Beneath the bells and whistles, there's gold as well schlock. [Nov 2018, p.93]

German electro poppers making a play for the festival crowds. [July 2011, p. 102]

Has a strangely nostalgic feel. [Mar 2004, p.104]

Mraz is an entertaining smartass. [Feb 2006, p.98]

Raw and revealing though still rather opaque. [Dec 2018, p.94]

The writing on this third album's greatest strength. [Feb 2009, p.109]

Drum-heavy powerpop is more comfortable in bleached denim and white trainers, about three decades too late for assured heavy rotation on MTV.

Though Old Sock ultimately feels somewhat stop-gap, it genre-hops beautifully, Clapton and friends reliably able. [Apr 2013, p.86]

If Swingle Singers melodies and mind-numbing repetition is your bag, you're on a winner here; basically, it's easy listening with a bit of electronica.

White Lies naivety is emphatically brokered by their songs ability to rouse and inspire. [Feb 2009, p.109]

Gibb's voice might be audibly timeworn in parts and the production is a bit vanilla, but there's no denying the poignancy here. [Nov 2016, p.86]

McClure has since retracted his retirement outburst, and rightly so: a third attempt might make him a contender. [Aug 2009, p.95]

The music is taut, the vocals, if anything, under-emoted, and the overall feeling is that of a muse rediscovered. [Jun 2009, p.108]

The One's meditation on the price of fame is especially good value, but the Ace of Base-style of What Do They Know is hard to forgive. [Jan 2011, p.99]

Confusing mix of glam-influenced punk and would-be party bangers a tad disappointing. [Apr 2020, p.93]

The record is such a sprawling, unwieldy beast that the instrumental hooks take time to emerge.

The message songs are delivered from the heart. [Aug 2016, p.95]

The resulting album is, as expected, old school chest-beating man-size heavy rock. [Jul 2009, p.104]

Here, Scott 'Spiral Stairs' Kannberg's music feels more direct and unguarded than might have been expected given the more crafted, at time arch, music that has hallmarked his two groups. [Dec 2009, p. 90]

Fierce, minimalistic but defiantly pop-sensible hard rock. [Apr 2005, p.88]

The bonus material features a first release for the fabled "Mustique Demos": just Noel, a drum machine and Owen Morris's portastudio in the Caribbean, suggesting a humbler alternative might have been possible, had reality not intruded. [Nov 2016, p.102]

There's substance to 'Long Sad Goodbye's accusing lament for his late father and Vietnam's denunciation of the Iraq war, but Kravitz generally limits himself to muscular yet uninspired multi-instrumental expertise and sloppy-thinking hippitude. [Mar 2008, p.114]

A record designed to ensnare the as-yet-uncommitted listener without abandoning their extant fan base. [Aug 2006, p.103]

Many are banal love songs, devoide of narrative impact, or even identity. [Aug 2006, p.90]

Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons have knuckled down alongside relative newbies Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer to make a half-decent rock'n'roll record. [Nov 2009, p.90]

That Joe's naturally high-pitched vocals bring urgency and drama is good, but the record's two tail-enders are weak. [Jul 2012, p.90]

Does little to extended their reputation beyond that of a band big on amp buckling bluster and low on pop harmonies. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Even a rasping guest vocal by White Denim's James Petralli is unlikely to upset the clientele. [Dec 2013, p.92]

The lows arrive all too often. [Mar 2018, p.97]

When the Vampire pals are good, they are very good, but they just occasionally sound like their bloody Marys have been spiked with garlic. [Aug 2019, p.92]

The results are strangely disorientating and at times Carr's brittle, acoustic sketches are smothered by skull-jarring percussion. [Sep 2004, p.92]

On a couple of tracks neither hard-working studio team nor visiting vocalist get it right, but the impression is of all ego finally set aside in favour of engaging musical honesty.

Although this is never less than excellent fun, the originals are still the best. [Dec 2010,. p.96]

The best tracks on Panic of Girls have some edge and bite... though the all-points-of-the-compass eclecticism makes [it] sound somewhat disjointed and schizophrenic. [Aug. 2011, pg. 99]

Any ad creatives hoping for mobile phone campaign music will be disappointed. [Oct 2005, p.102]

Quietly turn[s] into a rather good record as it goes along. [Jun 2004, p.116]

A Fool For Everyone treads a similarly disconsolate path [as "The Sky Behind The Sea"]. [Apr 2009, p.101]

It's a voice that dictates the tone and timber of every other element: the clipped, bass-driven, soulful blues dances delicately around those molasses tones and,at times, you can almost feel his breath in your ear. [Apr 2011, p.98]

Occasionally, the buoyancy veers into pop, the clever lyrics verge on trite. [Sep 2013, p.88]

Stereophonics jab at the same buttons that previously scored them six number 1s without breaking the mould. [Dec 2017, p.86]

Some of it is tough and unforgiving... and some is pure pop plastique. [Apr 2005, p.89]

The effete Norwegian's music is becoming too unobtrusive for its own good. [Apr 2009, p.103]

[Their] first [album] to sound authentically beaten up. [Jun 2007, p.101]

This is a collection of melodic, quality pop songs that lean to the grown-up side of things. [Nov 2006, p.100]

Stewart still has the voice and, on the gravelly rocker Please and the Steve Harley/Jim Cregan co-write A Friend For Life, the songs. But the rest is best avoided. [Dec 2015, p.86]

Tellingly, Al Jardine and David Marks return here, their harmonies shining in the gorgeously dreamy Whatever Happened. [May 2015, p.93]

Sov's downfall is the occasional repetitiveness on songs like 'Pennies,' where cyclical beats and lyrics begin to grate. [May 2009, p.96]

For better and occasionally worse, it feels effortless for listener and writer alike. [Apr 2003, p.112]

Certainly, Live On I-5 proves Soundgarden weren't covered by grand stadium stages. [May 2011, p.125]

Versions of Jon i Mitchell's Don't Interrupt The Sorrow and Bob Dylan's Only A Pawn In Their Game are surprisingly persuasive. Elsewhere, it's like being imprisoned in the teenage Moz bedroom/brain. [Jun 2019, p.89]

Coup De Grace may not radically change skeptics' perception of Kane as Turner's lesser-half. ... But dig deeper and you'll find Kane's finest work so far. [Sep 2018, p.86]

This new album is as quixotic and wilfully idiosyncratic as his previous oeuvre. [Jan 2016, p.88]

It intrigues more than satisfies. [Apr 2005, p.100]

Topped off with lo-fi synths and Victor Truicard's taut riffology, PSY are fresh, fiery, top fun. [Mar 2011, p.101]

What it lacks, however, is the quality of songwriting in his best best work from the '70s. [May 2015, p.90]

Clapton's guitar still sings, howls and weeps, but this is for the staunchest God-heads only. [Jan 2019, p.90]

An enjoyably bad-ass record. [Feb 2002, p.102]

There's no joker in this kind of casual big top tourism, and the album flatly perches in the middle like some neutered, latter-day Green Day. [Jan 2011, p.100]

Unreconstructed rock thrills (produced by Jeff Lyne). [Nov 2015, p.96]

While hats should be tipped for the sentiments expressed, with less urgency to make his point and more time spent on making it listenable the message might have stood a chance of reaching a few more ears. [Jan 2017, p.96]

She's lost track of almost everything that made her music marvellous. [Jun 2004, p.101]

Against the odds Placebo are growing old gracefully. [Sep 2013, p.89]

It's hard to imagine even hardcore fans listening to this twice, as it sounds too much like an empty barrel being scraped. [Jan 2016, p.106]

Juliette Lewis's third shot at crossing over from award-winning actress to respected songwriter appears to br gatherng pace. [Oct 2009, p.98]

Typically eclectic, off-kilter and irreverent. [Feb 2019, p.90]

A frustrating listen. [Jan 2006, p.119]

The results is mixed, but at times instinctive and powerful. [Apr 2010, p.93]

The first out-and-out dull R.E.M. album. [Oct 2004, p.97]

By and large, though, Cajun serve up a smooth, folky breed of indie-rock, only rendered unlovely by Blumberg's histrionic yelping. [Jun 2008, p.103]

Specialists in Transatlantica hone their songcraft. [July 2011, p. 100]

Starts promisingly soulful, but soon descends into faux gangster bullshit and lazy, dumb-ass sexism. [Feb 2005, p.100]

Spiky-sounding pop dominates with abrupt or obtuse song titles the rule not the exception. [Apr 2008, p.110]

It's hard to fathom what such a talented songwriter needs to indulge her inner karaoke quite so far. [Mar 2017, p.97]

With Tek on growly vocals, Two To One feels closer to Birdman's hypermelodic chug than any Stooges explosion. [Nov 2020, p.88]

The more successful versions tend to be of recent, less iconic songs--John The Revelator, Fragile Tension--but, despite the invention throughout hours of listening, not one version matches the original. [Jul 2011, p.112]

Thankfully Slash doesn't lack guts, tunes, potent solos or giant-slaying riffage. [May 2010, p. 92]

There's little dry about old guy jokes. [Jun 2018, p.97]b

A record, which, though obviously heartfelt, never sounds unified. [May 2015, p.98]

A festival friendly selection of gossamer reggae-lite that even jacks a riff from U2's Bad On I'll Be Waiting, although the mood is more a love up, unplugged Boomtown Rats, with Franti carefully to ensure his unflinching positivity doesn't become too wearing. [Jun 2011, p.104]

Those Libertines comparisons are a distant memory on Emergency, an album that ditches any tentativeness felt on last year's "Wait For Me," the band and producer Stephen Street going for Yorkshire-patented, Kaiser Chief-sized choruses, and Arctic Monkeys' kitchen-sink philosophising in the verses. [June 2008, p.102]

This collection of rarities includes songs from their "mystery year" of 1998, an MOR cover oof Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart and on, Turn Up The Radio, a song written as a YouTube collaboration with fans, yet is still stronger than most albums in the current mainstream pop/punk realm. [Jan 2011, p.110]

Only a fraction of the songs here reach a truly memerizing apex. [Sep 2008, p.110]

They come across as a self-contained, insular studio band, with tunes aching to break free of the driving wall of guitars. [May 2005, p.96]

An endearingly petulant collection of nasty hardcore guitar tunes.

Aloe Blacc swaggers with a charming insouciance on C'est Bon, which is an accurate description of Red Lips itself. [Jan 2017, p.94]

[Painting] loses momentum. [Mar 2013, p.98]

Their pop-rock posturing comes studded with lyrical yearning but lacks real emotional weight. [Mar 2014, p.96]

What stands out most about Give More Love is that Ringo's vocals have matured stylistically from his trademark amiably blokeish tones, and are stronger and more expressive now. [Oct 2017, p.90]

A vapid yet relentlessly self-regarding solemnity prevails. [Feb 2004, p.95]

A very fine record. [Feb 2003, p.86]

It's funnier than the Crue. And that's no mean feat. [Jul 2009, p.106]

It is impossible to wholly mess up a great pop songwriter's work; second, it is equally impossible to improve upon a perfectly crafted original recording. [Nov 2014, p.100]

Alights a little too close to Gaga on saccharine opener Strawberry Shake. Persistence pays off, though. [Dec 2012, p.96]

As ever, McClure's everyman persona is the hook that draws you in. [Jul 2012, p.85]

Hymns resembles a settling breath. [Feb 2016, p.94]

It's largely stripped of their loftier excesses. Instead, the tone - meditative, inward-looking - coalesces around Circle Of Trust's tender electro, Ride Or Die's minimal escapist lullaby or the tech-U2 of She Cries Diamond Rain. [Jun 2025, p.80]

It finds the band stranded in the middle-of-the-road, spinning its wheels amid a mass of musical cliches and Dave Pirner's overwrought lyricism. [Aug 2006, p.104]

Former soul-punks return with rough edges removed and hearts on sleeves. [Feb. 2011, p. 99]