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.

To be fair, this is easily the best thing they’ve done since the mid-’80s and ‘Rockets’ and ‘Moscow Underground’ have some of that epic post-punk/new-wave disco spirit of yore, but it’s still not enough.

What's curious here is how, for all the Kid's ludicrous victory laps, 'Cocky' is so soft in the middle.

Samey and inaccessible in parts. [5 Nov 2005, p.43]

Nothing here comes close to the claustrophobic, urgent brilliance of the early work. [26 Feb 2005, p.66]

If they want to be treated like adults they’ll have to release something, y’know, gooder.

So, his odd decision to make Jamiroquai-like pillow-pop adds yet another string to Oye’s heavily-laden bow, but this is one we’d happily take the wire-cutters to.

Disappointing, then, that the eight-track ‘bonus disc’ opens with a cover of a cover: a lo-fi version of ‘Valerie’. [Review of Deluxe Edition]

Daring as some of the tracks are, they overwhelmingly loop her vocal around a generic house lick that has the effect of giving her very little to do vocally.

It feels distant and phoned in.

Too often, though, the rage is vague.

It's largely the usual semi-hilarious histrionica to which we've become accustomed

Easy Pain proves hard to like; and with little more than aimless aggression to cling onto for eight songs, you realise it’s all muscle.

There’s the occasional peak, like ‘Clown’ or ‘Destroy Me’, but Candy For The Clowns feels more like an act of stubbornness than defiance.

It’s difficult to share the singer's awe when the musical backdrop sounds so tired.

It’s respectable enough but a stronger dose of Fink’s maverick tendencies would be welcome.

Young Rebel Set are as comfortable and enjoyable as a Mumford-wool blanket, but when was the last time you got really excited by a woolly blanket?

The problem is, while the music is as violently powerful as ever, the rage, anger and lyrical bite are starting to sound seriously forced.

Ultimately though, this feels most like the result of a major-label brainstorming session titled 'Which Of Our Artists Will Fill A Santa Suit Best This Year?'

‘Devil Inside Me’ is the album’s earworm that you’ll end up humming, and ‘Solstice’ is a pleasingly overblown proggy epic, but much of the rest is competent yet uninspiring, and the novelty soon wears off.

Disappointingly, given his previous sterling output, this is a pretty boneless pastiche of the genre.

It breaks very little new ground--which does have the upside of the songs sounding catchy because you feel like you've heard it all before.

Overall it sounds like the work of a man struggling to recall his motivations for making music in the first place.

Over 13 tracks, though, Kreay's 'thing' wears waaay thin.

What they offer on Waiting For Something To Happen is a fey-pop selection box that leaves out the gothic grit and garage-infused rabble of early tracks.

Genre-bridging should excite, thrill, agitate; yet... Hood are--still--hipster-miserablist Pet Shop Boys fans threatening suicide during rainy countryside walks. [15 Jan 2005, p.43]

Far from the unpredictable genius of old, it seems that Rivers Cuomo has returned lacking both edge and sparkle.

Ultimately, 'Ten New Messages' is too myopic to see beyond its own concrete cynicism.