Things are less enjoyable when musical boundaries are pushed--and at 25 songs long, albeit with nine of them shorter than a minute, it’s a joke that wears thin.

They’ve possibly succeeded in alienating the casual fan with the brief moments of nastiness that are here.

But while Gray's voice is still beguiling and unique, The Id is basically Brit-award winning, corporate soul with little identity, too cosy and calculated to have any genuine depth.

The musical results feel more like a touristy package holiday through Jamaican dub history.

Clearly Damon is pleased to be carving a niche in the world of high art, but perhaps 'Dr Dre The Opera: Nuthin' But An ENO Thang' might have served his legend better.

A mammoth indulgence, an 80-minute justification of his own ill-defined status.

It’s spunkier than 2008’s ‘Sebastian Grainger & The Mountains’, but still meek in comparison to DFA 1979.

Both musically and lyrically, Daughter ain’t half as clever as they clearly think they are (people get serious and clever mixed up a lot, weirdly).

Original it is not--there's little here that couldn't have come straight off a Shara Nelson album--but she does write some fine tunes

Rather than evolution, Listen offers questionable overindulgence in funk, soul and chopped beats.

Inevitably, when the Prozac finally wears off the more 'thoughtful' numbers fall flat on their faces. [20 Aug 2005, p.58]

Away from his day job, White is less creatively liberated, and surrounding The Dead Weather there's a very strong whiff of conventional, rather clumpy Middle-America jock rock.

Despite this early start, she oozes a smoky maturity that bodes well for her debut, but unfortunately then shanks it off the fairways by prattling on about Air Max 90s and hanging on the District Line.

Individually the tracks have a removed piquancy, but an hour's solid exposure leaves you yearning for a crackle, some fuzz, or any human intervention.

Weirdest of all, though, is that no matter how much Jessie J sings about being herself, we don't really ever get a sense of who, or what, that is.

All 13 of the tracks here sound nothing like their much parodied clip. It’s just that sadly, branching out isn’t a good thing for them.

Imagine if your diary was published in a national newspaper two years after writing it. Now consider what dull and repetitive reading it would make, and welcome to 'Return To Saturn'.

All this greedy grasping means the London newcomers can’t really get a firm grip on anything, meaning Bad Blood comes out with about as much identity as a Facebook commenter without a profile picture.

Mainly, Halcyon sees Goulding's quirky-as-usual vocals lazily spliced into factory-standard chart dance.

While it's sometimes hateful and sometimes hate-filled, "At Your Inconvenience" is rarely boring.

It's a shame Mr Pain needs these cameos as much as his instrument of choice--without them, the temptation for the listener would be to simply Auto-Tune out.

Fly Yellow Moon sounds like Guillemots with all the wonky bits weeded out.

Nine of the ten songs are named after friends, and they’re samey and indulgent.

As is the case with twee-pop even at its best, there are moments when Allo Darlin' can get carried away with its cutesy sensibilities, when smiles can turn into winces

If only the rest of the album was as inventive [as 'Spend Some Money'], instead of a derivative box-ticking exercise that features Dizzee going on about his "willy" a lot.

This perpetual desire to show off is Hawkins' weakness and 'One Way Ticket..."s ultimate downfall. [26 Nov 2005, p.44]

The 11 tracks trundle along in a generally inoffensive slipstream of occasionally admirable but mainly dull AOR silliness.

It's accomplished but occasionally overbearingly earnest and calls to mind the Foos' acoustic alter-ego, bolstered by Sufjan Stevens-ish banjo plucks and, in 'Hard Sun', the kind of play-it-again chorus made for credits rolling over a stunning landscape.