It's all executed with efficient power, yet the sum is somehow less than its parts. [Jul 2016, p.74]

Plodding covers of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" are gratuitously dull and, somewhat revealingly, the most rewarding tracks are probably Runga's two original compositions, seemingly appended as an after-thought. [Feb 2017, p.27]

Moffat doesn't do much with Mendelssohn's music except to chop it into annoying loops or stretch it out into quivering ambience that lacks the warmth and charm of his previous cut-up efforts. [Jun 2017, p.33]

Musically, it can get a little one-note but there are some terrific moments. [Nov 2020, p.37]

Predictably, Slash is most at home snuck behind Kid Rock and Iggy Pop, and accompanying Lemmy's below on "Doctor's Alibi." [Jun 2010, p.98]

While Roth's delivery is smart, the subject matter can feel like the work of someone playing dumb. [Jul 2009, p.91]

Weirdly, it sounds like a modern-day Alice Cooper album.[May 2018, p.35]

Despite this gaggle of helpers, If I Kill This is a surprisingly muted affair. [May 2015, p.75]

A stodgy production job from Patrick Carney of The Black Keys means his songs tend to blur into one. [Apr 2017, p.26]

These 11 new songs will do little to dispel the view that the band are fatally addicted to self-indulgent navel-gazing, but it's still beautifully recorded, and played with exquisite tact and precision. [May 2007, p.88]

Anyone seeking the funky militancy of The Beatnigs or The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy may be baffled. [Jul 2011, p.82]

The Pigeon Detectives' second in a year smacks of too much haste and too little thought. [June 2008, p.98]

Not only a radio-friendly unit-shifter, but also a bona fide guilty pleasure. [Mar 2009, p.85]

Collecting from 10 years of album offcuts, Death To False Metal will be a treasure chest for the disenchanted. [Jan 2011, p.106]

A mish-mash of tracks from or intended for film soundtracks, is mearly more of the same with added strings. [Sep 2008, p.109]

Not quite criminal, but close. [Jul 2012, p.84]

Much of it signifies nothing. [May 2005, p.96]

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]

Their 2002 debut was a surprising success, but Haunted Cities struggles to repeat the trick. [Sep 2005, p.100]

The result is four meandering tracks. [Feb 2012, p.89]

Still gauche and somewhat silly the Moseley mods continue to rehash the first two Traffic albums expertly. [Mar 2013, p.76]

The poacher has turned into a sophisticated gamekeeper, plotting a course on this fine debut between pulsing cosmic electronics and trippy, after-hours pop. [Apr 2011, p.78]

An in-joke gone horribly wrong. [Jan 2013, p.80]

The funk-noir backing means that Dulli is able to purr lyrics about "sexy ladies", debilitating cocaine habits and your standard-issue emotionally violent love affairs without sounding as trite as he perhaps should. [Mar 2006, p.104]

The blitzkrieg is offset by a vein of black humour, epitomised by Ian Svenonius' hilariously pitiless guest vocal on "Party Line." But as with any military campaign, fatigue eventually sets in. [Aug 2016, p.80]

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

The hooks on tracks like "You'll Carry On Real Nice" are the kind of value-meal stodge that clogged the tail end of Britpop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

Despite Chris Martin's underdeveloped lyrics – "Be an anthem for your times" at least explains his motivation – there's something reassuring in their ham-fisted urge to bring people together. ... Glam-stomper "People Of The Pride" or well-meaning power ballad "Let Somebody Go," and instrumentals harking back to earlier Eno adventures offer pleasant reprieves. [Dec 2021, p.25]

McCartney straps on the bass for two tracks, adding very little to generic rockers typical of the album as a whole. [Oct 2017, p.40]

He sounds like a man lost amid his own vast record collection. [June 2003, p.109]

Comes closer to capturing their arse-shaking live performances than any of its predecessors. [Jul 2006, p.104]

Hymns sounds refreshed. [Feb 2016, p.73]

An uninspired outfit played into a corner. [Mar 2015, p.73]

It reprises their indie-modified take on panoramic, heartland rock and synth-pop, though with little emotional impact and no clear intent. [Jun 2025, p.30]

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

A valuable addition to his catalogue: the most consistent and sympathetically constructed solo album he's made. [Jul 2004, p.96]

Mine Is Yours is the sound of a band itching to make their breakthrough. [Feb 2011, p.81]

Ghostface is still, occasionally, a force to be reckoned with on the mic. but Set The Tone feels unworthy of his talents. [Aug 2024, p.34]

At best this sees them hold their own. [Jul 2006, p.101]

[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]

The pappy, throwaway nature of the tunes undermines any serious intent. [Oct 2006, p.124]

Talk of Simpatico as the band's Sandinista! is, in truth, wide of the mark. It's better seen as a footpath linking the claustrophobia of their early work with the Black Country funk of Wonderland, while hinting at a way forward. [May 2006, p.124]

Mostly, though, Morrisette succumbs to her dual predilections for quasi-spirituality and stultifying sappiness. [Oct 2012, p.84]

As an oasis of calm in a world of noise and chaos, it's easy to understand her appeal. [Jan 2006, p.114]

Too much of this lacks the urgent life of previous outings. [Nov 2011, p.89]

It's probably fair to say that Super Furry Animals would not have had such excellent run were their creative impulses not balanced perfectly between poignant songcraft and archaic weirdness. On The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness, however, we find Gruff Rhys indulging rather heavily in the latter. [Sep 2010, p.101]

It might work as visual theatre, but as an album, it's horribly relentless. [Jun 2016, p.71]

His elegant songcraft often recalls Freddie Mercury.

The Enemy's trademark enormity--not to mention their rampant tunefulness--lifts this out of the ladrock morass. [Jul 2009, p.86]

It's hard to find anything out of the ordinary here beyond the usual blend of angst rock and stadium bombast. [Aug 2013, p.69]

The new material, with some exceptions, lacks spark and flair, having a sense of anti-climax about it. [Aug 2002, p.106]

Moroder's first album in 30 years consists largely of generic pop-dance. [Jul 2015, p.80]

Their literate, grandly melancholic '80s-influenced rock rarely transcends familiar reference points, but Lou Hill is a passionate, distinctive vocalist. [Apr 2011, p.103]

The album runs out of steam halfway through as the songs become over-reliant on the production and Nat veers off into Dido territory. [Dec 2001, p.106]

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

The 23-year-old Valley girl's sonically lurid and brash, (supposedly) autobiographical debut may boast production heavyweights like Benny Blancoi, but her witless, cranked-to-11 stridency recalls Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne rather than Pink or Britney. [May 2010, p.94]

Their fourth album amps up the synths-and-beats side of their new wave Scandi-rock aesthetic, with broadly positive results. [Jul 2011, p.94]

They haven't downsized: the rock is (well played) bog-standard retro, but themes cover Guantanamo and the afterlife. Amid the Dylan raps and Yardbirds licks (and if The Charlatans made this, they'd be garlanded) there's a welcome sense that they're smartly chuckling at themselves.

For all their faults, The Levellers will happily go where other feat to tread. [Sep 2008, p.92]

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

This drab, psych-wimsy-garnished exercise in English indie classicism stretches his [Oasis's Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs] goodwill. [Jul 2013, p.80]

Where there was once ragged glory there is now only a sort of bludgeoning earnestness which, as in the nine-minute "Goin' Home," blusters a lot to little effect. [May 2002, p.108]

'Fire' and 'Drugs' certainly boasts the head-in-the-speakers mania of old, but it's the more meditative 'Vision' that suggests a future beyond Rizla conventions. [July 2008, p.104]

Abandoning their trademark has forsaken their identity. [Jun 2015, p.80]

The result is rather tiring. [Dec 2011, p.95]

The languid vocal delivery does little to dispel the Dido comparisions of old, the polite and impassionate tones irking the listener even in the smallest does. [Mar 2009, p.89]

The sing-along antics of the home crowd can be a little irritating. [Aug 2002, p.107]

There's plenty here to suggest that the combination of Skinner's skillful, funny songwriting and Harvey's bluesy choruses will deliver something special soon. [Jun 2013, p.73]

Most of the original tunes on this self-titled debut are formulaic, slogan-heavy jams that rest too heavily on past glories. [Oct 2017, p.36]

The music, though lithe and limber in a jazz-fusion-funk bag, lacks melodic distinction, while the vocals are delivered in a variety of electronically treated styles that are irritating at first and increasingly so on repeated exposures. [Feb 2002, p.125]

It's business as usual. [Nov 2007, 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]

Anone who saw the original Cars will tell you that these guys blow those guys off the stage. [Jul 2006, p.104]

All albums are vanity projects, but this vanity may be in vain. [Feb 2003, p.76]

They've perfected a kind of free-wheeling, self-conscious pop classicism with immediate surface appeal but little emotional depth, a disappointingly familiar amalgam of Coldplay, Cast, Arctic Monkeys and The verve. [Oct 2011, p.91]

A collection of vanilla indie-pop that paints a portrait of a group clinging on rather than pushing forward. [Jul 2013, p.73]

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]

All up, a subtle repositioning that deserves attention. [Feb 2013, p.79]

Aladdin is Green's most satisfying album in awhile. [Jun 2016, p.73]

For anyone else, Going Back is a heartfelt but pointless exercise in ersatz soul. [Nov 2010, p.84]

A stylistic and conceptual vacuum. [Jan 2016, p.78]

Without DFA tricknology to enliven their mix, they struggle with monotony over the course of an album. [Mar 2005, p.94]

The result is earworms aplenty, but any angst feels airbrushed, the effect is rather like rlaxing to a mobile phone commercial. [Apr 2010, p.95]

Finds her plumbing new depths of pomposity. [Aug 2006, p.84]

Light is a dog's breakfast of weedy vocals, preachy platitudes and banal melodies that makes Sting sound like The Last Poets. [Jul 2010, p.112]

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

It's a pleasant enough listen, but the feeling of overwhelming pointlessness is hard to shake. [Dec 2010, p.98]

Seems dated. [Feb 2005, p.73]

Starts powerfully... [but] fizzles out with corny ballads. [Nov 2005, p.111]

It's not always pleasant... but at its best... it's the funniest, most adventurous and liveliest record of his career. [Nov 2006, p.134]

Coming from a former punk goof, all this sentimentality feels somewhat po-faced. [Jul 2006, p.84]

The drawback, as ever, is Blunt’s warbly, whining, strangled voice, which sounds increasingly like a bad Weird Al Yankovic parody.

Parts of the album are perfectly serviceable but largely the songs become indistinguishable. [May 2019, p.26]

The first half's schmaltzy flight-themed concept and the cliche-stewn acoustic second half mean that take-off, to labour an already laboured concept, proves indefinitely delayed. [Sep 2011, p.105]

For those of us in love with Something/Anything and A Wizard, A True Star, recent Rundgren LPs have us squinting our ears, trying to locate the genius hidden behind obfuscating layers of electronic bluster. [May 2013, p.76]

That gloriously stupid clod-hopping mash-up formula remains. [Nov 2004, p.99]

Business as usual then--though any choice moments are somewhat let down by Roy Thomas Baker's sterile production and some badly dated keyboard sounds. [Oct 2014, p.80]

It's pleasing to come across a record that not only sounds old-fashioned, but whose author seems like a man of principle. [Nov 2007, p.108]