It's less primal scream, more yawn. [Nov 2012, p.112]

Loaded sounds like a Last Shadow Puppets album filler, right down to the Turner-ish vocal delivery while others such as Wrong Side Of Life are hopelessly overwrought. [Sep 2018, p.114]

The tunes come think and fast, but their geeky adolescent routine is wearing thin. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

Big riffs and bigger choruses here will ensure continued American radio support, but Draiman's penchant for singing like a woodland animal startled mid-coitus won't stop the sniggers. [May 2008, p.130]

Magnetic sounds like a TV talent show judge's idea of rock music from a band capable of much better. [Jun 2013, p.98]

The narrow emotional and musical range suggests Kygo doesn't have unexplored depths, but he doesn't need them. [#361, p.111]

This seems just to mean lots of beeps and bloops and using a theremin, rather than any structural inventiveness or lyrical avant-gardisms. Still, he's conjured a neat package of 10 perfectly listenable songs. [Sep 2017, p.106]

The relentlessly summery mega anthems sound identical. And exhausting. [Sep 2013, p.109]

Electra Heart sounds high on concept, low on songs. [Jun 2012, p.108]

Give this album a very wide berth. [Feb 2011, p.120]

It's not all bad, but Global suggest the hardest-working man in experimental pop needs a lie down. [Jun 2015, p.111]

While he boasts none of the verbal dexterity of Eminem, he takes America's Dumb & Dumber obsession and has mighty fun with it. [Jan 2002, p.102]

The over-punctuation is the least unnecessary thing about the lame pop of Shark Attack!!!!!!!!!!, meanwhile, the second half is noticeably more restrained, and aL the better for it. [Feb 2016, p.111]

Wonder of the Younger shows they're still expanding their songwriting palette with out sacrificing the hooks or pop smarts. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Their second album is high on brio, if short on innovation. [July 2008, p.102]

Solid rather than inspired. [Oct 2011, p.117]

Drizzles of acoustic guitar dilute any sense of experimentation, while the drab stadium indie of Vultures and Friend Of The Madness underlines the feeling that, underneath all the grand gestures, a very ordinary band is struggling to get out. [Sep 2014, p.113]

The title track and Come Out To LA hit home with the impact of a piece of GCSE Social Studies course work. [Apr 2018, p.108]

Unpolished and unhurried, Peace Trail is another charming stop on Young's long and winding road. [Feb 2017, p.108]

They spend half their time griping that they haven't got girlfriends and the other half whining that they've just been dumped. [Apr 2006, p.114]

It's too wordy by half, but underneath the psychobabble lies the most solid collection of AOR you're likely to encounter this year. [Jun 2004, p.105]

[Placebo is now] sounding modern and sneakingly world-beating. [Oct 2013, p.109]

While there are a few pops and crackles of magic--it's often dead air. [Jan 2016, p.114]

For all her Stakhanovite efforts and the title track's Hole-esque venom, the fact is she's yet to prove that it is music and not acting that is her true calling. [Oct 2009, p.112]

There's a late sunburst of sweet vocal harmonies and folk rock riffs on closing track Night And Day, but it's not enough to save this dreary album. [Oct 2010, p.104]

The problem is that when they do attempt something different [as on some parts of this album] things go horribly wrong. [May 2012, p.100]

Where David sometimes fall short is on lyrical content. ... Such disposable fluff aside, David's triumphant return is otherwise still going strong here. [Mar 2018, p.107]

For all her searing honesty and her undisputed craft, her voice is too frigid too often and she seems strangely melody-phobic. [Apr 2010, p.119]