a foot in the crossover door. [#9, p.151]

They're intensely twee indie rockers, prone to brisk, even jittery, grooves, and with his pinched voice, Reyes sounds as though he's grasping at something just out of his reach. [Nov 2008, p.75]

His desire for gravitas, though, is dragged down by his lack of imagination. [Nov 2006, p.153]

Pondering his parents divorce or describing intricate and delicate sex acts, Mraz's tasty tenor remains a modestly classy pleasure. But he's lost crucial cool. [June 2008, p.75]

Immediately transforms VHS or Beta from disco revivalists into one of rock's best new bands. [Oct 2004, p.130]