This Machine sounds more like an off-cuts collection than a comeback. [Jul 2012, p.98]

It is just that, a combination of converging influences, namely Evanescence and The Cranberries, their propensity for choral harmonies ratcheting up the twee factor exponentially. [Oct 2007, p.109]

Tulisa struggles to get to grips with the predictably generic R&B ballads, but when the pace is upped and she shouts along to Young and the feisty M.I.A.-lite Live It Up, the personality that has turned her into a phenomenon of out times transcends her obvious limitations. [Jan 2013, p.112]

Too much... is just art for art's sake. [Oct 2005, p.121]

The rumble of My God's bigger Than Your God offers some respite, but can't save a disappointing return. [Oct 2010, p.121]

No matter how much frenetic energy is exuded, Title TK fails to ignite The Breeders' former fire. [May 2002, p.108]

Nothing really stands out like the best thing here, Make The World Move, featuring fellow Voice Judge, Cee-Lo Green. [Jan 2013, p.101]

Tortoise-pace strumming and a crippling shortage of choruses produce only torpor. [Aug 2002, p.131]

The hushed mandolins of "Still Love You" nudge it toward Sufjan Stevens territory and "Wont's Lie" is a witty gothic waltz, but neither does enough to atone for the mawkish excesses eleswhere. [Apr 2010, p115]

Sounding rusty before even seeing daylight, Deep Down & Dirty is as enticing as those other averagely pleasant 1992 albums currently taking up valuable drawer-space in the back room.

The sugary 'Fever Dreams' and 'Little Bombs' sound threadbare, while glib homilies would shame the writers of Hallmark cards. [Dec 2007, p.115]

It's a salient reminder of the wafer-thin line between art and pretentious bollocks. [May 2004, p.108]

It's all terrifically boring, naturally, but her voice is exquisite. [Nov 2004, p.117]

His reluctance to engage, ego issues and occasional sexism speak of a vanity as large as any of the major-label players he opposes. [Nov 2004, p.117]

They tear through 14 tracks in a flicker over 37 minutes without ever going anywhere even vauely new. [Apr 2009, p.100]

Boomslang labours under the delusion that The Stone Roses' Second Coming was a good idea worth pursuing in greater detail. [Feb 2003, p.100]

At excessive volume, Payable On Death sounds like a state-of-the-art metal album, but there's a painful dearth of decent ideas. [Jan 2004, p.118]

Silent Cry replaces genuine poise with serviceable pose. [July 2008, p.104]

Portico are definitely onto something here, but just haven't fully realised it yet.[May 2015, p.109]

Songs such as "Don't Ask" strike, but with nothing to sweeten the blow. The sound of baby going out with the bath water, in short. [Apr 2010, p.109]

Music in monochrome needs blacks and whites, but Silesia only has shades of grey. [May 2011, p.116]

Some Nights is ultimately a confused, turgid tangle of ideas. [Jul 2012, p.100]

System is a one-paced, staid affair, where almost everything suggests a tired version of Seal's first hit, 'Killer.'

Big riffs and bigger choruses here will ensure continued American radio support, but Draiman's penchant for singing like a woodland animal startled mid-coitus won't stop the sniggers. [May 2008, p.130]

If his vocals sound phoned in on those, when he does engage, his half-spoken, half-threatening drawl on the homesick America! and Universal Applicant evokes Gil Scott-Heron, but it;'s not enough. [May 2011, p.112]

With this 30th outing there's a troubling sense of treading water. [Jul 2013, p.103]

Devon soul woman meets Dave Stewart, in Nashville. [Sept. 2011, p. 118]

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

While elegantly arranged and rendered with passion, this is unlikely to convert those deaf to formulaic Americana. [Apr 2007, p.117]

There's little spark, despite her admirable willingness to take chances. [Nov 3007, p.147]

It struggles to hold attention because even Blunt's poppiest songs start the same way as his ballads: a downbeat vocal about ghosting, love or how Twitter hates him. [May 2017, p.100]

Too many of Coxon's conceptual songs are crucified on the cross of his man-child voice, neither weird enough to beguile nor strong enough to hold your attention. [Jun 2009, p.124]

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

It clings too rigidly to its electronic template and sorely lacks the breezy pop iinventiveness of old. [Apr 2010, p.115]

The trouble is, for all its inventive wordplay and expert pastiches, Join Us swiftly becomes the musical equivalent of that witty, but rather-too-clever male party guest who always ends up going home alone. [Sept. 2011, p. 119]

An over-thought approach, however leaves Schifino's drumming feeling restrained while Johnson's nasal, perma-positive vocals are overzealous. [May 2011, p.119]

Their most overblown record since 1989's Gold Mother. [Aug 2001, p.130]

They are still capable of arrestingly brilliant pop songs, but, judged against past achievements, Velocifero is a step backwards. [July 2008, p.102]

This solid--if unspectacular--sixth managed a very respectable Number 3 (on the Billboard charts). [Nov 2008, p.107]

Plain White T's are ultimately as bland and banal as the clothing they take their name from. [Dec 2008, p.133]

Only the title track, with its surge of guitar fuzz, really matches the idea with the execution. [May 2011, p.120]

It's ultimately too well-mannered and surprise-free. [Jun 2004, p.97]

The melancholy is relentless and ultimately rather suffocating. [Sep 2005, p.115]

While this maximalist approach might conceivably work well live, on record it often feels overblown, overwhelming and ultimately exhausting. [Mar 2014, p.108]

The majority of material... is forgettable. [Dec 2003, p.118]

The forgettable radio-pop of Laughable or Show Me The Way suggests a musician with nothing to prove having fun with his friends. After five songs, though, Give More Love nosedives into by-numbers country rock. [Oct 2017, p.111]

They seemingly can't help breaking electroclash's abiding principle, that of sounding like you're an utterly ghastly person. [Oct 2004, p.121]

The likes of Los Hongos De Marosa glide by in a swirl of subtle beats and understated Spanish vocals, but nothing snags the ear. [Nov 2008, p.118]

As tourism, fine, but it's no trip. [Jul 2012, p.103]

Surprisingly conventional. [May 2007, p.124]

producer Don Was has tried to capture a country legend in his veteran state, but he's missing all the tricks. [Jan 2013, p.106]

The technical proficiency can't make up for the uneventfulness of the material. [Mar 2015, p.104]

Their debut bounces up and down rather a lot, resorting to ska-punk when everything fails. [May 2009, p.119]

Their take on the latter's [Rustie's] maximal funk inevitably lacks the shock of the new, a heard-it-all-before feeling which persists through bumping house jams and detours into vintage jazz. [Jun 2013, p.100]

Carry Me Back feels like a sidestep towards a more traditional sound. [Jan 2013, p.108]

Future Songs is minimalist and alien, haunted and pained: like a bloodless Cocteau Twins.

As tame as it is conventional. [Apr 2005, p.124]

It's a loose affair, typical of Chilton's slapdash attitude towards heritage curation. [Oct 2005, p.114]

There's nothing new here. [May 2006, p.131]

Davies' voice, weathered but still fine as a Waterloo sunset, is complemented by few here. [Dec 2010, p.113]

If anything, [Disc 2] is the real rip-off, as unsuspecting buyers will be shellshocked by these FX-laden, space-ambient settings. [Dec 2004, p.135]

Despite such big hitters as Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire, it's an overly introspective affair, with little standing out bar contributions from The Decemberists and Dave Sitek. [Mar 2009, p.102]

The main impression left by Nobody's Daughter represents no great surprise: that for all her raging intelligence, Courtney Love is only as good as her collaborators. [Jun 2010, p.121]

Oh how it drags. [Aug 2003, p.106]

Petty sounds like a bitter old man howling at the moon. [Dec 2002, p.110]

The majority of tracks scream "poor old bored celeb." [Nov 2006, p.139]

Clever as it is, there's all too little that actually engages the heart as well as the mind. [May 2015, p.111]

Much as their guitars cascade and their lyrics have a dark undertow, there's too much heavy-footed stodginess, notably in the plodding Staying Up, to make them truly engaging. [Jun 2013, p.103]

This is as cynical a mish-mash of popular trends as you can imagine. [May 2004, p.106]

There's no denying that CSS have grown in songwriting flair and musical sophistication. Unfortunately, this seems to have come at the expense of raw energy and quirky character. [Aug 2008, p.133]

For all her searing honesty and her undisputed craft, her voice is too frigid too often and she seems strangely melody-phobic. [Apr 2010, p.119]

Over 27 unpredictable tracks that run the gamut from soaring Byrdsian harmonic rock to the sound of wind in the trees played backwards, Black Foliage is a marathon.

The message is as subtle as a street riot but the delivery mechanism ('90s funk metal, barked tirades) creaks with age. [Oct 2017, p.108]

An assured start, though he'll need to be braver next time round. [Aug 2014, p.115]

Like the rock equivalent of an SUV, All The Right Reasons is huge, polished and ultimately pointless. [Dec 2005, p.155]

At its worst, only the quality of the backing band distinguishes it from pub rock. [Jul 2006, p.112]

In a half-hearted effort to dilute the homogeneity, Harris grouts 18 Months with flimsy instrumentals, as if to create the illusion of a proper album. He's not fooling anyone--maybe not even himself. [Dec 2012, p.108]

More often than not, The Ponys end up stranded in a morass of pointless guitar static. [Apr 2007, p.121]

This isn't a bold project and they haven't been expanded nearly enough. [Feb 2016, p.118]

"Lamping" is a hunting term for flooding a forest with light then opening fire on the panicking prey, and the ninth album by these Athens, Georgia oddballs is similarly scattershot. [Dec 2008, p.132]

Occasionally, things lift out of the bluster--unfortunately, in the case of Preacher, a terrible lyric--but even the Everybody Wants To Rule The World guitar on Life in Color or the relatively stately synth-pop of Something's Gotta Give can't make Native Anything but a great gas giant of a record. [Jun 2013, p.103]

She sounds more engaged than she has in years. Not the disgrace it could have been. [July 2011, p. 117]

When It Was Now comes across like French soft-rockers Phoenix without the arty twists. [Jul 2013, p.99]

Drizzles of acoustic guitar dilute any sense of experimentation, while the drab stadium indie of Vultures and Friend Of The Madness underlines the feeling that, underneath all the grand gestures, a very ordinary band is struggling to get out. [Sep 2014, p.113]

It tries to be everything at once, with varying results. [Oct 2005, p.114]

More quality control wouldn't have gone amiss. [Jul 2012, p.104]

It's all perfectly competent, but rather generic. [Jun 2006, p.119]

There's little of the fire and invention that characterised 2000's White Pony. [Nov 2006, p.140]

At its worst, it comes across as parody of one of Primal Scream's cod-Stones missteps. Only once do they drop the Southern shtick. [Dec 2013, p.102]

It takes a special talent to mine new gold out of acoustic songwriting, and Ben Howard just isn't it. [Nov 2011, p.135]

Grouplove need to strip their whole schtick back and start again. [Mar 2014, p.113]

It's a faintly embarrassing trifle that only a 69-year old ex-Beatle could get away with. [Apr 2010, p.120]

[Soulfly has been] churning out "world metal" for 13 years - with, it should be said, diminishing returns. [Apr 2012, P.101]

A real disappointment. [Apr 2004, p.118]

It's not always a comfortable union. [Jul 2015, p.102]

Even the rhythmic energy can't disguise a shortage of quality songs. [Mar 2014, p.114]

The follow-up [to 2013's All Hail Bright Futures] doesn't start well, picking up where that album's most irritating moments left off. [Jun 2015, p.100]

There's plenty here to test the patience of even the sternest fan. [Dec 2003, p.122]