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

Knapp can be as shrewdly sweet as Paul Simon or as drippy as a Sarah Records house band, dissecting heartache in teen-diary fashion--but the music is consistently grown up. [Dec 2008, p.108]

It still comes from within a hydroponic fug of sedated beats and mumbled vocals. However, there's also a renewed sense of self. [Nov 2014, p.119]

A very respectable pop-punk debut. [Oct 2005, p.121]

A startling fusion of ethereal singing with churning, computer-generated beats and ambience. [June 2002, p.110]

Hanson's second studio album is better than the first.

They often strain too hard to showcase their musicianship. [Apr 2008, p.112]

Willfully schlocky, surprising witty. [Sep 2010, p.113]

Second album is polished, though its anthemic pop-metalcore suffers from thinking its better than it is. [Aug. 2011, p. 119]

Hayes has a tendency to wisp but this is offset by more exciting tunes such as the Cure-y single Keep running. [Dec 2012, p.106]

There are unexpected pleasures in the margins. [Oct 2015, p.105]

Too many of the remaining songs sound more like sketches than fully realised songs. [May 2016, p.116]

Many of the early tracks feel over-packed with ideas, musical styles , thrusts of synth, bongos, spoken word and chemtrails of jazz. Later, though, when he settles into sparser ballad territory, there is a sense of him drawing into focus as an artist. [Aug 2019, p.116]

Their most coherent statement yet. [Feb 2005, p.100]

No help coming consequently offers a welcome contrast to murder-ballad reciting neo-folkers. [Jun 2011, p.116]

Fresh-faced wunderkind aces his debut. [Oct 2011, p.118]

Ambient meditations and busy electro picaresques like Glow Hole add variety to a record that doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel but at least paints it in bizarre colours. [Oct 3012, p.98]

One for rainy afternoons, or a bottle of red in the small hours. [Jun 2012, p.109]

McLamb's vocals still sometimes fall the wrong side of the impassioned/histrionic divide, but this is a far more coherent album than its predecessor. [Sep 2013, p.104]

Devoid of Hannon's penchant for the smugly esoteric, this is by far his most approachable album. [Aug 2006, p.111]

Scintilli slowly builds an all-absorbing world, [with] tension between fear and beauty. [Nov. 2011, p. 139]

Two good albums, then--but more editing could have produced a single excellent one. [May 2017, p.104]

Album number eight from Zakk Wylde sees him cranking up the macho guitar heroics to superhuman levels. [Oct. 2010, p. 103]

Not always easy to decode, but worth the effort. [Jun 2014, p.103]

Imagine David Axelrod producing The Beatles, and you get an idea of The Earlies' ambition and musicality. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Osaka pop-punk veterans release their 17th record. [Aug. 2011, p. 126]

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

Despite a few lapses into gross sentimentality, Lucky One sucessfully maintains that allusion [that the past 50 years or so never happened] thanks to some spot-on period arrangements. [Apr 2009, p.107]