Their now drab and dense psychedelia has been "updated" with the occasional drum machine but is still populated by willowy, damaged girls called Esmeralda and songs with "chrome" in the title.

On too much of The Physical World they sound like a pale imitation of themselves. [Oct 2014, p.108]

Deliberately sparse and bare. [Mar 2005, p.99]

They've neglected to write anything catchy enough to score them a hit. [Apr 2006, p.118]

Best In Town adheres to its authors' trademarked, if confused, formula of generic metalcore verses, gratingly incongruous pop choruses, borderline misogynistic lyrics and gags that presumably sounded far funnier in the studio. [Jun 2009, p.119]

It's just artful karaoke. [Jun 2005, p.116]

Pomposity reigns and the songs are too one-paced to ignore it. [Mar 2013, p.104]

It's hard not to think that CSS's moment has passed. [Jul 2013, p.101]

It works for the first three tracks.

It's frustrating when you know they can do better. [Jul 2006, p.116]

Fasciination is supposed to sum up their entire ethos, then it is as a quasi-futuristic act wrapped in BacoFoil. [Nov 2008, p.114]

Few tracks are any way immediate. [Apr 2010, p.116]

Spencer's shtick seems slightly threadbare after 11 years and the musical innovation of earlier outings is conspicuous by its absence.

Sadly, bland harmonies and bloodless production blunt the impact. [Oct 2005, p.117]

Highly theatrical, camp and not a little shrill. [Apr 2006, p.116]

Overall it's too stodgy to soar. [Feb 2019, p.108]

It doesn't work, such superior pop items as 'Just A little Lovin'' and 'The Look Of Love' being reduced to an uninspired yawn. [Mar 2008, p.107]

Those looking for the kind of soaring poetry that defined The Smiths will surely be depressed by lyrics that are often boringly solipsistic and prosaically worded. [Jun 2004, p.106]

These recordings feel more an exercise in keeping Buckley's name alive than effectively deepening his work. [Apr 2016, p.106]

The impression is of a group who have got too good at sounding like themselves. [Oct 2002, p.110]

His voice, permanently pitched just down from that half-shout Eminem reserves for songs about his mum. Without a fraction of that humour or rhythm, though, it sounds like a heckler at a council meeting. [Sep 2014, p.108]

Tempos ate slower, moods are darker, moments of infectious pop few and far between. [Jun 2011, p.119]

His band's 13th album won't bring him the stardom he craves, consisting of amorphous drones in which the creative energy has been reserved for the titles. [May 2008, p.126]

Relentlessly, frustratingly slow. [Nov 2004, p.108]

Pretty yet inconsequential, like a collection of half-finished spy film themes. [May 2004, p.108]

Musically it's formulaic, with plodding college rock verses morphing into bellowing, nu-metal choruses. [Dec 2003, p.121]

The problem lies in Conn himself, a mannered vocalist whose lyrics aren't as funny or provocative as he thinks. [Mar 2007, p.111]

Any playfulness surrounding the album's titular pound-shop themes quickly evaporates amid a sound so spacious and tune-free as to border on emptiness. [Feb 2016, p.116]