Britney and 'Britney' still works best when making a good pop cheese and dance sandwich.

Who knows which Miley Cyrus will emerge after the rootsy and real Younger Now, but we recommend enjoying Country Miley for as long as she lasts.

‘Think I Need It Too’, the best thing they’ve done in ages. And yet, much as we want to love it, the rest is a pulled punch.

'A Funk Odyessey' takes you on a journey of eye-closing triteness.

Everything you hear is supposedly conjured from Yoav's guitar. It's a cute trick but as the album storms ahead it becomes a distracting and frustrating gimmick that sells the songs short. [15 Mar 2008, p.50]

‘Ways To Phrase A Rejection’ proves the four-piece do a good enough job of recreating the kitchen-sink narratives of the era, but where they really excel is when they slip back into the 21st century.

It isn’t even that the songs are bad – it’s worse than that: they’re largely forgettable. Gone are the pithy couplets and catchier-than-a-rash hooks, replaced with lacklustre imitations.

He hasn't always got the tunes, but this effort shows off more than enough ideas to keep King Monkey swinging for a good while yet.

The sequel to 2021’s ‘Music Of The Spheres’ – and one of the band’s final records – gently and subtly distils that spirit of weathering any storm, going on a journey from that bleak opening moment to a more accepting, happier ending.

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.

Marvellous. [5 Nov 2005, p.45]

Mostly, what their reliance on groove rather than tune adds up to is dirge.

'The Sound of Silence', the Simon & Garfunkel cover, is easily the best song on the record, despite Draiman singing his parts like he’s The Count from Sesame Street.

The problem is Shawn Christensen's bellowingly unsubtle vocal style, which batters every last vestige of restraint out of its way as it strains for greater heights of veins-bulging volume-as-passion.

It’s a collection of snapshots of a band stretching towards a brilliantly kaleidoscopic, eclectic new sound--and almost reaching it.

The album is eclectic, unapologetic and, at times, a little lost in its own spectacle.

The album could do with being at least half of its 70 minutes, to cut out the self-indulgent meandering.

Size has merely moved from the coffee tables of the last century into the elevators of the next. [30 Oct 2004, p.65]

While TIM is unlikely to win any existing EDM-deniers over, its addition to Avicii’s back catalogue will come as great comfort to both the fans and family of the late DJ.

For the most part, this album, with its Avatar references (‘Lost Freestyle’) and hilariously bad Kim Jong Un punchlines (from ‘Tanasia’: “Chillin, we’re starting to think about children / And bringing them in the world with Kim Jong Illin'”), just sounds dated and like something Nas didn’t need to release.

Honesty is often lost in overproduction, both in the music and in his lyricism. It is listenable, summery and occasionally thought-provoking, but tired in its laboured pushes for emotional sincerity.

Sound[s] pretty much the same as they did a decade ago. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

A handy "best of the Stereophonics--for now." [8 Apr 2006, p.39]

Sure, there’s a residual whiff of mediocrity here, but Carl’s clearly found something else in himself as part of this new gang, and as Dirty Pretty Things’ music grows in assurance, it appears Pete will remain a solitary man for some time yet.

This time with their best songs since "Tell Me When" in 1995. In more ways than one, timeless.

A few tunes--like the Afro-flecked ‘LA Calling’ or ‘Everywhere’--pass muster, but the whole thing is about as cosmic as a hairdresser who’s just read in Grazia that hippies are ‘in’ this summer.

Although 'I Run' and 'At Once' are the sort of soaring tunes they always did so well, on the whole there's no compelling answer to that initial question: why?

ts revolving synth pattern revolves relentlessly, before bleeding into the aptly named ‘Dreamy.’