While the band's strength lies in inventiveness of their composition, the end result isn't as enjoyable to hear as it surely was to make. [Sep 2010, p.102]

By the album's close, however, his vulnerability risks tipping over into maudlin self-pity. [Sep 2010, p.103]

Worth a listen, but not game-changing. [Apr 2016, p.103]

For every aching melodic twist and sagacious lyric, there's a lumpy, sub-Beach Boys dirge and dicing-with-doggerel couplet to negotiate. [Mar 2003, p.103]

[The album] lacks anything distinctively their own. [Dec 2012, p.96]

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

Suffers from a paucity of premium standalone songs.... way too relentlessly generic. [Mar 2004, p.101]

The joke's pretty much over after one listen. [Feb 2007, p.106]

A strangely bloodless album heavy on technical perfection rather than the visceral emotion at the core of the best roots music. [May 2023, p.91]

These carefully manicured, self-serving triffles nearly all fall flat, despite the nonstop roll-out of A-listers. [Feb 2011, p.108]

Like a brand-new gadget, it might look smart but Leisure Seizure's obsolescence is built-in. [July 2011, p. 103]

More non-threatening folk-pop. [Jul 2014, p.96]

Surely the key to echoing some of rock's key ancestral voices is having songs strong enough to stand on their own. Shaka Rock simply doesn't have them. [Oct 2009, p.106]

Out of retirement -- and on to the hard shoulder. [June 2011, p. 93]

10-decent-but-not-exceptional songs, Sleeper ultimately sound a little anachronistic; just not made for these times. [Apr 2019, p.89]

Only the tart Princely funk of Boyfriend lets light through lacquered layers of modern pop production. [Nov 2017, p.103]

This is undeniably a better album than they've delivered in some while, but... there still seems to be a lack of conviction in their execution. [Feb 2005, p.100]

This is musical wheatgrass juice: wholesome, virtous, but ultimately fun-free. [Mar 2008, p.115]

Its utilitarian arrangements only highlight how difficult it is to create a worthy cover. [Aug 2015, p.94]

A few songs confirm her gifts....More often, self-satisfaction takes over and the final track's dull. [Nov 2008, p.108]

Despite its promising title, Lust Lust Lust is mighty forlorn. Or, optimistically, transitional. [Dec 2007, p.100]

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

So Divided is less pompous, but the dynamic likes of Naked Sun and Stand In Silence barely atone for hamfisted stabs at chamber pop, country and The Cure. [Dec 2006, p.108]

What he does less of these days, regrettably, is production, upon which his outside-the-box reputation rightly rests. [July 2011, p. 103]

Here, the tunes are dubbed to within an inch of their lives, reduced to fiddly-for-fiddling's-sake electronic bleeps and riffs. [Oct 2011, p.100]

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

In Europe, Manu Chao shifts albums by the millions, but there is little here to make one think Britain is missing out. [Oct 2007, p.104]

Overblown and cloying, it destroys any early promise by way of total saccharine overdose. [May 2016, p.86]