It's the continual indulgence of Lopez's Gloria Estefan ambitions with various generic Latin tracks, completely at odds with everything else, that really grates.

If you can get over the voice--and it is not a lovely thing--Time Changes Everything at least has curiosity value. [Oct 2002, p.104]

For the most part, though, there are too many soggy love songs such as the interminable Give It Back To You and too many moments where they cross the line between smart and smart-arse. [Aug 2013, p.94]

The former Verve leader attempts urban crossover. Look away now. [August 2010, p. 114]

One album might have served better than two. [Jun 2006, p.116]

His knowing delivery is laboured and the relentless schmaltz proves difficult to stomach over a whole album. [Nov 2007, p.141]

Guttural, brutal, and very unpleasant. [Mar 2013, p.101]

The sound of a band running on empty. [Jan 2016, p.115]

A collection of electronics-based tunes, drifting, gently paced but surprisingly torpid. [Mar 2016, p.108]

More than ever, they can be summed up by the epithet "The Brand New Heavies, only a bit more hip hop", peddling a soft kind of soul that fuses old-school influences with feelgood philosophy of the "believe in yourself" variety.

It sounds like a bunch of stoned musicians listening back to half-finished tracks, believing them to be mind-blowingly revolutionary. [Mar 2019, p.115]

When he dials down the combative cliches, he remains a powerful, compelling lyricist. [Jan 2013, p.110]

A little less austerity, however, might have made it easier to warm to the experience as a whole. [Mar 2013, p.94]

This may be some kind of dance music but Play Music is sadly no fun. [Jul 2009, p.133]

The charitable thing would be to blame record label micromanaging because surely nobody would choose to be this unoriginal. [Jun 2014, p.111]

An album made for judicious online cherry-picking. [Jul 2011, p.126]

Aside from the cavernous 'Tension' mosty of the tracks here are disappointingly interchangeable. [Nov 2009, p.114]

His lightly jazzed guitar shuffles pleasingly.... But when he attempts to bring the funk and steam up some windows on Until You're Satisfied, your toes will curl for all the wrong reasons. [Feb 2013, p.113]

Shiny slabs of US radio rock. [May 2012, p.94]

There's a grating tweeness that pushes the saccharine levels far into the red. [Jan 2020, p.113]

Their shift towards a more traditional heavy metal aesthetic seems more a natural progression than an act of desperation. [Nov 2002, p.100]

A sense of will-this-do? hangs over proceedings, from its terse 10-track running time to the soporific delivery. [Jun 2019, p.108]

Too much of the material is ponderous and plodding. [Jun 2009, p.128]

Their first LP in five years falls well short of greatness, reheating past ideas to the point of cliche. [Sep 2019, p.111]

MOR for the Ibiza generation.

Articulate and thoughtful as Kweli's rhymrs are, few of the star producers he's invited along rise to the occasion. [Sep 2007, p.95]

Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson prove to be a depressingly ordinary package of overblown melodies and musty lyrical cliches, expensively ribboned with choirs and orchestras. [Sep 2010, p.116]

Best Of Times lacks the spark of the melodically blessed and, even though there are regular nods to Krautrock, there's a cloying wimpishness that too often derails them. [Apr 2014, p.115]