File under Banal Guru Pop. [Jul 2015, p.78]

His quirks often overwhelm him, and his shock tactics are more infantile than transgressive. [Feb 2005, p.76]

Their failure to shift pace from a relentlessly wistful chug makes for an oddly exhausting listening experience. [Oct 2005, p.98]

Their resolutely adolescent outlook is set to the usual thunderous drums, fiddly-widdly guitars and fist-pumping choruses, though none possessing the magnificent dumb charm of '89's 'Kickstart My Heart.' [Oct 2008, p.101]

It painstakingly captures the carefree spirit of hard rock as you'd have found it halfway down the bill a Reading Rock, 1998. [Apr 2009, p.78]

The arrangements are banal, but the tunes are exquisite, and his voice, more worn now, is recorded intimately. [Dec 2002, p.148]

This ill-fitting rebirth, fronted by the defiantly ungay, unIndian and uneccentric Paul Rodgers, can be seen as an attempt to ditch the Mercury-inspired absurdity and bolster Queen’s hard 'rawkin’credentials.

If the elastic funk of 'You And Everyone Else' comes as a welcome surprise, put it down to the contribution of underrated backing band South. [Feb 2009, p.85]

Venture further into Our Version of Events and it's clear Sande has in fact modeled herself on Leona Lewis with a series of sappy ballads bulging with lyrical truisms. [Mar 2012, p.89]

The London trio have wheeled in so many trunkloads of technical expertise to embellish the material that it starts to stagger under its own weight. [Nov 2006, p.128]

Sadly beyond these two standouts ["Perfect Stranger" and "Katy On A Mission"], Brien's album swiftly degenerates into faceless Top Shop dance-pop filler. [Apr 2011, p.75]

I Love You, Go easy represents a minor stumble. [Jul 2011, p.96]

It's less wacky than their first--if still faintly smart-alecky--and boasts a clutch of impressively efficient, synth-powered indie pop numbers. [Jun 2011, p.103]

Guitars still sound like they were recorded in an igloo, while the singer's Dylan obsession only really pays off on woozy waltz 'Red Moon,' assisted by Matt Barrick's skeletal drum accompaniment. [Nov 2008, p.128]

When ever Gordon Anderson admits to being "lost inside the chasms of my mind," therre seems little hope for the rest of us. [Nov 2008, p.87]

Pleasant, but utterly inessential. [Mar 2009, p.104]

[The cover of Jason Isbell's "Dress Blues"] is nevertheless the best thing on Jekyll + Hyde, which plunges to a wretched nadir on "Heavy Is the Head." [Oct 2015, p.73]

As an exercise in historical re-enactment it works just fine, but not everyone will want to stick around until Going Way Out...comes around again. [Nov 2007, p.104]

Unfortunately it ends up as the kind of glossily produced "perfect pop" you can spin a dozen times without ever remembering a single tune. [May 2011, p.77]

Stodgy miserablism predominates. [Nov 2006, p.117]

As the title suggests, No Hope, No Future is rather short on vim. The wiry, Wire-y dynamics are mostly presnt and correct. [Feb 2010, p.86]

At best superfluous, at worst that very thing he dreads most. Forgettable. [May 2005, p.113]

Anderson's songs still find him leading a herd of misunderstood waifs but offer little to tempt the uninitiated. [Oct 2011, p.81]

Air seem to have found little fresh inspiration in his bricolage. [Mar 2012, p.79]

Caught between Genesis and Crowded House, Guillemots end up careening between Melancholy, bombast and bad verse. [May 2011, p.87]

The guest list is impressive. But it'd take a very straight face to refute the frequent echoes of The New Seekers or Fleetwood Mac, while "Silver Jenny Dollar" sounds like something Mike Batt might have knocked up for The Wombles. [Jun 2010, p.97]

Sadly, Blunt's warbling renders most of them unpalatable. [Jan 2011, p.83]

[The] results [are] worryingly like a jam session between Ben Folds and John Bonham. [Apr 2006, p.110]

The title song contains some lovely imagery enwrapped in one of Browne’s signature ribbons of melody, while the following 'Off Of Wonderland' is a wistful look back on the early days, but both are presented in arrangements so bland it’s shocking they passed muster.

This time he's crafted a more parent-friendly brand of earnest pop that isn't quite as irritating, but is sadly no more engaging. [Aug 2009, p.101]

Foxx... is trying too hard. [May 2006, p.114]

There's little on OFOW that he hasn't done already. [Nov 2002, p.128]

Pushing The Senses is by no means soppy, but Feeder's young fanbase might need some convincing. [Feb 2005, p.76]

Sadly, nothing on Meteora comes close to the piano-laced pathos of previous hit "In The End." [Jun 2003, p.110]

Although RTR are more than copyists, they cleave to a proven hybrid of speed metal, grungecore and emo. [Oct 2011, p.86]

Despite her vaguely regal poise, and a songwriting crew including Jake Shears, Calvin Harris and Tim-from-Keane, Aphrodite is dismayingly anonymous pop-trance. [Aug 2010, p.84]

Carr's ambitions outrun his abilities. [Sep 2004, p.98]

Already it feels like they're playing to a rapidly disappearing crowd. [Mar 2012, p.89]

Ten years on, that Britpop hangover won't shift. [Oct 2008, p.81]

The results has to be the blandest record in which either Sting or Shaggy has ever been involved. The lyrics are beyond banal. [Jun 2018, p.34]

Skyscraper is largely drab, despite Banks experimenting with beats, samples and chamber pop orchestration. [Sep 2009, p.90]

D.A.R.K's serviceable but derivative electronica frames an unremarkable marshalling of collective talents. [Sep 2016, p.73]

But none of it recaptures the sheer commercial inevitability of his debut. [Nov 2009, p. 96]

All round, an unsettling development. [Jun 2009, p.109]

Few of the colourful oddities that filled his debut remain, but there's still much melodic guile to admire--albeit increasingly difficult to love. [Sep 2004, p.96]

With less hyperbole and gutter-visionary pretension, Borrell's competent if hygienised NYC punk knock-offs might be more palatable. [Aug 2004, p.104]

Despite the contemporary sheen too much here is reminiscent of a certain kind of overwrought mid-80s synthpop. [Sep 2012, p.87]

At times, as on "De Javu," it's a dazzling new dimension, but some may await his return to more conventional zones. [Mar 2012, p.90]

This dispiriting posthumous EP suggests there was little life left or love lost. [Dec 2008, p.108]

Falls into an identikit pattern of string-laden sentiment. [Oct 2003, p.120]

McCulloch's misplaced his mystique, and resembles a pub singer with an over-extended tab, while Sergeant's guitar lines settle lazily at long-drawn borders. [Oct 2005, p.94]

It's strangely joyless. [Jun 2007, p.115]

The appealing immediacy evident on the debut is smothered by the overbearing production. [Nov 2002, p.118]

Too often, Aereogramme's tastefulness veers on the side of caution. [Mar 2007, p.75]

Rarely do you sense the real pain that underpins these limp ballads and her aggressively mannered delivery. [Apr 2016, p.75]

A wearyingly one-dimensional 45 minutes. [May 2003, p.89]

Aiming for Springsteen-like glory, they settle instead for overcooked melodrama on parade of would-be anthems sufficiently over the top to make Muse envious. [Nov 2012, p.76]

The music... has become a too-clean version of their state's patented, tumbledown take on Stonesy power-pop. [Sep 2006, p.97]

17 endurance-defying tracks of gormless, soulless cookie-cutter corporate country, carting woefully trite homilies to smalltown values that leave the listener feeling uneasily like jackson's running from something. [May 2008, p.100]

[They've delivered] a spawling 70-minute opus devoid of drive or inspiration. [Oct 2008, p.83]

By the time the 11-minute whalesong finale "Cease To Know" creeps to its overdue conclusion, the prevailing mood of impeccably tasteful introspection is choking. [May 2010, p.88]

A return to the coffee shops beckons. [Nov 2011, p.83]

A sluggish, garage rock set. [Jun 2007, p.99]

The tunes, for all their airiness, just won't stick. [Nov 2003, p.107]

The Delgados have made a fine follow-up to 2000's The Great Eastern. Problem is, it's the same album, more or less. [Nov 2002, p.115]

The cumulative effect of all this mid-tempo moodiness is that High Flying Birds feels awfully plodding. [Nov 2011, p.88]

It's a long, convoluted, tiresome listen. [Jul 2021, p.25]

Only the softer songs... display any of the heartbroken mystique that once made Carrabba compelling. [Sep 2006, p.79]

The overall effect is too solipsistic and immature to take you close to the title's imaginative world. [Aug 2006, p.96]

Mark Ronson will be looking elsewhere for his next single. [July 2008, p.115]

A decent album of roots-tinged songs that showcases his terse guitar style and detached vocals to solid if unspectacular effect. [Nov 2002, p.122]

A turbid affiar. [Nov 2006, p.114]

For the most part, tired melodies and banal lyrics make for a disappointing collection. [Feb 2012, p.83]

Toris 10th refuses to gel into anything illuminating. [Jun 2009, p.83]

At times this album seems interminable. [Aug 2003, p.116]

Bachmann's gruff uniformity is, in the end, difficult to love. [Dec 2006, p.101]

Atmospheric post-grunge is the order of the day, but while the likes of "Census" is dynamically tight, the impression is of talented technicians, not great songwriters. [Sep 200, p.83]

The Stills remain a little too anonymous. [Dec 2008, p.116]

[A] disappointing move into bland, dinner-party-backdrop territory. [Nov 2004, p.106]

This merely draws attention to the fact that the old songs are better than the new ones. [Jan 2002, p.146]

A slickly accomplished affair, rarely inspirational. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Cutting edge, it's not, as if that was ever the point, but the title of the collection seems less like a wry confession, more like wishful thinking. [Jun 2010, p.88]

Tankian combines prog pomp and a variety of vocal techniques, all irritating, to uniformly unlistenable effect. [Nov 2007, p.125]

This finds Richard Melville Hall seemingly going through the motions. [Mar 2008, p.96]

What a treat to discover another album that samples Toto's "Africa." [Feb 2003, p.75]

Their third album is sprinkled with sensitive instrumental textures and plaintive tinkling noises, but their music remains utterly devoid of personality, not least because of Joel Potts' vapid vocals, while not even the best efforts of Gil Grissom and his eager CSIs could unearth a sniff of a decent tune. [Oct 2007, p.83]

The music on this debut is nutritionally meager powerpop. [Nov 2008, p.120]

A functional selection of unspectacular power pop with the odd pastoral bit. [Mar 2004, p.102]

Nothing more than the uncomfortable sound of a band escaping their svengali. [Dec 2004, p.142]

You'd be a curmudgeon on to hate such a soothing, well-produced brew, but an undemanding soul to hear it as more than aural wallpaper. [Jul 2010, p.115]

Beacons Of Ancestorship is rather unlovely beast, sagging under the weight of hoary synths, lumbering dynamics and improvisatory formlessness--not to mention high expectations. [Jul 2009, p.101]

If you really want to hear folk-blues played with rock'n'roll attitude then go back to Boomer's Story or Into The Purple Valley. [Oct 2003, p.111]

Uplifting but ultimately lightweight. [Dec 2002, p.132]

Reduced to aural bones, Gossip's live show in Liverpool last year still rocks, but in a diminished way. [May 2008, p.100]

Rule's raw, worn vocal recalls 2Pac, a style perfect for the title track's state-of-the-nation address but wasted on fodder like "Smokin' And Ridin.'" [Jan 2002, p.140]

They aren't up to the job. [Jul 2009, p.83]

For all their deft intricacies, they're somewhat characterless. [Dec 2004, p.140]

Not wholly satisfying. [Mar 2006, p.102]