Somewhere Only We Know is one of 2004's loveliest tunes, and while nothing else on their debut album quite matches this apogee of woebegone non-energy, there's plenty to keep the eyes welling up. [Jun 2004, p.116]

The opening futurefunk salvo gives way to some soulful ballads. [Mar 2014, p.96]

Listen throws a helluva lot at the wall, and not much sticks. [Oct 2014, p.89]

Quirky, detail-rich arrangements nodding at dub and death metal. [Jun 2003, p.108]

Stone pens 14 of the 15 songs and has clearly overstretched herself; the material is bland and only on sublime, transcendental 'Baby,'featuring Betty Wright and a cappella showcase 'Go Back To Your Life' do we hear the Angie of old. [Nov 2007, p.96]

An uneven yet entertaining debut. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Rosenberg's gently-rendered songs too often rely on stock images. [Oct 2016, p.96]

Though making the common mistake of over-investing in the frame of guitar and piano licks and bodging the big picture of the song, Ron Wood's tribute is not the worst in the world. [Jan 2020, p.84]

On the plus side, Ross is in good voice, but as comeback albums go, this is an underwhelming affair. [Oct 2021, p.96]

Green writes with a compulsive frequency, like an office joker cracking funnies. And after 20 of his songs, the appeal wanes in not dissimilar fashion. [Apr 2008, p.114]

Better than the conceptual barf of its predecessor Holy Wood, but not as sharp as his best record to date, '98's glammy Mechanical Animals. [Jun 2003, p.100]

Her melodies are stirring but the headstrong album only works to a limited degree. [Dec 2003, p.122]

Not quite essential, unfortunately, and you might even long for a bit more shredding. [Jul 2014, p.90]

Languid, warm, West Coast psych set. [Oct 2017, p.98]

Purists may wince, but the takes are fresh. [Oct 2018, p.93]

There are some very bad lyrics on this album. [Dec 2007, p.99]

Album number 11 twitches with the same darkly neurotic pop as 2009's Destroyed. [Oct 2013, p.98]

Quality inessential entertainment. [Mar 2010, p.97]

This is top-drawer pop, ambitious and thrillingly contemporary. [Feb 2012, p.94

When Jones starts singing about Clapham over the clipped, welter-weight indie of this quartet's second studio album it begins to seem a curiously south-eastern English rock vision - the clean guitars and Cure-style vocals suggesting a lighter shade of Bloc Party. [Feb 2010, p. 92]

This bunch of Southend art school layabouts, constrastingly, really cut the mustard, kicking up a distinctively murky din. [Oct 2008, p.108]

This sounds like a calculated genre exercise. [Sep 2012, p.90]

The current group are concentrated, powerful, more subtle than in recent times but can sound a bit tidy and foursquare. [Apr 2015, p.96]

Throughout, Splinter's sound is powerful and dense, with The Offspring weaving and surging within it like the experts they've become. [Dec 2003, p.109]

There are glimpses of Curt's former shambling genius; I Quit and Pieces Of Me are both mournfully melodic, while Tarantula has the nimble bluegrass pickings of Up On The Sun-era Meats, but elsewhere rap-metal stupidity (Hercules) and over-polished rock plodding (Batwing) sour the beans.

Peace & Love continues this new mature streak with her most musically stripped down but lyrically most strident and complex collection yet. [Feb 2010, p. 102]

Toweringly camp singles like the slinky Perfect World and an album to enjoy on shuffle. [Jun 2012, p.92]

File under deserving of proper attention. [Feb 2013, p.92]

[They] stand apart, wedding guitar-free sounds to refreshingly vulnerable sentiment. [Mar 2006, p.102]

Ringo makses a good fist of his production debut. [Apr 2010, p.98]

Amid all its big, primal energy there are enough ideas to suggest the fans' early faith is justified. [Jul 2016, p.94]

It doesn't all gel, but the hits-to-duds ratio is high. [Jan 2015, p.94]

He keeps the core of material such as The Nearness Of You and My Blue Heaven spare and the tone intimate. [Mar 2020, p.94]

Sheer vastness occasionally swamps the pained intimacy of Young's vocals and open-heart songs of regret, nostalgia and reflection. [Dec 2014, p.88]

An oddly experimental record, prioritising texture over tune and betraying a river-deep confessioinal streak. [Apr 2004, p.103]

Symphonica is decidedly upmarket, but more picks in keeping with its ballsy take on the Newley & Bricusse standard Feeling Good wouldn't have hurt. [Apr 2014, p.90]

An experimental, sensual collection of songs harking back to the days of the first Gorky's EPs. [Mar 2006, p.104]

Her tendency to over-infuse them with the weepies neuters what otherwise be gleaming moments. [Sep 2012, p.94]

The tracklisting may be a bit route one, but the music is far from it. [May 2023, p.86]

Sheezus makes for the slightest of returns rather than a glorious resurrection. [Jun 2014, p.93]

This debut captures their explosive energy and thunder; this is a band, that when it's found its own voice, will definitely go the distance. [Mar 2012, p.921]

While Foreign Light trades some of his past eclecticism for a super-soulful hook-up with singer-songwriter Andrea martin, his acute ear for sasquatch basslines and simpatico collaborators remains undimmed. [Sep 2017, p.91]

You could muse on the dignity of 40 year olds having a rave revival but when the 303 synth squelch kicks in on soulful closer 'Stand Up,' it's all more pukka than moody. [Mar 2009, p.105]

While there's some decent garage-punk dirt in 'Roughshod,' and lengthier tracks like 'Free Kitten on the Mountain' and Monster Eye' both briefly echo the menancing screwl of Magik Markers and early Sonic Youth, there's little here that really pushes the envelope much beyond an awkward and mildly abrasive collection of indie rock off-cuts. [July 2008, p.102]

They all bed down with perfunctory efficiency as the voaclly gifted, lyrically vague Mraz holds court with a nylon-string guitar. [Feb 2009, p.112]

Sometimes there's a danger that comes with being too damn clever, namely that the melodies at the heart of songs can suffer or a feeling of too much fiddling around. [Apr 2008, p.104]

If there's little of the duelling gamesmanship that made their 1993 debut so remarkable, this is still a joyful comeback, brimming with big screen music. [Feb 2015, p.91]

The odd saccharine lyrics loses them a fourth star. [Jan 2013, p.102]

More spontaneity might have tempered this chill wind. [Oct 2014, p.87]

The possibilities of "first ideas" is fatally undermined by a lack of ideas. [May 2011, p.110]

Seduces with a mixture of whimsical beauty and compelling mystery. [Jun 2007, p.101]

The album might almost be a study in stretching the limits of silliness, cliche and old-school rock'n'roll unreconstruction... [Jul 2001, p.114]

On the downside, Razorlight is lyrically hamstrung. [Aug 2006, p.104]

The songs are so wordy, the album so one-paced that it soon begins to sag. [Dec 2005, p.105]

Marks a major leap along the road to recovery. [Nov 2004, p.96]

Another helping of skew-whiff artiness from teh oddball Casady siblings. [June 2010, p. 99]

Amid the psychedelic soft rock and esoteric twiddling, three tracks stand out. [Sep 2012, p.94]

When Hucknall pulls a performance only the most blinkered would argue he brings nothing to the party. [Dec 2012, p.86]

The album delivers on the promise. {Feb 2011, p.104]

Some wildly uneven wordplay, on a needlessly bloated set, suggests the Brooklyn king's crown is slipping. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Although on occasion Simon verges on a tinkly supper club sound, these awkward moments are thankfully outweighed by her rich melodies and candid lyrics. [July 2008, p.101]

It is every bit as ace as their debut. [Jan 2008, p.110]

Large chunks of Everything At Once sound dishearteningly workmanlike. [May 2016, p.92]

A multifaceted diamond that moves his gentle vocals between musical dark corners and soaring expanses. [Sep 2016, p.99]

Songs blur into each other, rendering Beat My Distance a series of variations on adopted themes rather than evidence of a singular voice. [Apr 2019, p.93]

A solo album with not enough of the soloist. [Jun 2006, p.102]

Its rote alternarock thrills are meagre vittles compared to the revolutionary metal the principle players have wrought in the past. [Oct 2006, p.110]

American Life is revealing and diverting -- no bad things in a record -- but in the end the brow-beating, finger-wagging and psycho-babbling take their toll. [May 2003, p.86]

The lyrics are full of fleeting assignations and gruff, bumper-sticker wisdoms, apparently seeking to draw hard-bitten romance from the business of being in a band. [Jul 2003, p.107]

Gloomy, seductive avant folk-blues. [Jun 2017, p.95]

A big record, but one that leaves little mark. [Jan 2016, p.88]

His sometimes unkempt vocal performances can work better in the smaller doses of singles or cameos, but here, as on 2006's "The Big Bang," he sounds like he has made the album his metier. [Jul 2009, p.98]

Stollsteimer, it seems, is still in search of his own musical identity. [ Jun 2009, p.96]

Akin to career suicide, it's admirably bonkers but overlong. [Oct 2009, p.108]

This album is partisan, powerful and controversial. [Dec 2017, p.87]

Never inept, The Nightingales still remain hard work for precious little gain. [Mar 2009, p.114]

Song for song, this is their finest to date. [Oct 2011, p.95]

This is a very real example of "that difficult second album." [Mar 2014, p.93]

This stripped-back retro-retread is in danger of playing to the opposite of their strengths. [Dec 2016, p.88]

The third set sounds clean and efficient at the expense of real zest. [Jun 2019, p.96]

This album stumbles on the lower slopes of her ambitions. [Mar 2002, p.101]

Makes you smile without even really listening because the whole sound is such a cheering mix of grunt and grin. [May 2004, p.104]

Misconceived is the polite word.

All the ducking and feinting is entertaining enough, but it begins to feel more like a box of disguises than a coherent album. [Nov 2024, p.91]

A grimier, more uncomfortable listen. [Nov 2004, p.100]

At its best during the cinematic rock of Coming Home, the epic, plangent Roses and pugilistic opener The Factory Gates. It's less successful on the woozy stomp-alongs of Misery Company and Meanwhile Up in Heaven. [Apr 2014, p.92]

The piano-led 'New Beginnings' is one of several sombre mood pieces on what is the most ambitious work of the band's 40-year career. But fear not, headbangers: 'Revelation,' all chugging rifferama and panto villany, prove that Priest are still mad for it. Metal, that is. [July 2008, p.100]

It's a strangely stilted approach on songs. [Sep 2009, p.92]

Sumner's fans won't be disappointed, but it feels a bit like a stopgap. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Cleverly, it mixes them [stadium rock and Celtic roots] both. [Mar 2012, p.99]

They're doing nothing radical, but the band, now in their 35th year of playing together, are tight and the results pleasing. [Oct 2013, p.96]

This is a band who need to shrink back a little, switch off the emotional wind-machine, and work out how to make the personal less impersonal. [Jan 2019, p.86]

Make the most of dead Son Rising, as its diversity is its strength. [Nov 2011, p.103]

There's nothing staggeringly new happening here, but it's all deftly delivered and sure to find favour. [Mar 2011, p.106]

While T.I.'s measured, discursive rap style is heard at its best on scourging confessional duets with Eminem and, of all people, Christina Aguilera on the genuinely touching Castle Walls, Further promising collaborations with Kanye West, Pharrell and Drake end up having a rather more formulaic ring to them. [Apr 2011, p.97]

Sadly, the results are soul-less. [Apr 2003, p.99]

A fairly routine batch of middling-to-turgid funk numbers about lurrve performed with rather more duty than excitement.

In part gripping.... But Gore doesn't always push his voice to its brilliantly effete/effeminate extremes. [May 2003, p.104]