What once sounded thrilling and new now merely sounds tired and repetitive. [Nov 2004, p.127]

This is essentially a couple of singles spread way too thinly. [Jun 2005, p.110]

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

Trespassing is magnificent is its competence, but sadly, it doesn't appear to have an actual beating heart in it anywhere. [Aug 2012, p.102]

First single "Stop The Music" suggests they may yet escape this postmodern cul-dul-sac, but by the time they get to "I Vibe You," it feels like being trapped in a lift with The Saturdays. [Aug 2010, p.124]

An album that should have seen Flynn take a step closer to Messrs Marling and Mumford has, sadly, been moulded into a bit of a snoozefest. [Nov 2013, p.102]

"Being herself" has resulted in her blandest record yet: it drifts from nondescript disco-pop and cloying R&B to woefully ersatz glam stomp. [July 2010, p. 132]

They're derailed by a dearth of new ideas. [Mar 2016, p.116]

Imagine a less florid Rufus Wainwright , or Paddy McAloon without the lyrical smarts and you'd be getting close: he even claims Prefab Sprout - along with A-ha - as a key influence. [Dec 2009, p. 116]

As a whole, though, I Never Learn wallows too much. [Jun 2014, p.119]

They remain spirit-crushingly average. [May 2005, p.114]

You can't fault the songs, the playing or the voice, but these versions contribute little to the originals. [Oct 2005, p.117]

Essentially it's Ray Of Light without Madonna. [Mar 2006, p.108]

It's difficult to imagine Carraba's earnest tenor appealing to anyone over the age of 20. [Sep 2006, p.107]

Somehow contrives to bring us the worst of both worlds [of glossy dance floor beats and Manc rock swagger.] [Oct. 2011 p. 131]

Most is all too predictable and finds Autechre stuck in an experimental rut. [May 2005, p.121]

It's not completely without merit--Brave New World has a certain swagger--nut this does stray bafflingly close to tribute band territory. [Jan 2019, p.114]

Throughout charming naivety rubs awkwardly against clumsy delivery. [Feb 2018, p.111]

The over-punctuation is the least unnecessary thing about the lame pop of Shark Attack!!!!!!!!!!, meanwhile, the second half is noticeably more restrained, and aL the better for it. [Feb 2016, p.111]

Some interesting musical touches and flashes of intelligence remain, but muddy mixing and one-paced production make this an overlong bore. [Nov 2002, p.114]

Songs such as Painted Indian and Everything's Fine offer a Balearic-tinged euphoria that ends up sounding like the band are at a party they were forced to go to. [Sep 2013, p.106]

Too much of the material is lightweight, ultimately making this an exercised in what might have been. [Oct 2012, p.101]

It's all doom and gloom, and it ain't pretty. [May 2007, p.125]

Given the strength of their earlier work, Penny Sparkle is a big letdown. [Oct 2010, p.104]

He's better when he lets the words--and music--speak for themselves. [Nov 2008, p.120]

While sometimes determinedly slight, these cunning community-minded grooves - People Power In The Disco Hour, in particular - do gradually insinuate their way into the affections.

Highly evolved it may be, but that doesn't make it any more listenable. [Apr 2010, p.112]

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

Things go awry soon after ["Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart"], though thanks to a less-than-sparkling production from Brendan O'Brien and Cornell's overly sentimental lyrics. [Nov 2015, p.106]

For such a distinctive voice, disappointingly run of the mill. [Nov 2008, p.123]

Even the album's most compelling moments... aren't strong enough to save it. [May 2012, p.98]

There's little sign of obvious hits. [Feb 2003, p.104]

There's nothing transformative enough to make this more than a placeholder and plenty that is kitsch. [Summer 2019, p.112]

[The songs are] bereft of the joy and pain that made her name. [Oct 2004, p.128]

Too often, though, his eagerness to please sees him tumbling down to earth. [Oct 2012, p.93]

Mercifully, the original Let It Be remains on sale. [Dec 2003, p.146]

Heavy, but not in a good way. [Jun 2012, p.96]

Simple Plan continue to plough forwards wuth a punk template of such box-ticking efficiency that they at times resemble automatons. [Mar 2008, p.111]

Compentent and glossy, Oceans Will Rise sounds like a lot of effort has been expended for a rather meager retuyrn. [Dec 2008, p.135]

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

Baby Monkey has nothing of the danger, adventure or indeed chemical frisson that defined rave culture--it's just smug sonic wallpaper. [Mar 2004, p.113]

While Azalea drops the occasional zinger, The New Classic is the sound of an ersatz rebel playing to script, having a shot at the rap career Paris Hilton never quite got round to. [Jun 2014, p.123]

Sara Lucas's strident vocals are often incomprehensible, rarely alighting on a tune for long enough to become memorable. [Feb 2013, p.102]

Jovi's delivery of the usual cliches has a curious, sickly sheen. [May 2013, p.96]

Human Conditions is not a musical disaster on the scale of Heathen Chemistry. It's just that, from Richard Ashcroft, more is expected. [Nov 2002, p.98]

While there's throat-shredding fervour, it becomes a crazily overextended blur of goofy anthemics. [Sep 2015, p.117]

47 minutes of homogenous power pop...

Few would guess it was about environmental apocalypse; indeed, you can listen to the whole album with out noticing very much at all. [Aug 2010, p.123]

It's frustratingly patchy. [Aug 2016, p.114]

Whatever her technical gifts as a vocalist, there remains something chilly and self-satisfied about the woman's brand of soul-baring that makes it awfully hard to swallow. [Jul 2003, p.108]

Too much of This River is more The Commitments, less The Bar-Kays. [Aug 2013, p.98]

There's little to grasp here, the chiming guitar of 11 and blustery feedback of 6 excepted. [Aug 2015, p.106]

Not much helped by their enervating vocals, debut release Native To is lo-fi '80s-influenced synth-pop that simply comes and goes, serving no discernible purpose at all. [Jul 2011, p.120]

It's often fascinating only in the details. [May 2004, p.110]

Despite some evidence of talent, though, it's mostly just musical gatecrashing. [Apr 2005, p.123]

The prepetually gruff Rule, a second division DMX or Redman, and producer Irv Gotti leave no cliche unturned. [Dec 2001, p.124]

No band can survive on novelty alone, and Electric Six still thrive on parody rather than invention. [Dec 2006, p.134]

The result is a too quiet, curiously unfinished-sounding album with barely a moment to remember, let alone cherish. [Oct 2007, p.96]

It starts promisingly ... but 43 minutes of joyless hectoring becomes an endurance test. [Feb 2012, 110]

Certainly the reverb/echo-drenched deconstructions of 'No You Girls' and 'Ulysses' pack a punch, but elsewhere it feels merely like an exercise in bolstering beats, amping basslines, then adding some beeps and FX. Pointless, really. [Jul 2009, p.122]

On Old Sock, he sings some that are to him as comfy as and to us as whiffy as the album's title. [May 2013, p.99]

Unconvincing and safe. [Feb 2004, p.102]

There's still no getting over the patchiness. [Mar 2006, p.106]

Not enough bold venture, too much going round in circles. [Jan 2013, p.110]

Embracism is like a night in a dingy club with someone you've just met reeling through emotions with each additional drink. [Sep 2013, p.99]

The novelty soon fades and the collision of styles rarely coalesces into anything approaching a song. [May 2011, p.120]

Sadly, their own sixth album lacks the drive of either Battles or Mogwai. [Aug 2009, p.113]

Most tracks follow a simple formula: the vocal from Don't Stop by the Stone Roses + layers of chimes + dog barks + crashing drums = mess. [Jun 2003, p.100]

Moffat's half-sung, half-muttered confessionals still lurch between the pulsing beats and pensive instrumentation but the tone is now more funereal than carnal.

Their now drab and dense psychedelia has been "updated" with the occasional drum machine but is still populated by willowy, damaged girls called Esmeralda and songs with "chrome" in the title.

On too much of The Physical World they sound like a pale imitation of themselves. [Oct 2014, p.108]

Deliberately sparse and bare. [Mar 2005, p.99]

They've neglected to write anything catchy enough to score them a hit. [Apr 2006, p.118]

Best In Town adheres to its authors' trademarked, if confused, formula of generic metalcore verses, gratingly incongruous pop choruses, borderline misogynistic lyrics and gags that presumably sounded far funnier in the studio. [Jun 2009, p.119]

It's just artful karaoke. [Jun 2005, p.116]

Pomposity reigns and the songs are too one-paced to ignore it. [Mar 2013, p.104]

It's hard not to think that CSS's moment has passed. [Jul 2013, p.101]

It works for the first three tracks.

It's frustrating when you know they can do better. [Jul 2006, p.116]

Fasciination is supposed to sum up their entire ethos, then it is as a quasi-futuristic act wrapped in BacoFoil. [Nov 2008, p.114]

Few tracks are any way immediate. [Apr 2010, p.116]

Spencer's shtick seems slightly threadbare after 11 years and the musical innovation of earlier outings is conspicuous by its absence.

Sadly, bland harmonies and bloodless production blunt the impact. [Oct 2005, p.117]

Highly theatrical, camp and not a little shrill. [Apr 2006, p.116]

Overall it's too stodgy to soar. [Feb 2019, p.108]

It doesn't work, such superior pop items as 'Just A little Lovin'' and 'The Look Of Love' being reduced to an uninspired yawn. [Mar 2008, p.107]

Those looking for the kind of soaring poetry that defined The Smiths will surely be depressed by lyrics that are often boringly solipsistic and prosaically worded. [Jun 2004, p.106]

These recordings feel more an exercise in keeping Buckley's name alive than effectively deepening his work. [Apr 2016, p.106]

The impression is of a group who have got too good at sounding like themselves. [Oct 2002, p.110]

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]

Tempos ate slower, moods are darker, moments of infectious pop few and far between. [Jun 2011, p.119]

His band's 13th album won't bring him the stardom he craves, consisting of amorphous drones in which the creative energy has been reserved for the titles. [May 2008, p.126]

Relentlessly, frustratingly slow. [Nov 2004, p.108]

Pretty yet inconsequential, like a collection of half-finished spy film themes. [May 2004, p.108]

Musically it's formulaic, with plodding college rock verses morphing into bellowing, nu-metal choruses. [Dec 2003, p.121]

The problem lies in Conn himself, a mannered vocalist whose lyrics aren't as funny or provocative as he thinks. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Any playfulness surrounding the album's titular pound-shop themes quickly evaporates amid a sound so spacious and tune-free as to border on emptiness. [Feb 2016, p.116]