The Australian quartet's debut album justifies the fuss that followed its title track's bubblegum approximation of Nirvana. [July 2002, p.121]

Sounds derivative and over-produced. [Sep 2004, p.123]

Great non-rap spoken-word albums comprise a list shorter than Wiiliam Shatner's critically acclaimed film roles. Yet [Shatner and Folds] have got closer here than most. [Dec 2004, p.144]

He's an even limper pastiche of [Michael] Jackson than Jackson himself. [Jan 2003, p.123]

Not here the gliding elegance of Drive, but an almost self-conscious rewrite of that brilliant debut's mechanical pop rock. [July 2011, p. 106]

The album lacks the breathless show-stoppers that have long peppered their records.

This live effort confirms what many suspected of Ditto all along: she makes for a terrifically ballsy rock star. [May 2008, p.134]

Her debut album, indeed, is something of a mess, the sense being of an artist trying to run before she can walk. [Jul 2009, p.123]

The homage is wearing a little thin, and it's time someone called last orders. [Sep 2012, p.112]

The sentiment of the latter is clearly that the doubts and fuzziness of the past have gone and the future is now dazzlingly bright. On the strength of this sharply-focused, wholly impressive record, that much is certainly true for Guillemots. [May 2011, p.113]

Trail Of dead have kept faith with their traditional mix of prog pomp and grunge power for their sixth album. [Apr 2009, p.97]

This is great music for driving. In a hovercraft. With someone chasing you. [Dec 2015, p.111]

Despite this being their widest-ranging album, their lack of of a truly great song is ultimately frustrating. [Sep 2007, p.99]

Her debut skips frrom glam-disco and bubblegum punk, to quavering piano laments and cabaret ditties. All the while, her imaginative reach is complemented by a winning pop savviness. [Mar 2010, p.105]

While there's nothing on Drastic Fantastic to spook the horses, neither is it an obvious rerun of its predecessor. [October 2007, p.90]

It's an album that shows the breadth of Harcourt's talent, certainly, but you can't help but miss the warm burr of his voice. [Jan 2019, p.109]

Possibly the greatest campfire singalong ever. [Dec 2009, p. 113]

Rebel Heart often strikes a more tentative note.[Apr 2015, p.100]

Come On Give Up bottles the album's slacker vibe, but Ratworld is more nuanced than most garage rockers could ever manage. [Feb 2015, p.111]

They rarely threaten to run out of steam. [Aug 2009, p.101]

The album's late lurch into electro and stadium rock is plain bizarre. [Aug. 2011, p. 119]

Downright terrifying fusion of bass music, pagan folktronica and snarling guitars. [Sep 2013, p.104]

Tasteful and soothing for Webb's ego, it's not much good for anything else. [Jan 2014, p.127]

It all adds up to an album alive with lyrical purpose, bookended by outright classics, and plenty of interesting moves and grooves in between. [Apr 2015, p.92]

There's a lot going on here. [Apr 2015, p.111]

A record of elegantly woozy street-level songwriting that highlights the links between Dire Straits and Television. [Jul 2015, p.104]

Catching the eye more than the ear, the rickety Maybe I Am Amused features Nirvana's Krist Novoselic. Meatier stuff surfaces on the quintessentially sludgy War Pussy, while I Want To Tell You thrillingly imagines Osborne's heroes, Kiss, covering The Beatles in hypermelodic proto-psych mode. [Jul 2016, p.111]

White Glue departs little from the scratchy template of La Spark but sounds more confident, if still just as nasty. [Nov 2016, p.114]

Voice-over clips from the movie aside, you'd assume this was a middleweight urban angst flick rather than about a fistic comeback-too-far. No matter, a job well done. [May 2017, p.112]

For a man who continues to spell his surname with two dollar signs, his act is lacking in real drama. [May 2014, p.121]

The absence of Liz Fraser's warbling--or indeed vocal distractions of any kind--means it comes and goes without leaving any lasting impression. [May 2003, p.106]

There's little new stylistically... but the results are remarkably strong. [Feb 2004, p.98]

Napolitano's lyrics exemplify the "perfect turn of word" for which she praises Bryan Ferry in a tribute song called Roxy. [Jan 2002, p.98]

Apart from the slow-burning, spine-tingling opener Electronic Performers, though, the duo seem reluctant to exploit their remarkable gift for melody, and tunes are too often mangled or left to fizzle out.

Utterly forgettable and hampered by Ruth-Ann's thin vocals. [Nov. 2000, p.113]

Khan's own incomparable pipes as blast-proof as ever, her first studio album since 2007 stands comparison with its stellar single. [Apr 2019, p.113]

A move to [Spain] has imbued Rouse's songs with sunshine. [May 2006, p.130]

Songs such as Ripe For Love and merry Nightmare are lengthier and more fully realised than anything he's attempted before but they remain enveloped in a fog of gauzy effects and disconcerting time changes. [May 2015, p.111]

A rich, multi-layered and utterly enchanting record. [Mar 2010, p.106]

The most successful tracks are those where Tricky is front and centre. [Mar 2016, p.117]

Underneath their smart stylistic kinks, however, lies a fundamentally old-fashioned imagination. [Aug 2016, p.107]

Green is a one-man game of musical consequences, mismatched but endlessly fascinating. [May 2006, p.124]

For all its surface activity, this twitching, fidgety aesthetic is still all icing and no cake. [Jun 2014, p.121]

When they do stretch themselves there's much to savour. [Jul 2014, p.109]

Confidence is attractive, but iii is a little too composed. [Apr 2016, p.111]

Sea Sew exudes the sort of simple, homespun charm that many strive to achieve but so few succeed in pulling off. [Jun 2009, p.123]

Without any shifts in emotional temperature, You Gots 2 Chill follows the thread that connects homespun to woolly. [Feb 2014, p.113]

Stewart keeps that see-sawing balance alive here. [Jan 2015, p.128]

It's just a little underwhelming. [Nov 2013, p.115]

Comedown Machine is their best album since they hit perfection with their debut. [Apr 2013, p.102]

The Understanding raises their game, mainly with its careful attention to one key musical detail: great tunes. [Aug 2005, p.132]

Replacing buoyant guitars and boy-girl dilemmas with dark themes of religion, parenthood and death, this [album] is a bridge to grittier material, albeit that with a glittering pop-rock handrail. [Nov 2011, p. 143]

Get What You Give is angular, immediate and littered with booming breakdowns. [Aug 2012, p.102]

At times, all this loose-limbed craziness can become tiresome but like an excitable friend dragging you onto the dancefloor by the sleeve, they make it very a=hard not to join their party. [Apr 2013, p.97]

Heroic. [May 2015, p.100]

While there are sprightly, smooth-cheeked moments--the bumptious riff of Blue Velvet, for example--there's a draining lack of invention or novelty. [Sep 2014, p.106]

The problems are compounded by the sheer awfulness of some of Jones’ lyrics.... What often redeems them is the music. On that front, Stereophonics have undoubtedly progressed...

[A] measured and thoughtful set of intelligent pop tunes. [Oct 2003, p.114]

Despite a clutch of well-crafted songs, the results are hit and miss.

The quality often drops, making for an intermittently engaging album. [Nov 2002, p.100]

Slipknot make one hell of a racket, an abrasive amalgam of death metal blastbeats and bestial grunting. [Oct 2001, p.130]

An epic backdrop for that next Pacific Coast Highway road trip. [Jun 2005, p.102]

The best record of the three record of the three recorded with his new and far younger band Promise Of The real, it veers between raw fury an tender melodies. [Feb 2018, p.110]

For the most part, this is a pastoral, frequently beautiful folk record, spiked with the odd unexpected diversion. [Feb 2013, p.112]

Much of the incidental music fulfils its purpose by occupying the background, but the band manage to inject real drama into the majestically discordant, Sonic Youth-influenced 'Spearing The Sunfish,' while the peaks and troughs of 'Boy Vertiginous' should appeal to Mogwai fans. [Jul 2009, p.117]

They're much more at ease losing themselves in power-pop harmonies on Lazy Bones and embracing '60s garage on Stop When The Red Lights Flash. [Jan 2013, p.108]

As rock, soul and funk steep together, the overriding sense is that Kravitz would prefer to be the leering loverman than the seer. [Oct 2011, p.124]

It's lacking some of his scabrous wit, but this is Merritt's most enjoyable album for years. [April 2012, p.101]

By its very nature, Father Of All... is slight compared to a sprawling magnum opus such as 2009's 21st Century Breakdown, but it's close to impossible to emerge from its rapid-fire near-half-hour without a smile on your face. [Mar 2020, p.112]

Bainbridge reveals himself here not as an exhaustingly pseudy hipster but rather a songwriter of singular depth and emotion. [Nov 2014, p.114]

Monstrously heavy, full of tense, nervous energy. [July 2011, p. 120]

A constant sense of discovery makes Colored Emotions an easy record to keep returning to. [Apr 2013, p.107]

The music itself, a combination of gentle piano and tremulous, echoing synth, is mesmerisingly samey, like scenery rushing past your car window on a long road trip. [Aug 2017, p.102]

Crazy as ever, then, but still just about in an endearing way. [Sep 2016, p.108]

At times The Ship's Piano seems like one long love letter... laced with sentiment and heartfelt thanks for life's greatest gift. [Nov 2011, p. 135]

Hardly new territory, but there's enough melodic might here to suggest the six-piece might find success on a path already well-trodden by The Killers and others. [Nov 2013, p.105]

It's a sound that can be as unsettling as it is melodic but at its best its hypnotic and all their own. [May 2014, p.108]

Enigmatic, but still worth puzzling over. [Feb 2016, p.111]

With Doyle's lethargic vocals sung like sighs to form sweet harmonies over upbeat guitar lines, it's an album that has a smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes. [Sep 2016, p.105]

The result is a record that's more one-note wonder than fully-fledged triumph. [Summer 2018, p.109]

The splicing of classical instrumentation with electronica and jazz flourishes may alienate his old band's fans, but there is much to admire here. [Oct 2010, p.120]

If surprises on Intersection are few, even rarer are the disappointments. [Mar 2012, p.105]

Monkeytown presents mutated dance music, ranging from satirical mutoid rap, warehouse ragga and even jump-up ambient. [Nov. 2011, p. 136]

Rising from the ashes of Nashville's junior punkers Be Your Own Pet, Echo Kid is a gloriously daffy collection of primal rock 'n' roll nuggets. [Dec 2009, p. 127]

In comparison, the second solo album from Broken Social Scene/Stars vocalist Amy Millan can't help but seem just a little routine. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

Unfortunately, wit the exception of the catchy "Needing/Getting," there's little that's memorable. [Winter 2010, p.107]

Solid but somewhat samey. [Jul 2014, p.109]

It's a hugely entertaining album. A musical travelogue whose breadth of styles fits the vast nation it eulogises. [Summer 2018, p.107]

An album that manages to pile on fresh, innovative production without drowning out the frequently spectacular songwriting. [May 2014, p.118]

Tesfaye can't decide if he's having the best time f his life or the worst. [Feb 2017, p.119]

She's made an album that deserves to linger in the limelight--passionate, powerful and possessed of real star quality. [Feb 2012, p.98]

The duo's experience and aplomb win out. [Sep 2014, p.108]

Superior to both the last two Mode albums and [Martin] Gore's recent solo effort, Counterfeit 2. [Jul 2003, p.103]

Squally closer 'The Dome' aside, he has a surprisingly light voice and--especially on the straight country of 'Doreen' and poppy 'The Banquet Styx'--a deft musical touch. [Oct 2008, p.152]

It's a little one-paced and unlikely to win prizes for originality, but King Con has enough kooky charm to entertain, if not enchant. [April 2012, p.107]

Covering Blondie's Sunny Girl in a straight '70s power-pop style seems strangely redundant, but easy listening standard Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me suits She & Him down to the ground. [Jun 2013, p.104]

He's taken chances and won again. [Jul 2014, p.115]

Asleep at Heaven’s Gate is still as polite and polished as the "edgy" mainstream dramas it will no doubt continue to soundtrack. [June 2008, p.146]