Unrelentingly maudlin and hell-bent on ramming every potential silence with soporific guitars and proverbially pathetic fallacy, ‘AM’ only perks up on its two covers.

For the most part, ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ is business as usual for Drake, who plays it safe and falls back on familiar terrain. ... But it’s not just a case of recycling here. There are some proper duds too.

The sound of a legend raging in style.

The formula wears pretty thin towards the end--bee-stung emoting in the verses, splashy catharsis in the chorus--but Glorious is no failure.

The band once again remain loyal to their signature blend of chugging riffs, angst-fuelled vocals, and enough shreddy-guitar solos to make your head spin. This is an unwavering commitment that remains throughout, and ultimately becomes both the record’s main redeeming feature and its biggest downfall.

More of the same from an act who have been ploughing the same furrow for so long they'll be reaching the Earth's core soon. [5 Jun 2004, p.57]

It's solid enough, but given the imagination they once possessed, it sounds like UNKLE are trying too hard.

It’s not awful, just bland, and lacks the bite that electro-pop records need to be lifted out of the purgatory that is mediocrity.

It's a bit of a mess.

‘CLB’ sounds jaded and dull, as if it was a chore to make. It’s certainly a chore to listen to. ... It offers nothing new to the rapper’s canon, merely going through the motions on his old formulas instead.

'Dumb Luck' will numb the pain for an hour, but you'll be buggered if you can remember anything about it afterwards.

The nine tracks here turn to the old-school and the classic, making the carols you sung at school into something better suited to a night doing shots of eggnog in Fat Mike’s shed.

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

Spark is right about one thing at least: this album is boring, and everyone who says otherwise is a fucking liar.

Amusingly, Los Angeles nu-metal types Orgy look like Duran Duran after being chewed on by giant robots. The problem is, as this hugely stupid sci-fi concept album grinds on towards the 30th century, they sound that way, too.

A record which is closer in spirit to the rustic eccentricity of his '...Bewilderbeast' debut, while still moving things forward. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

Flawed, but impressive.

An appreciation of jarring off-key vocals is essential to really love Naytronix, but at the root of all the batshit tinkles, twonks, robot vocals and dial-up noises is a smooth melodic funk pop perfect for seducing the microwave of your dreams.

The result is well produced and enjoyable, but it would be nice to see personality and innovation--two things The Prodigy rarely lacked--emerge among the Altern-8 tributes.

His production work on this fourth album adds a brittle EDM crunch to their formula, but lacks enough choruses ripped from the candy-curled fingernails of the Pet Shop Boys to stop the likes of 'Chemistry' and 'Real Real Love' sounding painfully dated beside Jungle, La Roux or even Daft Punk.

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

All that seems to have been lost over the years of caning from the likes of ‘We Are Electric’ and ‘Danse En France’ are the tunes.

Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz is surely the weirdest album made by a massive pop star in recent memory, but more impressively, it's also an essential listen.

This album is covered from head to toe in a cuticle of stylish crap. Underneath, fortunately, there are several redeeming gems. [21 Jan 2006, p.35]

Ultimately, it feels as if everybody involved in ‘Thank You’ has reverentially tried to make the platonic ideal of a Diana Ross album, but instead fallen into the late-career artist deadzone of a pleasant record that neither particularly updates nor diminishes her legacy.

If soft-hearted London folkies Noah And The Whale aren’t quite as deft with savoury rice, they’ve got the knack of balancing heart-melting, pupil-dilating ditties with words of chill bleakness down pat.

'Masquerade' is a mighty, ego-free album that doesn't need to shout to be heard.

It shows range, sure, but it feels so disparate that it's just baffling. Worse, none of these poses and personae actually feel convincing.