It looks like a Mariah Carey album, it sounds like a Mariah Carey album.

Now they’re safely out of what passes for fashion, their retroisms sound more loving than offensive.

This retro sound is no surprise as Echo & The Bunnymen producer Hugh Jones is in control, and he infuses No Fighting In The War Room with a sneering urgency. It works, but only in spurts.

While ‘Music Of The Spheres’ feels like quintessential Coldplay, there are some more surprising moments buried in its tracklist.

Musically, ‘Mainstream Sellout’ doesn’t stray too far from [Tickets To My Downfall's] blueprint laid out, but lyrically sees Baker get more honest, more revealing and more comfortable in being uncomfortable.

There’s definitely a nod to new Nashville here--however, we’re talking more Mumford & Sons if they started songwriting for Justin Bieber than the grit and guts of Waylon Jennings or the current king of classic country, Sturgill Simpson.

Lavigne has never been pop’s most sophisticated lyricist, but her plain-speaking style makes for compelling listening here. ... The album’s second half is generally happier and blander.

An exercise in taking a joke way too far.

The production (by Wheezy, ATLJacob and others) laid a solid foundation for Baby to make a few hits, but the record is nothing to write home about.

Not a bad album, but a divisive one for sure.

While we were expecting an opus about how the coalition government’s really lame, he’s delivered a relentless bosh-pop thump that’s more ‘Bonkers’ than bonkers.

Their problem? Others have overtaken them. [17 Jun 2006, p.39]

Hymns finds a fully-in-control Okereke, still tangled in the electronics of his solo albums (“Rock’n’roll has got so old, just give me neo-soul,” he admits on ‘Into The Earth’) fusing with Russell Lissack’s spectral shoegaze guitars to steer one of the century’s most pioneering underground bands into more mature and absorbing, if murkier, waters.

Wilson's voice is a sorry wisp of what it once was. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

JL have dropped a weird pop record so humorously danceable that Ke$ha’s probably planning a collaboration as we type.

Mine Is Yours? You can keep it, thanks.

Labrinth may work wonders in the background, but he's far too anonymous on Electronic Earth to mark his card as much of a solo star.

The rough edges that gave them their early oddball indie pop character have been sanded off in favour of earnest but uninspiring anthemic rock.

They need to retire. NOW.

Bad Vibes Forever is better than Skins, the first XXXTentacion album released after the rapper’s death, but all of his posthumous music to date has fallen short. Even if you do hate XXXTentacion, you cannot deny his influence on modern rap. But ‘Bad Vibes Forever’ is a serious case of over-embellishing thin material.

The whiff of soft-rock schmaltz is occasionally close to overpowering. [16 Sep 2006, p.36]

It's at its best on the likes of 'Blackened Blue Eyes', which... is a cousin of their classic 'One To Another.' [8 Apr 2006, p.41]

This is a slew of hackneyed teenage poetry, trowelled onto a bed of sift-rock cliché.

Another long-awaited offering finally drops and it's wonderfully enchanting.

The Enemy¹s second is weighed down with pomp and bluster.

It all ends not with a bang, but a shrug.

Oasis can't help but sound like a group battling to free themselves from being last century's thing.

Sticking to the formula followed by fellow Welsh emo posers Lostprophets and Funeral For A Friend, the generic metalcore verses and overblown choruses are all present and correct.