Compared to their early work, disappointing. [Jun 2005, p.118]

Anything approaching a tune seems to have been muffled under a duvet of drowsiness. [May 2006, p.122]

There's little experimentation to interrupt the drive-time friendly tunes. [Nov 2004, p.119]

At first it's almost intriguing, then alienating, then irritating; ultimately you're reminded why you never really listened to Animal Collective until they discovered the joys of a good tune. [Sep 2012, p.100]

Experimental and confusing... Oberst's voice struggles to hit home through the effects. [Jan 2005, p.129]

The Magic Numbers' central problem remains: too few hooks back up the pretty tunes, and The Runaway becomes an album you want to love, but struggle to recall even as it glides on by. [Jul 2010, p.135]

Jack Steadman's shaky voice does scant justice to a dozen songs that, in more adept hands, might have not been squashed at birth. [Aug 2009, p.103]

He's not so much turning into his father... as his wimpy half-brother Julian. [Nov 2006, p.143]

It's all pleasant enough, but sadly, there's too little here to set the pulse racing. [Nov. 2011, p. 140]

Osborne still sings well, but, apart from the late swamp-dirty sequence of Baby Love, Hurricane and Poison Apples, deadly rock orthodoxy prevails.

As so often happens, this is Neil Young doing what the hell he likes.

Possessing neither Cuomo's melodic nous nor the self-absorbed misanthropy that makes Weezer's best work so compelling, Wilson's power-pop never exceeds cynical expectations. [Apr 2004, p.120]

A profound disappointment... few songs lift themselves above pedestrian tedium. [Nov 2000, p.117]

It's not an obvious fit, and with all songs apparently written in the space of just three days there's distinctly rushed, work-in-progress feel that does nobody any favours. [Jan 2011, p.142]

[Clinic] has misplaced the groove and settled for a rut. [Sep 2004, p.117]

A disappointing barrage of lethargic metal. [Dec 2004, p.137]

Some of the most awkward, unapproachable music he's made. [Nov 2004, p.128]

An oddly anonymous disappointment. [Apr 2006, p.113]

They're brilliant as such but, with a couple of exceptions, not quite so fun in the cold light of day. [Apr 2013, p.104]

Not quite the step forward he needed. [Sep 2001, p.122]

It's prevented from turning fancy by its grounding in some rudimentary rock dynamics. [May 2006, p.122]

In the end, it's all a bit too sensible. [Nov 2012, p.95]

Both Ways Open jaws is just smug enough for you to wish it was wired shut. [Dec. 2001 p. 125]

Catastrophically, she's given up her trademark fruity sex rhymes, which leaves just mundane braggadocio and an unhealthy obsession with her ex-lover, Notorious BIG. [May 2003, p.109]

A very slick example of production-line soul. [Apr 2002, p.110]

It's disappointing this... sounds more like the work of bright, bored A-level students than British dance royalty. [Jul 2004, p.124]

Time for another rethink. [Nov 2012, p.96]

'Piece of Me' is a blast at the paparazzi, but her principle target is, inevitably, ex-hubby Kevin Federline. Not all pop stars give up their secrets so readily. [Jan 2008, p.112]

A frustratingly dull affair. [May 2012, p.109]

Frontman Matt Tuck leaves no cliche unturned in his angst-ridden lyrics and the second half of the album is weighed down by the leaden balladry. [Oct 2015, p.104]

Mostly, syrupy arrangements and obscure song choices spoil the flow. [Apr 2010, p.119]

Patchy... Little of his indignant bluster hits the mark. [Oct 2004, p.130]

No great leap forward here. [Oct 2015, p.106]

It could be high art. It could be utter bollocks. Either way, it's lovely when it's over. [Jun 2006, p.119]

Unlikely to return them to chart orbit. [Mar 2012, p. 97]

For all her Stakhanovite efforts and the title track's Hole-esque venom, the fact is she's yet to prove that it is music and not acting that is her true calling. [Oct 2009, p.112]

A step backwards. [May 2014, p.121

Her fifth solo album mixes positive-message R&B, hip hop and funk with variable and often unsubstantial results. [Mar 2010, p.110]

Ultimately, 1992-2012 does its job so well that it's hard to see the point of A Collection. [Mar 2012, p.114]

Things often get a bit messy, the meandering 12-minute title track with its extended percussion battle being the most jarring example. [Jun 2012, p.104]

It'll undoubtedly please their cult following, if few others. [Sep 2011, p.110]

A single 47-minute long track, subtitled An Electronic Night Ceremony, it begins with a slowly unfolding dystopian bass rumble to which a pulsing beat and subtle layers of electronic soup are laboriously added. Sounding more like the hum of a car factory (they still have them in Germany) than the celestial sphere of the title, it's a querulous throb of a record which, once heard, hardly invites repeated listening.

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

The lyrics on British Lion are at best workmanlike, tackling vague concepts with a deadening succession of cliches. [Nov 2012, p.98]

Lyrically, though, he's got strangely little of interest to say, no a particularly distinctive way of saying it. [Nov 2010, p.111]

Quirky and clever--even slightly sinister with in the murky darkness of Dragonslayer--rather than pioneering. [June 2008, p.146]

A Certain Pleasure, nods to Sonic Youth's twisty-turny Daydream Nation, and Natural Vision is pure Dinosaur Jr, circa '86-87. They need a whole lot more of that relative light to offset their predominant, brutal darkness. [May 2015, p.105]

Sounds more fun on paper than it is in reality. [Aug 2006, p.111]

A quarter of a century on, that still holds, right down to the same old ponderous rhythms, Daniel Ash's screaming guitar fuzz and Peter Murphy's ridiculously portentous vocals. [Apr 2008, p.102]

The ideas are all there, they just don't fit together properly yet. [Sep 2012, p.110]

On this showing he's bored and directionless. [Nov 2006, p.134]

The Sisters' eponymous first release throws up the unlikely comparison of John Lennon fronting The Flaming Lips, only to result in something that's too unfocused and self-indulgent to be more than a passing curiosity. [Mar 2011, p.116]

The results should be riveting. Sporadically, they are. [Jan 2012, p.127]

Not a lot of thought has gone into changing the formula. [Nov 2010, p.111]

This offering is bedevilled by elaborate, overly fussy instrumentation. [May 2002, p.114]

Most songs need both depth and edge. With Love Frequency, Klaxons have tuned in. What they really need to do, however, is freak out. [Jul 2014, p.105]

[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]

Any promise it shows [early on], howeever, soon gives way to yet another album of baroque rock and Beach Boys harmonies that strives towards being some lost Brian Wilson opus. [Feb 2008, p.95]

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

The whole never manages to lift off. [Oct 2005, p.120]

Guerolito's songs dissolve in an anonymous stream of chugging electro and dub effects. [Feb 2006, p.101]

Monotonous riffs are churned out at a snail's pace. [Oct 2005, p.114]

The Coldplay-leaning Some Other Arms and the flowery-welly wearing Mayflies suggest their final destination may be as soundtracks for the John Lewis catalogue or sunsets on Instagram. [Sep 2016, p.107]

The likes of 'Win Park Slope' are pleasant, but also disappontingly unremarkable. [May 2009, p.112]

In time-honoured, do-it-yourself fashion, their debut Introducing breathlessly races through 10 buzzy tracks in a shade over 23 minutes, by which time they've long since run out of puff. [Feb 2010, p. 112]

The B-side was never meant to bear this much relentless inspection. [Feb 2004, p.113]

It sounds lovely. And yet it is also crying out for Fraser's otherworldly quaver to give it a much-needed extra dimension. [Jul 2006, p.114]

Shrigley's humour quickly suffers from the law of diminishing returns; once the initial shock has dissipated, it fails to stand up to repeated listening. [Jan 2015, p.128]

A fiddly disappointment, as centreless as a B-sides collection. [Oct 2002, p.117]

Mostly it's too laboured to uplift. [Apr 2003, p.109]

About as personality-free as rock music gets. [Apr 2004, p.115]

The occasional tune shines through, but ultimately too much of the material sounds like it's aimlessly ad-libbed. [Oct 2008, p.147]

There's the brisk cover of Sparks's 'Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth,' plus a huanting, piano-inspired run through Harry Nilsson's drunkathon 'Don't Forget Me,' but she blows it at the death with the hideous 'Marais La Nuit,' 31 torturous minutes 38 grisly seconds of forest noises. [Apr 2009, p.102]

Quality control lets down power-poppers' fifth effort. [Oct 2011, p.117]

Beautiful Imperfection is never less than easy on the ear, but equally never more than that either. [Apr 2011, p.110]

Rock this clinical just isn't exciting. [Nov 2012, p.103]

Nu-metallers try to recapture former glories. Fail.

There is little else that stands out amid the polite noodling. [Mar 2008, p.104]

Their penchant for thuggish lyrics and thudding beats now sounds more monotonous than menacing. [Mar 2012, p.100]

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

There's nothing as wonderfully warm as My Love Is Your Love, as grandstanding as Exhale (Shoop Shoop), or as innovative as Its Not Right But Its OK. [Feb 2003, p.104]

Occasionally they stumble upon something magical... but they only highlight the paucity of ideas elsewhere. [May 2007, p.123]

The sense of creative retreat is disappointing. [Jan 2003, p.118]

They're fine when doing the burbling, instrumental stuff, only to lose marks for a couple duff guest vocals and over-reliance on vocoders. [Jun 2010, p.132]

On first listen, it's sufficiently preposterous to be amusing, but over time, predictably, becomes intrusive and annoying. [Sep 2016, p.114]

Sadly, this follow-up shows signs of premature ageing. [Mar 2006, p.109]

Their self-indulgent scrawl is writ so large it would be impossibly cloying when if it were all as good. Which it isn't, not by a long shot. [Jan 2016, p.109]

Too often, however, these songs underwhelm. the likes of Sand and Boyfriend confusing unengaging plodding earnestness for emotional heft. [Jun 2018, p.113]

The effect is spoiled by noodly, indifferent tracks such as We Meet At Last. [Aug 2002, p.128]

Beta Love ultimately feels unfinished. [Apr 2013, p.109]

They've lost the spark. [Sep 2004, p.122]

Eventually even the guest run out of ideas, leaving only Dupieux's fragmentary electro-funk. [Nov 2016, p.111]

Oddly muted. [Feb 2006, p.104]

Hoppus, whose flat vocals once dovetailed deftly with Delonge's nasal whine, is sorely exposed as sole frontman. [Dec 2006, p.132]

It's warm and heartfelt, but the scaled down production allows his grating Treesside vocals dominate to distraction. [Nov 2010, p.114]

So Damn Lucky and Trouble are lyrical ballads that succeed through understatement, but elsewhere Gravedigger is an awful, hectoring anti-war lament. [Jan 2004, p.117]

A nagging sense of coming late to chillwave's super-saturated afterparty. [Oct 2014, p.110]

Art Official Age, regrettably, is something we have heard before: an overlong, pan-generic concept album. [Nov 2014, p.107]