Everything is supercharged and melodic, like a poppy version of Nirvana. [July 2008, p.111]

It's by nature a patchwork, but boasts more hits than misses. [Mar 2009, p.98]

While this circus could have more attractions and you yearn for a flash of lyrical brilliance among the uncomplicated relationship musings, there's no disgrace here and nothing to alienate their audience or embarrass those who grew up with Take That. [Jan 2009, p.117]

By growing a personality, he's conjured up a low-key gem and a minor revelation. [Jul 2009, p.119]

As the tempo drops, however, their shortcomings as songwriters become obvious. [Aug 2010, p.124]

It's not a bad album, but In The Warzone lacks the broad allure of what made Transplants interesting in the first place. [Aug 2013, p.106]

It's at its best on Drive, where throbbing bass and a giant chorus dominate, but then Peace slides--albeit stylishly--into a repetitive blur. [Oct 2013, p.102]

A feeling of "not a lot happening" pervades. [Apr 2006, p.118]

Fuler sounds wonderful on the woozy 'Little Black Sandals' and Ray Davies's 'I Go To Sleep,' though she could do with more restraint and better tunes to sing. [Feb 2008, p.100]

Heavy-duty electronics doing repeatedly bloody battle with grimy strings... An intense but worthwhile experience. [Nov 2000, p.102]

So, does it match expectations? No. [Jan 2005, p.122]

Cabic is most effective when he's closer to home. [Sep 2015, p.117]

There's no denying that the darker mood suits them--although with Kevin Shields and co now out of retirement as well, it could be back to the drawing board again. [May 2009, p.119]

One of those albums that grabs your attention without ever having to shout at you. [May 2006, p.131]

Tellingly, they're at their most beguiling when taking chances. [Jun 2009, p.134]

If Emika's voice lets her down a bit in places, as a producer she knows how to mould it into strange and interesting shapes. [Jul 2013, p.103]

Its rambling nature irks, for in among its nearly 80 minutes there are pop diamonds that would have made a sharp and spectacular single LP. [May 2013, p.109]

His voice, permanently pitched just down from that half-shout Eminem reserves for songs about his mum. Without a fraction of that humour or rhythm, though, it sounds like a heckler at a council meeting. [Sep 2014, p.108]

It's a few tracks longer than it needs to be, but City Club is their best collection of songs to date. [Dec 2016, p.106]

Pacific Daydream can be read as a bitter reaction to the Trump era and geo-political chaos, or maybe it's just a set of (mostly) great tunes that provide light relief from it all. [Nov 2017, p.114]

Foward Russia! drop the post punk sound and art-school posing in favour of an emo reinvention.... It works best when they don't overcook it. [May 2008, p.134]

THe lush '60s pop arrangements are scuppered by overly introspective lyrics. [Mar 2009, p.93]

As super cutesy as a Hello Kitty hair-grip. Best avoided, in other words. [Mar 2011, p.101]

Eclipsing last year's Blueprint, it throws down the gauntlet to challengers Murder Inc. [Jan 2003, p.120]

Greendale is a bonkers, utterly headstrong conceit. Let's hope that Neil Young never stops having them. [Sep 2003, p.111]

There's a sense of make or break here, but it's clear what they deserve. [Sep 2013, p.109]

The creative tension between the two is their main strength. It's when one or the other gains the upper hand that things can go awry. [June 2008, p.143]

The formula really sparks when the layers of sounds are given firm edges. [Dec 2013, p.103]

Distortland continues Taylor's more ruminative songwriting. [May 2016, p.107]

It's singing their filthy lyrics in thick French accents that spoils the party. [Apr 2008, p.115]

Attempts to keep one foot in the streets and another in the mainstream, and largely succeeds. [May 2012, p.102]

It consistently fails to match their parent group's most sublime moments. [Sep 2012, p.110]

Settles for inoffensiveness rather than innovation. [Oct 2002, p.118]

The results are perplexing. An artist who has made a career out of pushing herself to extremes has put together an album of pappy, poppy songs that sound like they were written between cups of tea in the garden.

It's hardly revolutionary and nothing eclipses their finest career moment At Your Funeral, but there's nothing too wrong here. [Jun 2006, p.118]

A little less light and a little more shade, though, would make them a far more fascinating proposition. [June 2008, p.138]

Priapic pub rock of the very highest voltage. [Apr 2010, p.106]

This is furious but slick metalcore, but none the worse for that. [Nov 2012, p.103]

Such Hot Blood is best when it's at its most anthemic. [Nov 2013, p.101]

If Not Now, When? sounds like a band operating admirably in the present tense. ;[May 2015, p.100]

It loses its way from time to time and the eagerly anticipated Hal noodles when it should inspire. But when strings soar against clattering drums on Dax, the effect is mesmerising. [Jan 2016, p.113]

There's so much going on, why hold it back by singing from a half-hearted songsheet? [Feb 2018, p.111]

The Brighton duo's fourth LP, recorded in Berlin, throws that baggage away in favour of a cavalier hedonism. [Apr 2014, p.105]

While Heartbreak Warfare and War Of My Life chug pleasantly along in their Police-lite way, and Taylor Swift makes the briefest of cameos on the bittersweet half Of My Heart, true inspiration, as ever, remains a conspicuous absentee. [Jan 2010, p. 120]

Five tracks from the album were released as the Wake Me Up EP late in 2013, but on an album packed with possible alternative hits, the future is already his. [May 2014, p.107]

These songs are insufficiently distinctive and there is a surfeit of ballast in need of jettisoning. [Apr 2007, p.108]

That it doesn't fall completely flat on its face must be considered some kind of triumph. [Dec 2006, p.126]

The atypical melodic 'English Rose' aside, there's little to distingusih Motorizer from its 19 predecessors. [Oct 2008, p.149]

He's re-engaged the formula of sweet, James Taylor-ish vocals, lyrical inoffensiveness... and a laid-back Jack Johnson-like musicality where 5/6 embraces cruise ship reggae. [May 2012, p.101]

It's the orchestral pop of Red Rover, Red Rover and the others that sweep the album along. [Apr 2013, p.113]

It's the way Margo Timmins' distinctive, kohl-eyed delivery melts into Notes Falling Slow's funereal throb that remains the band's USP. [Jul 2004, p.113]

Crow still rocks. [Apr 2002, p.111]

A brisk, varied and entertaining little package. [Oct 2002, p.126]

Songs Of Experience will likely go down as a late-career classic. [Jan 2018, p.104]

It's still on the dancefloor showstoppers--No Enemiesz, Giant In My Heart--that she really comes alive. [Jan 2015, p.127]

If you dance easily at weddings then this album is very good news. [Aug 2005, p.129]

This is an album you need to be enveloped by--the louder it is, the better it sounds. [Jun 2016, p.115]

Though the results are less homemade-sounding than their debut, a mood of playful experimentation is evident throughout. [Feb 2007, p.99]

It's the very real emotional core that save Straight No Chaser from being just a slickly anonymous pop confection. [Nov 2009, p.100]

[Stereo Total] have neither the songs nor the art to make their electro-doodlings anything more than an exercise in narcissistic cool. [Apr 2005, p.124]

A lack of sonic variety and a mild sense of deja vu won't help to advance his cause. [Aug 2014, p.110]

Halcyon haze from Californian flute-toters. [Sept. 2011, p. 110]

If it's not an easy introduction to Mascis's work, for the converted it's a treat. [Jul 2012, p.102]

Over two discs, the schtick loses it flashpan charm. In bursts, though, there's much that impresses. [Oct 2014, p.120]

Lack[s] both the energy of Sebadoh and the quirkiness of his Folk Implosion project. [Mar 2005, p.98]

A patchy affair. [Apr 2005, p.124]

The State Of Things confirms RATM will be following the Arctic Monkeys down the MI and onto the nation's radios for sometime yet. [Nov 2007, p.145]

A sleek fusion of minimal bass, subtle breakbeats and surpise vocalists. [Apr 2010, p.111]

The Marge Simpson of nu-soul continues to meander down her own path. [Nov 2014, p.112]

There is a fluid coherence to the project.

Their brand of ant music has matured and expanded noticeably since ANThology. [Sep 2003, p.98]

All baes covered, an international hit seems guaranteed. [Oct 2002, p.100]

Thankfully... this reissue comes with a bonus instrumental disc, allowing the orchestral menace to speak for itself. [Oct 2003, p.127]

Golden State is, inevitably, rather good.

If they're not stressing about anything, neither will the listener, meaning meager traces remain when it's finished. [Dec 2013, p.105]

Much of this third album comes on like a bubblegum Breeders, sparsely arranged around Nash's spinal basslines. [Apr 2013, p.107]

Hornby and Folds would seem to be a good fit in the checkered history of author/musician collaborations. And so it proves, up to a point. [Oct 2010, p.107]

When she stops bawling (on Colors), Potter reveals herself as an affecting vocalist who deserves better than the barroom. [Sept. 2010, p.118]

Justin Hawkins' vocal histrionics can, at times grate, but for suckers of old-school guitar riffs and songs about the Viking invasion of East Anglia, there's much to enjoy. [Jul 2015, p.104]

California is desperately unadventurous. [Aug 2016, p.108]

The noisy blackAcetate is the work of a man who is not going to go quietly. [Nov 2005, p.123]

The thing that's missing from Detour, though, is emotion. [Jul 2016, p.110]

She has never sounded brighter or more infectious. [Nov 2003, p.117]

Amidst all this, the trio's scratching feels peripheral, and when it does take centre stage, is underwhelming. [Jul 2004, p.127]

Jakob Dylan shakes off dad's shadow to make music that sounds like... Tom Petty. [Feb 2003, p.109]

Timeless and effortless, it's unmistakably them. C'est Chic. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Few of the remaining tracks, all instrumentals, stray far from the blueprint. [Oct 2013, p.99]

His stentorian baritone adds emotional depth and there's a world-weary rue to the lyrics. [Jun 2014, p.114]

It's true that there's no grand new ground broken here, but Bright Light Bright Light has a pastel-coloured appeal that's all Thomas's own. [Aug 2014, p.104]

The tunes, for all that they whistle by breezily enough, lack the snap, crackle or pop that separates the hitters from the makeweights. [Oct 2015, p.113]

If there's one gripe, it's that the quality control becomes a little more relaxed as For The Company progresses. [Dec 2015, p.110]

They are slowly getting closer to realising their original aim. [Mar 2016, p.109]

Sweet Sweet Silent is hardly the most strident listen, but it's not without grit. The choruses are understated but addictive and the fragile intricacies are beguiling. [Sep 2017, p.115]

It's when Hozier tries to do throwaway, good-time tracks that the record falters slightly. [Apr 2019, p.119]

Admittedly, the mostly spoken Musical Theatre is indulgent twaddle and she often squawks where others sing, but there's Hole-like grit to both Life In Oink and the raised middle finger of Hate You, where cascading choruses butt against stroppy verses. [Jun 2018, p.113]

He acquits himself impressively as pianist and singer, his affinity with the material elevating it above mere expensive pastiche. [Jul 2013, p.106]

The tunes are serviceable, if hardly Fast Car. [Dec 2002, p.102]

It's the laziest of comparisons, but their harmonies--and they do it expertly live, so fear not--do have the ring of The Beach Boys. [May 2003, p.99]