While 'Pop Art Blue' strays a little close to coffee table pop, it's an absorbing jouney. [Oct 2009, p.119]

There's nothing as heroic as Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight Tonight, but Now (And Then) is a surprisingly successful attempt at emotion. [Jul 2005, p.113]

The View appear to be growing up. Forever, of course, is a very, very, long time. But on this evidence, against all odds, The View look set to run and run. [Apr 2011, p.99]

They fail to relocate it [their exuberance] on the follow-up, which if anything, is even drearier. [Sep 2011, p.104]

The eight tracks and 31 minutes of the Night Train EP/mini-album, recorded during the Pefect Symmetry tour, should sate the faithful. [Jun 2100, p.127]

As an album, it is an imposing structure, a statement to their architectural skill. Beneath their grand design, however, Editors exists in a grey area, mistaking the half-light for night. They're not quite masters of darkness yet. [Nov 2009, p.105]

Sometimes less is more. [Jan 2010, p.117]

Though Blank's album is full of hits and misses, it's rarely dull. [Aug 2009, p.103]

Artistically, it struggles to cross the velvet rope and push on into greatness. [Jan 2011, p.134]

Some of the more straightforward rockers show signs of fresh thinking. [Jul 2013, p.97]

His second album is braver and more expansive and, in the case of 'Cigarette Eyes,' surprisingly angry. He's getting near to brilliant. [Feb 2008, p.95]

At its worst, only the quality of the backing band distinguishes it from pub rock. [Jul 2006, p.112]

Musically, they could do with a few more gear changes, but it's churlish to complain when the overall effect is so spirit-lifting. [Nov 2008, p.123]

Their debut bounces up and down rather a lot, resorting to ska-punk when everything fails. [May 2009, p.119]

Almost every song is blasted with canyon-sized quantities of reverb. [Mar 2013, p.95]

A sameness of mood is not helped by debatable lyrics. [Apr 2014, p.106]

Disappointingly unremarkable. [Apr 2015, p.97]

This second LP, though, sees the four-piece flit between the two camps with varying degrees of success. [May 2015, p.103]

On Desire shows Drowners deepening and darkening the intrigue around them. [Aug 2016, p.111]

The album's not without its moments--most notably the sense of urgency propelling recent single Have Faith. But too much sounds bloodless. [Jan 2017, p.111]

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

What we have here is a Killers record made without the Killers that sounds like The Killers and is almost as good as The Killers, but not quite. [Oct 2010, p.101]

If there had been a disco episode of Star Trek, then Phenomenal Handclap Band would have provided the go-to floor-fillers. [Feb 2012, p. 109]

A hit-and-miss affair that sporadically hints at what the man is capable of. [Oct 2013, p.111]

A lot of the songs are too eager to please... when they stop trying too hard - like on the woozy, out of phase Holes - they create something far odder and infinitely more interesting. [May 2012, p.96]

En masse, Maroon's brisk acoustic rock settings and the hyperactive rush of words can still have you reaching for the skip button. But broken into bite-size chunks, its bitterly humorous dissection of the fumbling absurdities of modern life and death is not without pathos.

Why didn't they just call it Supernatural II and have done with it? [Dec 2002, p.110]

A profound disappointment... few songs lift themselves above pedestrian tedium. [Nov 2000, p.117]