His imaginative, smartly delivered lyrics hold the attention during those moments when producer Lewis's beats don't quite match them for sparkle. [Apr 2013, p.94]

There are eager minds at work here. [Apr 2013, p.110]

Factor in some amiable but lightweight filler and Yes falls maddeningly short of its glittering promise--a glimpse of pop nirvana when it should be the whole thing. [Apr 2009, p.109]

This eclectic follow-up finds him embracing the diversity that made Sebadoh so exciting in the '90s.[ Nov 2009, p.101]

Clearly aiming for som eof the Lady Gaga's action, debut album Animal contains more of the same surging synth-pop and invitations to party. [Mar 2010, p.110]

A polished album that rewards repeated listens. [Sep 2016, p.107]

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 trio of Spanish songs are no fun at all and ballads such as Come To Me are more Michael Bolton than Michael Jackson, but - and let's not be coy about this - when he does Livin' La Vida Loca again, he's fantastic.

It might lack Ryder-Jones's delicate invention, but it's still a lesson in enjoyable lucid songwriting. [Jul 2013, p.109]

Make-Believe is a record you're more likely to respectfully admire than fall hopelessly in love with. [Jun 2012, p.110]

Amid such moments of clarity, however, there's the kind of meandering you originally expected from such an arty bunch. [Nov 2003, p.105]

Although less retro than chums Jurassic 5, their Hispanic-flavoured style constantly edges between sounding cool and simply withdrawn. [Nov 2000, p.101]

If there's an issue, it's that Rhys's voice doesn't appear often enough, although the instrumental interludes--Chop Sop, Dylan's Demons--are typically quirky and inventive. [Nov 2016, p.113]

Gallows is less significant than its predecessor, but it often sounds more urgent. [Oct 2012, p.100]

Tremendous fun while it lasts, but hard to recall once the tracer lines have faded away. [Feb 2020, p.110]

Unlikely to win any new converts then, Pylon still remains a triumph of wilful perversity. [Jan 2016, p.113]

To hard-hitting R&B and funk akin to God Foot-era James Brown, Jones can strip paint and soothe with equal aplomb. [Dec. 2011 p. 129]

This is indie rock with plenty of funk, snaking basslines and wah-wah guitar. [May 2009, p.119]

Despite this concession to orthodoxy [recording in a real music studio], King Of The Beach retains much of his summery charm, the sun-kissed pop-punk choruses concealing lyrics seething with self-loathing, alongside slices of blissed-out pop in style of labelmates Beach House. [Sep 2010, p.123]

While there is much to admire, some of the wilfully discordant tunes grate on subsequent listens. [Nov 2008, p.107]

It's not particularly pretty in places, but it is a hellishly good time. [Apr 2014, p.110]

The follow-up adds a little of their own personality and comes submerged in a refreshingly bratty wall of noise. [May 2013, p.107]

Tasteful as well as gifted. [May 2012, p.105]

Rocky Tinder and Eric Phipps's songs have a sharpness to them that makes them sparkle through the lysergic fug. [Jun 2013, p.108]

Attempts to obscure the paucity of decent songs with endless guitar wittering. [Apr 2003, p.102]

This is music so guarded it's all but impenetrable. [Apr 2007, p.117]

Whilte thoughtfully put together, Push The Heart is hardly a venture into uncharted territory. [Apr 2006, p.119]

Heralds a move from mine-shaft fug to West Coast freeway haze. [Jun 2005, p.120]

Sadly, CD2 is a disastrously misjudged, cartoon homage to juke-joint jazz. It is awful. [Oct 2006, p.122]

Wilfully artful and obtuse. [Aug 2004, p.107]

Not a wholly convincing return. [May 2005, p.110]

Differs markedly from 2003's Radio Blackout... with vocals and punk-pop structures replacing the glam-tecnho clunk of yore. [Sep 2005, p.120]

This follow-up is a return to the dullsville rock of old. [May 2013, p.99]

There's no sense that there's any real passion. [Mar 2005, p.99]

Not for everyone. [Jun 2005, p.120]

For the most part, he keeps it all on the ingenious side of ridiculous. [Aug 2004, p.121]

Perfectly pleasant, but with none of the edge that might mark them as another Arcade Fire. [Oct 2005, p.117]

A lot of the goofy teenage kicks have been replaced with more tiresome sex raps. [Sep 2005, p.115]

While there's no doubt that listening to the Super Furries' seventh album is mostly a pleasure, there are moments when it feels like a little less relaxation might have paid off. [Sep 2005, p.116]

Maybe if they had calmed down a bit, Crazy Itch Radio wouldn't be Basement Jaxx's fourth best album. [Oct 2006, p.126]

It takes 18 songs before the real Chamillionaire shows up. [Nov 2007, p.126]

In spite of some good songs... the band's urge to be monumental at the expense of their vulnerability is ill-advised. [Oct 2004, p.122]

There's too much instrumental cleverness to get to grips with the theme. [Nov 2004, p.118]

Bad Blood feels strangely anemic.[Apr 2013, p.95]

At her best, on the eerie 'Every Path,' she's mesmeric enough to lure ships onto rocks, but come the inevitable 'Later...With Jools Holland' appearance, older viewers may be forgiven for thinking Dolores O'Riordan has changed dramatically. [Mar 2009, p.96]

Their full-length debut doesn't quite justify its lengthy gestation period, being a frustratingly patchy affair with a handful of simply sublime melodic synth-pop numbers. [Apr 2009, p.110]

The synthesised tropical shimmers, buzzings of insects and blat of helicopter blades largely lack the momentum to sustain interest outside the cinema. [Jul 2002, p.112]

Beautifully written, played and sung, but just once it would be nice to hear a bit of distortion, a fluffed note and some real soul. [Jun 2004, p.96]

There's commendable variety among these 17 tracks, but little that rises above the mediocre. [Oct 2007, p.98]

It's pretty--but also pretty pointless. [Oct 2013, p.113]

Seeker Lover Keeper is frequently less than the sum of its parts. [May 2012, p.105]

It's all wonderfully sensual, only there's no passion or intensity. [Feb 2004, p.105]

While the bulk of Johnny Bramwell's songwriting attempts to match the gothic fairground swirl of their new sound, the best tracks... remain the most straightforward and acoustic. [May 2005, p.112]

Reggae-rap soundclash fails to catch fire. [July 2010, p. 136]

Mark appears disarmingly buoyant, his lyrics so humdrum that it's hard to take his pain entirely seriously. [Apr 2007, p.120]

A disappointing lack of originality on an album that is all too clearly in thrall to The Libertines and all their many acolytes. [Jan 2009, p.120]

Fans will crave more drones and dreaminess (Deep War and Lioness (Requium) are half-hearted attempts) and newcomers less stoner arrogance. [May 2012, p.106]

Even the Sharks and the Jets might find ARE Weapons' street hassle a touch quaint. [May 2003, p.98]

When it does threaten to bud into genuinely odd forms--the title track's sinuous distortions, or a sudden swerve into pop seduction on Do Your Bones Glow At Night--it doesn't stick. [Oct 2016, p.113]

You want to like Broadcast. But they don't make it easy. [Oct 2005, p.115]

As ever, there's not a hint of irony in the air. [Mar 2008, p.107]

[A] forgettable collection of rheumy blues and soul rock. [May 2013, p.98]

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

Sadly, anybody hoping for Pavement's off-kilter melody and cryptic lyrics will be disappointed. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

Imbruglia's thin voice can't keep pace with the excellent but demanding Everything Goes and Sunlight, while the half-dozen ballads aspire only to T'Pau's China In Your Hand. [#184, p.137]

Where once he dreamed of Fireflies, now Young just sounds burned out. [Oct 2012, p.108]

Many of [the debut's] ragged edges have been smoothed out, and in the process some of The Zutons' collective personality has gone. [May 2006, p.122]

Likely to frustrate fans of folk music as much as fans of 10,000 Maniacs, Twice Told tales is a double disappointment. [Jun 2015, p.99]

The San Francisco band plum for a gleaming Bright Lights, Big City sound that instead evokes visions of Crockett and Tubbs. [Jun 2012, p.111]

This follow-up is still falls between Dido's mild AOR and Lily Allen's bouncier moments while being as memorable as neither. [Mar 2009, p.101]

The thing about prog rock is that it is supposed to progress. [Mar 2002, p.122]

This second LP, though, sees the four-piece flit between the two camps with varying degrees of success. [May 2015, p.103]

The polished alt-rock on show here may be serviceable and vaguely reminiscent of Hole circa Live Through This, but it also lacks any of the band's own DNA. [Jun 2015, p.100]

It's hard to find anything here that will break them out of the retro-rock ghetto and into the 21st century. [Sep 2016, p.102]

Often the orchestra feels under-used on what, for the most part, are some disappointingly inert reinterpretations. [Nov 2012, p.89]

Despite the presence of original Patti Smith Group members Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty, this lacks the buzz of her past material.

The yearning fluidity of the vocals is checked, unfortunately by guitars that fail to detonate. [Jun 2011, p.114]

Desperately slim pickings... betray this release's roots as a mere EP. [Jan 2004, p.116]

The paper-thin arrangements ensure there's little here to give psych-rock peers such as Tame Impala and Temples any sleepless nights. [Dec 2015, p.109]

Boys Noize forged a path through the same noisy colours [as Justice and Digitalism] without ever acquiring the cultural baggage. [Nov 2012, p.89]

While cleverly mocking late-20s thwarted ambitions and McJob drudgery, Wolf offers little by way of an alternative, his lyrics ultimately as hollow as the cynical Generation X irony of the '90s. [Nov 2012, p.112]

Ultimately, this is dour stuff reminiscent of a yogic Sting. [Dec 2006, p.138]

[Natalie Bergman's] undoubtedly gifted, but the end result feels as passionless as a first date at Starbucks. [Apr 2013, p.112]

In fact Gahan, whose ill health hampered the making of Ultra, has rarely sound more potent. This time it's Martin Gore who's out of puff. No amount of fashionable tweaking can hide the flimsiness of his offerings...

What is surprising is how lacklustre an affair it turns out to be. [Oct 2004, p.128]

It's very easy on the ear, but, as on the Jose Gonzalez collaboration Estrella De Dos Caras, it needs focus. [Sep 2007, p.99]

See You In Magic happily throws in every hoary old cliche in the book. [June 2008, p.149]

It's not all bad, but Global suggest the hardest-working man in experimental pop needs a lie down. [Jun 2015, p.111]

In many ways Chapman just sings the same song over and over. [Oct 2005, p.115]

There is the sense that with 25 tracks on offer here Hughes is spreading himself slightly too thinly. [Jan 2009, p.118]

While skillfully executed--some songs, notably 'Murderer,' definitely have legs--the whole never rises far above a clever exercise in technique. [Apr 2009, p.105]

While no disaster, the enterprise does smack of Vonda Shepard's coffee shop warbling. [Jan 2003, p.121]

Eventually, though, the guitar-and-piano-only, stripped-down dynamics mean that a dull torpor settles over the album.

You get the feeling even the band think the joke's wearing a bit thin. [Jan 2019, p.106]

It's less primal scream, more yawn. [Nov 2012, p.112]

Campbell's voice seems to have been recorded in a lift shaft, rendering her too murky. [Dec 2006, p.133]

With stylistic echoes of The Kinks, Pixies and non-dancing Stones roses, the songs' themes of social isolation, romantic frustration and other junior Dylan-isms suggest a talent yet to mature. [Feb 2009, p.113]

At its best... Rules of Travel is deft adult pop; at worst... it's like Steel Magnolias scored by glib sessioneers. [May 2003, p.100]