About as personality-free as rock music gets. [Apr 2004, p.115]

The occasional tune shines through, but ultimately too much of the material sounds like it's aimlessly ad-libbed. [Oct 2008, p.147]

There's the brisk cover of Sparks's 'Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth,' plus a huanting, piano-inspired run through Harry Nilsson's drunkathon 'Don't Forget Me,' but she blows it at the death with the hideous 'Marais La Nuit,' 31 torturous minutes 38 grisly seconds of forest noises. [Apr 2009, p.102]

Quality control lets down power-poppers' fifth effort. [Oct 2011, p.117]

Beautiful Imperfection is never less than easy on the ear, but equally never more than that either. [Apr 2011, p.110]

Rock this clinical just isn't exciting. [Nov 2012, p.103]

Nu-metallers try to recapture former glories. Fail.

There is little else that stands out amid the polite noodling. [Mar 2008, p.104]

Their penchant for thuggish lyrics and thudding beats now sounds more monotonous than menacing. [Mar 2012, p.100]

Much of this third album comes on like a bubblegum Breeders, sparsely arranged around Nash's spinal basslines. [Apr 2013, p.107]

There's nothing as wonderfully warm as My Love Is Your Love, as grandstanding as Exhale (Shoop Shoop), or as innovative as Its Not Right But Its OK. [Feb 2003, p.104]

Occasionally they stumble upon something magical... but they only highlight the paucity of ideas elsewhere. [May 2007, p.123]

The sense of creative retreat is disappointing. [Jan 2003, p.118]

They're fine when doing the burbling, instrumental stuff, only to lose marks for a couple duff guest vocals and over-reliance on vocoders. [Jun 2010, p.132]

On first listen, it's sufficiently preposterous to be amusing, but over time, predictably, becomes intrusive and annoying. [Sep 2016, p.114]

Sadly, this follow-up shows signs of premature ageing. [Mar 2006, p.109]

Their self-indulgent scrawl is writ so large it would be impossibly cloying when if it were all as good. Which it isn't, not by a long shot. [Jan 2016, p.109]

Too often, however, these songs underwhelm. the likes of Sand and Boyfriend confusing unengaging plodding earnestness for emotional heft. [Jun 2018, p.113]

The effect is spoiled by noodly, indifferent tracks such as We Meet At Last. [Aug 2002, p.128]

Beta Love ultimately feels unfinished. [Apr 2013, p.109]

They've lost the spark. [Sep 2004, p.122]

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

Oddly muted. [Feb 2006, p.104]

Hoppus, whose flat vocals once dovetailed deftly with Delonge's nasal whine, is sorely exposed as sole frontman. [Dec 2006, p.132]

It's warm and heartfelt, but the scaled down production allows his grating Treesside vocals dominate to distraction. [Nov 2010, p.114]

So Damn Lucky and Trouble are lyrical ballads that succeed through understatement, but elsewhere Gravedigger is an awful, hectoring anti-war lament. [Jan 2004, p.117]

A nagging sense of coming late to chillwave's super-saturated afterparty. [Oct 2014, p.110]

Art Official Age, regrettably, is something we have heard before: an overlong, pan-generic concept album. [Nov 2014, p.107]