There's little real sense of progression here... and at times New Order sound dreary and ordinary. [May 2005, p.96]

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

If you didn't know what the band have been capable of, this would be good enough. [Aug 2005, p.94]

It's a puzzler.... Given brilliant execution, no doubt we'd still have come out with out hands up. Instead, it's patchy and the worst comes first. [Dec 2001, p.114]

Clearly the thrill of hearing new songs in their embryonic state could never be replicated, but as rendered in such pristine isolation even the cavalier back catalogue selections (rarely played early classic 1,000,000;one-that-got-away Romance) fell flat. [Dec 2009, p. 95]

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

The trio have bounced back from frontman Tim Rice-Oxley's surprise 2006 stinct in rehab by discovering the '80s. And not in a good way. [Nov 2008, p.108]

His most conventional and, frankly, dull [album] pursuing a plodding take on alt rock, in the uninteresting middle ground between early U2 and Stiltskin, with occasional dashes of doom-lite. [Aug. 2011, p. 101]

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

Slick mediocrity. [Dec 2005, p.98]

The Vines are mostly surface and scratch, a vessel of strangely useless beauty. [Apr 2004, p.114]

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

Neither sparkly nor weird enough. [Sep 2008, p.110]

Over the course of a whole album their light-as-afeather mix of glacial keyboard, breathy vocals and mid-tempo time signatures begins to grate, and you wish producer Thom Monahan had made them take more risks. [Jun 2009, p.99]

Out Of Control is something kinda meh. [Jan 2008, p.104]

Repeated plays reveal a frustrating lack of memorable songs. [Nov 2004, p.102]

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

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]

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

The other 48 selections feel forced or too like karaoke homework. [Oct 2021, p.92]

[An] unexpected and trenchantly singular statement. [Jul 2015, p.86]

If anywhere, this stuff belongs in interviews, not in songs. [Mar 2004, p.94]

When Todd sings his own I Saw The Light he sounds more comfortable than when negotiating The Cars' blustering powerpop. [Jun 2006, p.111]

This is very much sitting-in-the-pub-moaning music. [Dec 2014, p.98]

Embrace is schizophrenic stab at modernity, bolting synths and clattering drum patterns to forgettable harmonies, with limp results. [May 2014, p.88]

Noble concept, but possibly the dumbest clever-clogs album ever made. [Jun 2010, p.98]

The record's well-meaning earnestness is a little overwhelming, but it's the stuffed-crust arrangements that really grate, everything happening at once, and often for too long. [Apr 2022, p.81]

Pretty, but pointless. [Feb 2006, p.95]