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

Trying to find a sense of humour amidst the walloping woe is exhausting. [Aug 2009, p.107]

Butler's attempts at the old guitar dramatics are hopelessly overwrought. [Jul 2005, p.115]

Canadian rocker goes live and (almost) solo. [Jan. 2011, p. 135]

The songs themselves, delivered via polished neo-soul and roots-reggae arrangements, seldom push beyond the retro comfort zone. [Apr 2012, p.98]

Rendered with all the warmth of a fax machine. [Sep 2004, p.117]

[Several songs are] saved by Walsh's unerring ability to produce a wonderful guitar solo from the bottom of the pack. Sadly, it's not enough to transform this into the great comeback album you keep willing it to be. [Aug 2012, p.111

Perplexingly, the arrangements are so sparse that there's not quite enough fully formed songs to carry the album off. [Nov 2009, p.112]

Like all jokes, it's not as funny second time around. [Jul 2003, p.110]

Often seems willfully inscrutable. [Sep 2004, p.120]

They make a noise disquietingly similar to The Dandy Warhols, only without the wit or the tunes. [Apr 2003, p.114]

They've delivered their weakest set of songs to date. [Oct 2007, p.98]

The 11-strong-Mex ensemble's Latinised arrangements are intricate but lifeless. [Apr 2016, p.111]

Old Growth blurs mearly into a long yawn. [Mar 2008, p.103]

It features much gastly US po-punk. but Robert Smith and Franz Ferdinand take on songs from former Alice In Wonderland productions and just about win. [May 2010, p.125]

His first studio album in sedven years is an indigestible hotchpotch containing everything from heavier-than-thou riffing to ill-judged tilt at Puccini's Nessun Dorma. [May 2010, p.126]

There's no faulting the brilliant playing, but by restricting themselves to exploring a fairly unevolved musical form they forever repeat its limitations. [April 2012, p.90]

Essentially, it sounds exactly like each of her four previous albums. Sure, she's consistent, but does she never tire of forever sounding the same...?

Pointless drifting that fails to grip even on repeated listening. [Jun 2005, p.118]

It's all a bit of a mess, with even more arresting efforts--Julia Holter's seraphic turn on These Creatures and Swipe To The Right's giddy Cyndi Lauper-assisted disco--sounding like they belong on different albums. [Jul 2016, p.109]

Beautiful Creature dwells too self-indulgently in a faux naïve girlish tone...

Much of what follows sounds like he's set his overdriven synths to autopilot with vocalists Keith Flint and Maxim Reality reduced to the odd irate interjection. [Dec 2018, p.113]

The broadening of the palate is certainly welcome but there still remains a nagging sense that, over a whole album, a lack of emotional heft renders them as frothy as ever. [Mar 2015, p.110]

11 new songs of singularly cloying contentment; no soaring highs, no debilitating lows, just minor pop platitudes with hollow, echoing centres.

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]

Sonically, his second solo effort is dry and unimaginative. [Feb 2003, p.97]

It ditches classic thrash for bland classic rock. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Too much of the rest--an urgent Mr. Lif aside--is seriously lacking in flavour. [Apr 2008, p.112]