There's now something a bit crumbly, a bit rattly about E&TB. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

The album title promises much in the way of forthright antagonism and the Jessie J hair she sports suggests some kind of ironic statement on the chart mainstream, but the content fails to deliver, save for two isolated moments.

He's nothing if not versatile. [16 Sep 2006, p.37]

Too often, Thumpers fall flat.

Their records once had a two-sided feel, Angus' songs lacking the drama of his sister's, Julia lacking her brother's restraint. Here, particularly on 'Death Defying Acts' and 'Little Whiskey', they've got the balance just right.

Only on ‘Nice To Be Dead’ does he veer into heavy guitar territory, but it fits seamlessly into the mix, making for not just his strangest set in years, but also his best.

This is a record that wipes the board clean. It's a record that will invigorate and re-energise.

This is music for message-board moderators and the greasy-haired sycophants who hang around too long after gigs, and precisely no-one else.

Not a bad choice for zoned-out afterhours sessions or long lost summer afternoons, but it's just too indifferent to recommend with any real conviction.

A lot of it is quite earnest, dealing with subjects like rejecting the mainstream (‘Run Boy Run’) and, on ‘I Love You’, unrequited love.

If the trimmings were removed from ‘It’s Only Me’, it might rival his previous releases – instead it’s a few notches shy of greatness

A few more like ‘College’ and ‘Figured It Out’, with their emotional weight and memorable choruses, and they’d be onto something.

Vek truly exploits the benefits of being in a one-man band: all instruments and ideas can be used as often or as sparingly as he likes; the feelings of the Mellotron and crumhorn session musicians do not need to be taken into account.

It is a one-trick album and they spunk away their best song, the incantatory ‘Shame On The Soul’, right at the start, but the aforementioned trick is, at least, an affecting, and very occasionally gorgeous, one.

Shangri La is basically more of the same, and for many of his fans, that’ll be more than enough. It would be a shame, however, if it was enough for Bugg, too.

These are well-penned tunes. They just don’t do anything special with them.

The result is not just unimaginative and lyrically anodyne--it’s boring.

Waking Lines is a success.

Often witty and always wise. [27 Nov 2004, p.61]

'The Sun'... lacks urgency and focus.

There is disappointment that a number of U2’s big-hitters don’t translate well on ‘Stories For Surrender’, but this revision hasn’t been a totally fruitless endeavour: you just have to dig a little bit deeper to find the reimagined material that’s truly worth savouring.

‘Always Tomorrow’ boasts a handful of punchy, promising songs but it’s frustratingly unambitious in scope. When the album treads old ground, the ideas are stale. Hopefully a bigger rejuvenation is on the horizon.

A painfully honest, emotionally draining album. [22 Jan 2005, p.49]

However much he hollers, Dave McCabe can’t escape sounding bored, and his often-schoolboy lyrics have begun to actively jar.

They have the relentless persistence needed to stick to the wall long enough (this is their third self-released album), but despite their striving for the grandiose (Kings producer Ethan Johns provides the country-ish bluster) and breaks (a spot in rom-com Going The Distance for last album "Union"), there's still that dark sparkle missing.

'The Altogether' adds weight to the increasing suspicion that Orbital's best work is, like their hairlines, behind them.

Inevitably, the record descends into a series of multi-band cover-offs, the listener acting as Caesar, deciding which ‘winning’ version should really have made the cut. Half the time you feel like you’re doing the compiler’s job for them.

A shiny slice of mirrorball punk rock. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

We feel like we got sold herbal E and it didn’t even get us stoned.

Almost in defiance of poor sales and cult following, CWK and their charming second album embody everything you hoped music might be.

[Shonen Knife's] 13 Ramones covers sound exactly like you'd expect.

This, for all the fighting talk, has the feel of a lightweight flailing around for another KO.

OCD Go Go Go Girls is, as ‘Think’ was, simply an imperfect heads-up for Lovvers’ live skills.

They’re not reinventing the wheel, but pulling the Harley out of the ditch.

The record sags in the middle when the pace dies down (on ‘Haunt’ and ‘It’s Getting Dark’), but ‘Transparency’ never overstays its welcome. It may not produce the “massive hit” McTrusty once pined for, but it’s a sign there’s life in the old dog yet.

Sanchez’s gorgeous vocal is what truly stands out.

'Plans' is produced within an inch of its shiny, whitebread life and the Cutie seem to have lost their faux-naive subtleties, becoming the non-thinking man's Coldplay along the way. [27 Aug 2005, p.74]

While Tyranny is wildly self-indulgent--and often at the expense of quality - you could never say that it's boring.

Their careers adviser-flouting debut is in the mould of the greats rather than carving a new sound.

The band's best album yet - which is to say that it contains considerably more than three good songs.

Their fourth album rarely disappoints...

Pummelling electro punk at it's finest.

If you really feel you need another Canadian choral indie troupe in your life, this is worth a punt.

Comprising of 14 scorching, razor-sharp vignettes – some scarcely a minute long – this is the sound of a songwriter standing on the top of their mountain, chest puffed-out and giving it the biggun’. Those confrontational moments are spiky and fun.

The real achievement of 'A Weekend In The City' is its path to this conclusion, pulling hard-won moments of contentment from a maelstrom of anger and confusion.

Kasabian's paranoid mindset is so in tune with the zeitgeist you almost imagine singer Tom Meighan has a sell-by date stamped on the arse of his corduroy strides. [4 Sep 2004, p.71]

By the time closing waltz 'Bring Me Down' ends, intimacy levels are so high that you feel like a contented voyeur.

Where this album tries for a harder, more adventurous sound, they’re still stuck with one leg in leather trousers.

The populist music-for-the-people philosophy embodied at the core of Harris’ anthem-heavy new record--which is basically the aural distillation of his hedonistic yet geeky everyman persona--is something to be cherished right now.

It’s business as usual with the release of their spaghetti-mess fourth.

The star’s debut album shows plenty of promise but some filler, too. It’s not a masterpiece that will silence the haters, but it’s not likely to slam the brakes on her rapid rise either.

So exciting that it should come with a precautionary bottle of Prozac. [6 May 2006, p.33]

he may toy with everything from Detroit techno to dubstep, but Harvest Festival hangs cohesive.

A rather mousey, introspective record, awash with the wishy-washy sounds of shoegazing, and yet not without its precise, audacious moments.

This is Swell's most constricted, least dynamic album to date. All songs move along at almost exactly the same pace and there is less breadth to their vision both musically and emotionally.

It shouldn't work, but it does - perhaps, because, for once Albarn doesn't sound like he's trying too hard.

While there are blips in all areas of life - the possible existence of Bigfoot, the rich and strange wildlife of Madagascar - few things cast more suspicion upon the whole survival-of-fittest concept than the continuing career of Everclear.

Unfortunately, this is not only their weakest album, it's their most confused.

Over the course of a 35-year career defined by excess, reinvention and the occasional brush with genius, Primal Scream have made all sorts of albums, but not one quite like this.

This is a thrilling joy ride of an album.

'Black Mountain' is like a stoned friend with really good taste in music burning you a mix CD. [Jul 2005]

This third album is as good a guitar-pop set as you'll hear all year.

Heartbroken, but heavenly.

Weatherhouse properly uncovers Selway as a compelling songwriter.

There's going to be a hearty scrap between this lot, Muse and the Monkeys when album of the year time comes round.

Anne-Marie’s bold personality is finally given a chance to shine on a no-nonsense album that’s overflowing with chart-busting tunes and real world attitude.

She sounds more relevant on these songs than she has in years.

Much of the charm of The Deserters lies in the winter-blasted chime of Zeffira’s voice, and those frozen-hinterland soundscapes.

A Thousand Heys reeks of wrong-side-of-the-pond, washed-out lo-fi revival as much as the vocals.

There are ponderous moments later on, like the uninspired ‘Teenage Disease’, but this is a band who’ve found a second wind.

Sadly, TAI...'s surprise maturation isn't yet 100 per cent complete.

OK, their lightweight bossa nova songs grate, but when they go all funereal, you get great lines such as “We move like knives through scars on land.”

Ant's famous sartorial attention to detail doesn't extend to the music here, as experimentalism meanders into the bizarre and unlistenable.

First, the good news: 'Celebrity' is pretty damn fine too.... The bad news is that 'Celebrity' definitely shows signs of that discontent that all boyband members begin to feel after a while, and it's this which might well put some fans off.

Wait For Me, though, mostly confirms even cheap-sounding wallpaper remains, sadly, wallpaper.

Moondagger is a tune-rich excursion into lo-fi romanticism, with 'Parallelogram’s' multitracked vocals harmonizing over a groundswell of glockenspiels sharing DNA with Animal Collective.

Made In The AM doesn’t really change anything for One Direction; it's simply another slick set of pop songs designed to strike a chord with their teenage fanbase and win over a few older fans along the way.

The collection is more of a mood piece than of noticeable, memorable songs.

Recorded in a cave near Oslo, natch, this gloriously dark second album begins with the dystopia of ‘Ayisha Abyss.’

R.Y.C is at its most provocative and memorable when its larger-than-life characters and productions become unhinged and combustible with lust for life. Yet Mura Masa’s anxious contemplation of modern-living – the highs, the lows, the lies we tell ourselves to make it all better – hits just as hard.

Unsurprisingly, it’s overcooked in places. In addition to super-producer Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), an array of producers come and go on the 17-track record that nearly stretches to a full hour. ... But little could possibly dampen the record’s spirit and spunk.

Sawdust reveals a band with a healthy blueprint for success, sure, but "The Masterplan" it ain't.

It just feels like, once again, Coldplay have done the selfless thing and gone out to protect EMI's share price, and at the end of it remain peering off the edge of a cliff edge, wishing they had the courage to jump.

An adventurous and fun record.

Line-up changes (guitarist Jamie McMorrow was replaced by V-Twin man Dino Bardot) have resulted in a beefier, bouncier, more playful sound, with vocals shared more evenly and harmonies abounding.

Make no mistake, this is a poor, poor album.... Frustratingly, it's a waste of talent. For Snoop has lined up an array of musical back-up here (Swizz Beats, Timbaland, Eve, Master P: all marshalled by Dr Dre), and his is one of the most distinctive voices in rap, but he chooses simply to repeat himself with it.

It's an itchy, difficult listen, but then it's hardly easy being original.

The album ends up as a tribute to each of the individual singers rather than Sound City itself.

<i>An End Has a Start</i> turns out to be a pupae album--it's Editors stretching their sonic muscles, poking the first spindles of whatever new form they'll take out of their gloom-rock cocoon come album three.

Dios (Malos) are clearly capable of breezily mordant psychedelia nd thumpingly pie-eyed pop... Sadly, they're not so hot on tunes you can't help whistling. [4 Mar 2006, p.31]

More than anything, annoying for the fact that in its moments of brilliance, it's the catchiest, danciest jangly guitar pop you'll hear this side of the summer. Sadly, those moments are few and far between.

All in all, a weird brew, set to confound anyone who likes their music to fit neatly in a box.

It might not kill the Mumford and Butler clones, but The Hunting Party is an energetic effort at least.

This record isn’t a fifth as clever as it thinks it is. It’s glorious in a dozen other ways, though.

Nobody's pretending this lot balance on the razor-sharp blade of the cutting edge. Even so, their orchestral whimsy presses the 'lovely, bordering on twee' button.

Its bluster and sheen ends up burying the barbed poetry of frontman Mike Duce.

It’s all jam and no croissant, sadly.

Where he’s inventive and precise in directing his energy, he’s able to make real uplifting and imaginative indie bops. It’s a shame this album’s not full of them. The potential is there, but he’s not quite hit it.