Magna Carta... Holy Grail isn't a dreadful record but it's a redundant one. [Sep 2013, p.103]

Unfortunately, Kowalczyk's conceited couplets belong to the dark ages. [Nov 2001, p.124]

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

10 unfortunately remains mired in irrelevance. [Jan 2003, p.120]

As tame as it is conventional. [Apr 2005, p.124]

This Kind Of Love is unlikely to rekindle fresh interest. [July 2008, p.111]

A disappointing lack of originality on an album that is all too clearly in thrall to The Libertines and all their many acolytes. [Jan 2009, p.120]

Even the album's most compelling moments... aren't strong enough to save it. [May 2012, p.98]

It might all sound as comfortable as an old cardigan feels but at this point, that seems fair enough. [Jul 2016, p.115]

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]

When samba's beat is uppermost, the music takes off. [May 2006, p.129]

Bracing stuff. [Oct 2006, p.127]

It's audacious, sure, but it neither makes sense nor sounds good. [#180, p.102]

An eerily precise facsimile of the grandiose, broken-down dream rock of The Verve.... Close your eyes and it could be 1997 again. [Nov 2002, p.105]

Drenched in feedback and carbuncled with extra riffs, Familiar To Millions makes Be Here Now sound like it was recorded on a four-track by Elliott Smith. Yet unlike recent Oasis albums it's mostly fun, going right back to the broad, singalong Gallagher-karaoke of more innocent times. It helps that the Oasis 2000 set consisted mainly of their earlier, more familiar, better material being put through a wringer of behemoth-rock.

They seemingly can't help breaking electroclash's abiding principle, that of sounding like you're an utterly ghastly person. [Oct 2004, p.121]

It's a record about being Madonna. [Jun 2003, p.90]

Jones's voice and melodic savvy means this album boasts--if you will--just enough entertainment to perform. [Jul 2003, p.109]

The pair mesh with ease. [Jul 2017, p.112]

This warm and busy album pursues pop as a democratic ideal. The uplift isn't subtle--the tracklisting looks like something you'd come up with after a wrap of MDMA-- but it's infectious. [Jan 2016, p.110]

The new problem is a lack of texture: in aiming for big hooks and big bucks, they've thrown variety out the window. [Jun 2009, p.134]

At its worst Etheridge is a sub-Springsteen mistress of the lyrically obvious. But when she hitches a poetic directness to a thumping tune on The Wanting Of You and Company, she's in a league of her impassioned own. [Aug 200, p.119]

Morrissey, at 58, once again proves himself a pop provocateur of enduring efficacy. [Dec 2017, p.100]

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

Their cult status is unlikely to change, which is good news for those who like their music warts and all. [Apr 2009, p.108]

The group struts through an early brace of crackling tunes.... Unfortunately though, the album's second half slips - bar the swirling psychedelia of Sioux - into more indistinguishable indie-rock territory. [Oct 2011, p.123]

It would be a solid album for someone like Annie, For The Ting Tings, though, it suggests there's no way back from Nowheresville. [Nov 2014, p.118]

Songs such as Painted Indian and Everything's Fine offer a Balearic-tinged euphoria that ends up sounding like the band are at a party they were forced to go to. [Sep 2013, p.106]