Fading Love is hard to fault on its own terms, but in a world where there's just so much music, sometimes being decent isn't enough. A bit of nastiness wouldn't go amiss. [May 2015, p.105]

White it can still sound like samples waiting to be made into songs, on It's Not Me and Six Pack they reveal a canny knack with almost Motown-esque pop hooks. [Oct 2002, p.107]

Not all the tracks have the same impact, however, and a certain sameness in tone saps thrills. [Jun 2013, p.95]

The celestial keys and brooding bass of Lesson From The Darkness could be straight from the early '80s, but The Faint's mastery of their influences ensures Doom Abuse is defiantly their own creation. [Jun 2014, p.108]

Where Marilyn Manson is dark and introspective, Godhead are much more outgoing.

The results are pleasantly bouncy rather than riotously fun. [Aug 2018, p.114]

The glacial tones and chimes that the Velvet Underground modelled on Sunday Morning are invoked once too often. But, beyond this, Sandoval's sedated, spellbound voice remains a remarkable presence. [Nov 2001]

Their weak spots (feyness, smugness, shallowness) remain. [Nov 2003, p.104]

Momentary Masters is a big beast with swagger in its bones and craft in its soul. [Sep 2015, p.110]

Like his debut, From Every Sphere chokes on moments of indigestible excess. [Mar 2003, p.108]

No great leap forward. [Jul 2006, p.113]

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]

It won't dethrone his great works, but there's heart in abundance. [Nove. 2010, p. 117]

More an EP than an album, it's possibly not for the unwitting. [Apr 2015, p.102]

As predictable as rain in February. [Mar 2002, p.123]

Continues to adhere firmly to the rootsy rock of fellow travellers Matchbox Twenty and Counting Crows, while their earnest musicianship and hard work will delight fans of that sort of thing. [Aug 2003, p.115]

It might lack originality, but its freewheeling spirit will definitely keep you listening. [Nov 2013, p.109]

Their music is a similarly odd hybrid [as the Bray Road Beast that their first track references], its great dreamy prog head gazing down at its shoes. [Feb 2016, p.108]

Drew's little-boy-lost whine on the likes of 'Gangbang Suicide' occasionally grates, but the supreme soft-rock anthemics on 'Lucky Ones' more than compensates. [Oct 2007, p.94]

Buffalo Tom remain a very fine shoulder to cry on, warm, steady and strong. [Apr 2018, p.106]

A montage of brief yet expansive instrumentals, it veers from the richly choral to the dissonant, from busy polyrhythms to spare, awestruck synth-symphonies. [May 2020, p.112]

It's a mess, but it's never less than an absorbing one. [May 2016, p.107]

The Deserters produces a gently psychedelic kind of romantic chamber-pop. [Jan 2013, p.113]

Wild Things is as likeable as it is cutting edge. [Aug 2016, p.113]

Kozelek's less-than-euphoric vocals become wearying after a few tracks, though the band shuffle basic resources with some brio. Worth the wait, but only just.

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]

It's this kind of unresolved contradiction -- not to mention the flashes of self-deprecating wit -- that makes this return from the brink so fascinating. [August 2011, p. 112]

When she does go heavier, the results are tepid. Happily, it doesn't happen very often. [Aug 2011, p.119]