Those three seconds of stuttering electronica simply take their reputation for leftfield experimentalism too far. Thankfully, such wilful pretension buggers off, and the rest is a more quality-controlled set.

A brazen, heartwarming, classic '70s bardic rock album, spirited enough to compete with and instruct the Ashcrofts and Gallaghers.

'Lions' is widdle-smothered great-grandadrock shite that Hendrix could whack off in ten minutes today, despite being dead. Pumped full of funk-rawk formaldehyde to stop the choruses dropping off, it boasts all the originality of a cloned baked bean and about as many tunes as a tractor makes trying to get out of a ditch.

There seems to be a hollowness, a lack of soul, an empty Big Mac carton where this album's heart should be.

The 20-track project adeptly captures the sadness and social isolation sparked by Young Thug’s time away, but conveys it with such lethargy and incoherence that you’re simply left feeling sorry for him rather than inspired by his storytelling.

Clocking in at 47 minutes (despite its 17-track length), Lil Boat 2 feels like a vast improvement from ‘Teenage Emotions’ simply as it doesn’t feel like an ordeal to listen to. What that does do, however, is narrow down your focus, which tends to land on Yachty’s predisposition for telling us just how rich he is now.

Not all of it works, but his renewed creative vigour is obvious and his sense of duty commendable.

For now, though, she's no better than one of Cowell's ventriloquist dummies.

There's no reason on God's green earth why anybody should want this record.

This is really little more than a half-baked infantile indulgence.

Cardiology is monstrously offensive – the latest shit-streak by music's laziest sons.

Had the entirety of ‘Brassbound’ been as polished as these final two tracks, the Boys would be closer to the promise they exhibited on their debut. Instead, they’ve produced – and have the frightening candour to admit to – their “second debut”.

A horrible, hysterical splurge of splenetic punk rock, processed beats and whimsical experimental chaos. Which is no bad thing. [5 Feb 2005, p.51]

Further success should elude them. That, it seems, is firmly restricted to the past.

Anodyne dance music for people who don't go to clubs, comedown music for people who don't do drugs.

Nothing quite fits, giving the impression that this material wasn't good enough for the guest artists' own albums.

Underclass Hero they've gone straight for the commercial mother lode, pitching their sound almost equidistantly between 'The Black Parade' and 'American Idiot' (insert your own 'parade of idiots' gag here).... If you already own those albums, why waste your time with this?

Rick Rubin’s final Primal Scream-gone-hip-hop remix of ‘A Light That Never Comes’ saves Recharged from disaster, but you might need resuscitating after this lot.

Unfortunately, despite some nice tunes, the formula seems a little, well, formulaic. [11 Nov 2006, p.43]

Soppy nostalgia that bares little else.

'Gemstones' sees Adam go much deeper into cabaret territory. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

Ultimately, it’s sketchy and uneven, ridiculous in as many of the wrong ways as the right, but not quite the disaster its tracklisting would suggest.

This album was their biggest and best opportunity to change that perception, but no matter how many freight-loads it ends up selling by, it hasn't succeeded.

Harlow deserves credit for veering away from commercial expectations, pursuing a fresh sound, and keeping things short and sweet. But praising an artist for limiting the runtime of a relatively mediocre album is no huge compliment. ‘Monica’ is an easy listen, something jazzy and inoffensive to put on in the background.

Lil Xan is by no means the worst thing to happen to hip-hop, nor does he symbolise its death. However, he isn’t very good either. Stretched to a full album’s worth of material, Xan’s music, like a certain branded prescription drug, quickly tires those with little tolerance.

Radio-friendly insipidness.

‘Take A Look In The Mirror’ doesn’t just sound like a bad album, it sounds like a broken record.

It batters through good taste, though its reggae-lite template is musically forgettable.