Nobody expected him, at 65, to be the street-walking cheetah of '73, rather just to raise his game, to try and bring that corrosive voice forward, commensurate with his age, the 2010s and, dammit, The Stooges. In short: he hasn't. [Jun 2013, p.87]

With no appealing tunes or choruses to hang his hat on, Caufield's limp, blank vocals founder. [Jul 2012, p.88]

Gradually swelling guitars, keyboards and massed backing-vocal "aaaahs" homogenise the sound while mostly confining Edwards' high voice to a rather inexpressive tone when her clear-cut words suggest snarl and sorrowing. [Feb 2012, p.99]

The ersatz '80s production, lyrical platitudes and soft focus atmospherics stray uncomfortably close to parody. [Jun 2013, p.85]

There's little discernable rhyme or reason holding it all together. [Oct 2006, p.110]

It's difficult to make either narrative or poetic sense of, well, what she's on about. [Jun 2012, p.85]

Drawn to look within, you run into the smart opacity of Reitherman's lyrics. [Sep 2009, p.96]

It makes poetic sense but, like many autobiographical songwriters, he knows the stories so well he fails to tell them. [Feb 2008, p.112]

This successor has some Morricone moments, but is comparatively wan and blandly moderne. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Dogged by sub-standard productions and uneasy alliances, it's left to the RZA and Madlib's younger brother Oh No to partially save his bacon. [Jun 2013, p.89]

Go To School is a misstep--the sound of talented young musicians over-reaching to the point of unlistenability. [Oct 2018, p.93]

There's promise here if they can stay out of jail or the loony bin. [Feb 2005, p.94]

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

Motorcade Amnesiacs feels stifling, overbearing, all too wrapped up in its own perceived cleverness for the listener to really warm to. [Jun 2015, p.92]

A scrapbook of tuneful, scattershot fragments. [Mar 2004, p.97]

These bedroom demo-sounding efforts are primitive. {Jun 2012, p.85]

The increasingly frequent transitions between the finger picking subtlety of old to such newfound rockage are, however, simply too jarring for satisfactory listening. [Nov 2012, p.84]

Most tracks succumb to unambitious disco stylings. [Sep 2001, p.108]

Far from electrifying. [Jun 2015, p.86]

When the album's latter half descends into cluttered abstraction, Delicate Steve measures up as disappointingly slight. [Mar 2017, p.96]

Forget Me Not may echo Dancing In The Dark's intro, but it's bouncy energy is pure Ready Steady Go!, while the crisp, finger-poppin' stomp of If Your Prayers Don't Get To Heaven evokes gospel-tinged Motown. ... However, an ensuing sequence of stodgy ballads and grunty blue-collar rockers kill that aspiration, underscored by dreary production from Ted Hutt. [Mar 2018, p.92]

Michael Collins' garage rockers do Detroit techno. [March 2011, p. 97]

Overall Ghettoville feels unsettlingly cold; a stubborn statement of retirement in the form of a half-finished work. [Feb 2014, p.97]

Ultimately, The Runaway suffers from an excess of emotional drizzle and not enough musical firestorms. [Jul 2010, p.102]

[A] set of exhilarating if unrelenting Weezeresque thrash pop. [May 2014, p.96]

CSS's party-forever commitment is faltering. [Aug 2013, p.91]

It can perfectly capture the film's conflicted moods of sadness and euphoria, but just as easily turn cloying and sickly. [Jun 2012, p.87]

Considered restraint is a virtue, but Somewhere Else is hazardously polite. [Mar 2013, p.91]