It’s disappointing, then, that this impulse of creative energy has resulted in a record that feels flat and strained.

This is the kind of bedroom folk pop E's done prettier--and weirder--before. [Jul 2003, p.111]

Haze's attempt to appear undefinable and resist categorization (as Dirty Gold's conversational interludes attest) is a laudable pursuit, but it leaves the record unfocused.

The human element is a diva parade that skates by like Lilith Fair on (dry) ice: opera-lite from Jan Johnston, squishy spiritualism from Dead Can Dance, the dread Sarah McLachlan belting the coda of DJ Tiesto's remix of Delerium's "The Silence." [Jan 2001, p.118]

Music this insistently okay should suffice as sonic Paxil, but there are less complicated ways to treat your depression. [Apr 2008, p.102]

Singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor has an undeniable way with a sticky-sweet hook -- too bad most of them are buried in self-indulgent sludge.

It’s no surprise that the romantic tunes are shunted to the second half of the record. As they go, they go well.

The Adventures of Bobby Ray is a hip-hop Scary Movie, tossing off references (Vampire Weekend sample, Rivers Cuomo cameo) while struggling to establish a distinctive identity.

Legendary Weapons attempts a reinvigoration by employing session band 
the Revelations to muster up grooves that recall the sort of '60s soul songs that RZA once loved to sample. It's a quaint idea, but the execution is too slick to mesh with the raps, and fails to evoke the Wu's murky pall.

Snoop's 11th album unevenly celebrates his all-over-the-map persona.

War Stories feels more like a random compilation than a fresh exploration. [Aug 2007, p. 110]

To call some of these 26(!) word-and-riff bombs unfinished would be charitable; a few even seem unwanted.

Featuring 11 miniscule variations on Fireflies, the giddy worldwide smash that put home-studio boffin Adam Young on the map, this unrelentingly wide-eyed follow-up offers more genteel Christian rock reconfigured as techno lite.

Braxton’s tunes here rarely warrant her gusto, and the coupling of virtuoso performances with rather mediocre material squares with Sex & Cigarettes’s larger theme of the dissatisfaction that results from pouring one’s heart into an undeserving relationship. It’s a depressing album, but not quite in the way that’s intended.

It's when Jet explore the territory between their lodestars [AC/DC and the Beatles] that they go from being decent mimics to inconsequential imitators. [Nov 2006, p.96]

A joyless slog through mossy folk tedium. [Aug 2004, p.108]

Most of the energy of New English is poured into his (trademark?) ad-libs. The staccato yeahs and machine-gun sound effects do a good job of convincing you that you’re listening to an exciting project. But after a while, it just starts to make your head hurt.

Favoring excessive computer and crowd noise over the pair's concise hooks, the relentlessly bombastic concert CD accompanying the DVD combusts as if it were one 66-minute, fireworks-spewing finale.

Guest shots from rock stars like Tom Morello and Scott Weiland can't make up for a sorry lack of head-banging hooks... [Sep 2001, p.163]

Unfortunately, these hook-starved arrangements tend toward a static brand of ambient cabaret, which makes Amos' lyrics easy to tune out. Too many little earthquakes, not enough seismic jolts.

Despite a slew of tasty melodies... [it] feels a bit choked and cautious. [Oct 2006, p.102]

Though Kweli can't change his voice he was born with, he needs to figure out how to make it as compelling as his material. [Sep 2007, p.133]

The pop-rock of the album’s first half is relaxed, breezy, intimate, and dull; the twitching beatscapes of its back end are tense, fiery, theatrical, and void.

His return to more intimate recording can't conceal that there's nary a melody worth savoring amid the autumnal folkiness.

Mercifully, there’s no banjo--the Sons of Johannesburg are the less folksy, more decidedly middle-of-the-road band that recorded last year’s tedious Wilder Mind. That doesn’t save them from falling into 100 percent of all their other tropes, like substituting frenzied, overlong crescendos with truly grandiose stadium rock.

Gough's dewy little tunes are mere scribblings in the margins of alt-folk's dog-eared hook-book, while his too-cool-to-care singing is drip-dry dreary. [12/2000, p.232]

Racing through 11 disjointed songs in 30 minutes flat, Ra Ra Riot never give their material a chance to breathe. Instead, we're left with somewhat impressive ideas, squandered with impressive vigor.

The duo are too consistently subdued, and without their usual spectacle, Seventh Tree veers perilously close to dull. [Mar 2008, p.102]