Its wilful eccentricity distracts from the Native Tongues style that's their strongest card. [Mar 2009, p.107]

While he lacks a killer song here, Mraz is cute enough to keep his Lemonheads-lite ballads bubbling along. [Feb 2006, p.74]

The fuzz-rock of "Just A Fool" is transformed into a clawhammer-guitar folk ballad; the punky glam of "You Get To Rome" and the space rock of "Yes To Everything" both become ragtime ditties; the heads-down rocker "All In Your Head" and the stadium-sized "No Secrets" become pretty ballads, with some lovely Joni Mitchell-ish chord changes. [Dec 2018, p.27]

Every track here is interchangeable, not only with each other, but with anything from his back catalogue. [Feb 2009, p.76]

Basically Big Talk is how The Killers might sound if, rather than combining Bruce Springsteen and the Pet Shop Boys, they settle for blending Kings of Leon with ELO. [Sep 2011, p.79]

This year's Slowhand again, for the most part, delves deep into bygone songbooks, flitting between styles with consummate ease. [May 2013, p.69]

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]

Some tracks feel throwaway, but goodtime vibes prevail. [Apr 2009, p.80]

Still mourning the loss of The Bravery? Look no further. [Feb 2009, p.85]

Their slick, synth-heavy commuter pop is rendered faintly exotic only because you never imagine anyone wanting to make pop music as frigidly bombastic as this again. [Sep 2010, p.90]

An over-produced set of soppy ballads, Eagles-styled soft-rock and cod-disco. Sadly, the once great voice is shot, too. [Dec 2016, p.28]

This is one of the most rambunctiously entertaining and high-spirited records of 2006. [Dec 2006, p.108]

Julia Shapiro and Bree McKenna's vocals are brash and bratty, and there's no doubt that they'd be great fun live, but over 13 songs and half an hour, the jokes get pretty laboured. [Nov 2015, p.72]

There are mooments... when you get the feeling The Feeling will soon achieve more. Or rather, MOR. [Jul 2006, p.97]

This second is a well-crafted collection that finds McClure pondering his place in a rotten world. [Aug 2009, p.102]

Deft guitar lines from Charlie Burgess never quite paper over the cracks in numbers that would have been consigned to b-sides in the band's heyday. [Jun 2009, p.101]

Crunching glam riffs, foot-stamping choruses and lip-smacking vocals - delivered with trademark gusto by Bob Geldof. [Apr 2020, p.25]

The attitudinal posturing wears thin on "Killer" but stuttering funk, the Depeche Mode in the moshpit vibe of "Little Mamma" and a timely nod to Prince on closer "Something" all hit the spot. [Jul 2016, p.69]

On the whole it struggles to strike a light, far less catch fire. [Aug 2016, p.78]

Surprisingly, though, it's all a damn sight better than Velvet Revolver. [Sep 2009, p.81]

The result is a record that contains the cryptic hooks of Pavement's later work, with a pleasingly breezy '70s AOR feel. [Nov 2009, p.104]

A masterclass in menace. [Apr 2005, p.97]

The demos for Be Here Now don't reveal much in the way of nuance or additional texture. You have to dig deep to find genuine curios. [Nov 2016, p.51]

Such a see-what-sticks approach means Native To clunks in places, but when they get it right their enthusiasm is infectious. [Jul 2011, p.87]

Their formula--downtuned guitar, chunky rhythms, serial killer vocals--is proven, but ugly enough that it'll only resonate with fans. [Sep 2010, p.96]

A song called 'Vietnam' only reinforces the all-around impression Lenny is 40 years too late. [Mar 2008, p.92]

Caillat has a sweet, clear voice and the songs are crisply tasteful ("Fallin' For You" is all hook) but rarely go beyond formula. [Nov 2009, p. 83]

It's original member, turntablist Nu-Mark, who still provides the highlights. [Aug 2006, p.96]

Fortunately, the sturdy rock instrumentation of Green Day producer Rob Cavallo serves to tamp down her pervasive air of self-importance while minimising the cringe factor in her lyrics. [Jul 2006, p.98]

Seldom has retro sounded so pleasingly stubborn. [Jul 2012, p.85]

The results of his previous work have sometimes felt opportunistic and Go Hard is no different. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Uncanny Valley mostly just splashes around pleasantly in the easy-listening shallows. [Sep 2013, p.91]

A set of instant, insistent--occasionally irritating--tunes. [Mar 2018, p.35]

A startling album of high-spirited pick'n'mix pop. [Nov 2004, p.122]

Borrowing from the past for Bowie's "Heroes" doesnt't result in anything interesting, but Perry's deep, reverb-heavy vocal on Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" is a perhaps surprising highlight. [Aug 2019, p.31]

Booming Back To You is palatable enough. [Apr 2008, p.93]

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

Impressively artful forgeries all round--but unlikely to appeal beyond their diehard following. [Dec 2010, p.105]

At its best, in its stoned funk and stewed grooves, there’s enough to suggests they could even fulfill their early ambition to be the "Sly and the Family Stone of Salford." Double double good.

The weakness is the music. [Aug 2011, p.79]

Far too many songs here are conducted in a mid-pace. [Jun 2010, p.90]

The murky results are sometimes frustrating. [Apr 2013, p.71]

Apostle Of Hustle have now all but abandoned the Cuban mores of earlier albums in favour of a lean, bass-driven powerpop. [Sep 2009, p.79]

A murky return to the denim'n'leather heartlands of 2000's Thirteen Tales. [Oct 2005, p.96]

Not that there isn't music on Russian Doll that's as lovely as any he's made, but it's brought crashing down to earth by deeply average singer Siobhan de Mare. [Jun 2004, p.86]

A Fool For Everyone proves Bones can write a song or two. [Apr 2009, p.80]

If Geldof had been able to restrain his instinct toward baffling over-production, he might have come up with something that fulfilled the promise of its title. [Mar 2011, p.91]

Most of these frothy confections would sit just as well on any of the band's previous 11 long players. [Aug 2013, p.67]

A set of 14 patrimonial ballads drawn from all corners of Britain's folk heritage. [Jun 2015, p.69]

The predominantly Celtic hues of Stewart's 31st album tend towards the cosy and coffee-table, robustly structured rather than wildly inspired. [Jan 2022, p.31]

It has everything you've come to expect from a Daft Punk album--innovation, cracking tunes, a palpable sense of its own absurdity--but this time the whole shebang's cranked up to 11. [Apr 2005, p.99]

Rules finds The Whitest Boy Alive turning noticeably paler, peddling a shade of Ralph Lauren yacht-rock that would make Hall & Oates blush. [May 2009, p.105]

Amiably lightweight. [Jun 2007, p.115]

Oddly life-affirming. [Nov 2006, p.99]

Huey's gruffy mannered vocals predominate--apparently the aim is to steer listeners to the originals, in which case, job done. [Jan 2011, p.94]

Tries hard to add a few hues absent from Matchbox 20's colourless rock. [Jul 2005, p.90]

Another Country largely continues the same unashamedly nostalgic tone [of 2013's Time] [Dec 2015, p.79]

Wilson's chord changes are as heart-wrenching as ever, and bathed in heavenly harmonies. [May 2015, p.84]

It's a smart collection of songs full of inner turbulance, delivered in an emotional voice that at times recall Guy Garvey. [MAr 2010, p.90]

Jigsaw finds the diminutive London rapper shorter on cheek than on her early singles, and the moments of mischief, when they come, ring a little hollow. [Jun 2009, p.90]

Pristine production renders this as vital as anything by Justin Timberlake. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Lavishly appointed, expensively designed and almost entirely characterless. [Sep 2006, p.84]

For Barlow stalwarts only. [Mar 2003, p.100]

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

Heap has a breathtaking voice, somewhere between the languid tones of Beth Orton and the pop sweetness of Dido. [Oct 2002, p.104]

California Son may not entirely succeed in repositioning Morrissey as a righteous protest singer, boldly crooning truth to power, but in fleeting moments like this [like on "Some Say I Got Devil"], it confirms him as a peerless modern practitioner of deep song, the pop artist who can divine, even in the work of the singer of "Brand New Key," lorca's dark, abysmal spirit of duende. [Jun 2019, p.28]

Hotel Sessions is infinitely more charming than the finished item. [Feb 2012, p.91]

This is snappy, high-energy stuff that might be more fun if the slick production didn't telegraph the fact that Kane wants it a bit too much. [Oct 2018, p.30]

Weezer's likeabe, insubstantial powerpop has often been infused with somewhat tetchy intimations of latent intellectual heft. On Raditude, this manifests in guest appearances by Amrita Sen and Nishat Khan on the dreadful "Love Is The Answer." Elsewhere, though, Weeaee seem to have ceased to care. [Feb 2010, p.107]

His voice remains an effortless marvel, largely wasted on this slick but trite material. [Feb 2016, p.75]

Doesn't pack enough hooks to make it memorable. [Apr 2005, p.105]

Whether she'll increase her fanbase on this second album by cloaking her naked ambition in the character of a self-obsessed bunny boiler called Electra Heart remains to be seen, but she's certainly given it everything. [May 2012, p.78]

An artfully dishevelled, emphatically Gallic racket. [Feb 2011, p.95]

He always wants to explore idiosyncratic digital terrains: admirable but, as his 24th LP shows, not always convincing. [May 2015, p.80]

Despite the addition of some burnished guitar licks, the results are as awful as you might expect and his one original composition, "For Love On Christmas Day," isn't much better. [Jan 2019, p.19]

Some great moments, but too much filler and too few anthems. [Mar 2002, p.99]

This is knowing, glitzy, trash. [July 2008, p.96]

He may not quite be the roaring pistolero of old, but mid-tempo songs like "Mockingbird Hill" and "The Highway Is My Home" are beautiful, time-ruffled distillations of border music, Tex-mex and desert rock. [Oct 2011, p.94]

Together, Adams and Lynne have come up with an old-fashioned FM rock album, short on nuance but strong on intent. [Nov 2015, p.71]

Bushnell provides that perfect kind of bass you barely notice. Keltner's percussion is a different story. Captured mostly in first or second takes, he doesn't so much keep the beat as respond to what Young is doing, an improvised interplay of odd, shaggy patterns. The record often becomes a duet between Young and Keltner. [Jan 2017, p.20]

Another entry in Cornell's catalogue of partial successes. [Jun 2007, p.91]

A rich, rowdy and mostly rewarding listen.

Pleasant enough, but The Magic Numbers do this stuff for warm-ups. [Sep 2010, p.87]

"Another Shot" adds tension and atmosphere but a tendency toward the derivative come to the for on synth-centreed gloomfest "Can't Get Enough." [May 2012, p.77]

Working with former Lamb partner Andy Barlow for the first time in six years, her marriage of vocal and acoustic guitar is raw yet rewarding. [Apr 2010, p.97]

Take Me Home in particular sounds like a bonus disc to a full album reissue. But they reveal new angles to the Big Star story. [Aug 2017, p.52]

Why You So Crazy is the sound of a group that--reasonably, at this point--discern no reason to start being anything other than themselves, and is accordingly laced with trademark Americana, stomping glam, droll boogie and the occasional addled aberration. [Feb 2019, p.26]

Morello's guitars tend to dominate, Riley's best lines get lost, and none of the songs here have the tunes to convert floating voters. [Nov 2009, p.106]

A self-indulgent but sporadically compelling mess. [Jan 2006, p.102]

Pipes is the weaker collection--no remaster can disguise this. [Nov 2015, p.93]

When they do get it right, as when highlighting the acerbic lyrics of "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" or cleverly flexing the groove of "Coming Around Again," you can see why it semed a good idea. [Apr 2010, p.98]

It's not the kink in the tail of FTP's impeccably groomed pop that makes them so intriguing, but rather their unembarrassed, first-level readability, which is such that you begin to suspect fiendish subversion. [Sep 2017, p.28]

Often recalls 1992's Automatic For The People in its sobriety of purpose. [Nov 2004, p.100]

While they are unlikely to blow any heads off, track like 'Graffiti Eyes' show that they haven't lost the knack of writing diverting pop songs. [Sep 2009, p.96]

Even the proficient production of Trevor Horn can do nothing to perk things up. [Nov 2003, p.114]

This is surely the desperate death-thore of a rank '90s relic. [Apr 2008, p.99]

Nicholas clearly isn't finished with us yet, judging by Silent Cry's pint-in-the-air riffing, chiming playlist-pop and brooding social commentary. [Aug 2008, p.93]

B-Real and Sen Dog's adenoidal cartton raps about beefs and bongs can still raise a smile when matched to a sparse, elastic beat, but the novelty of a Cypress Hill comeback has long since worn off by the 15th track. [May 2010, p.86]