Hardcore Poco-heads will reshaped group's Alll Fired Up.... The songwriting, though, is mere genre exercise, mostly, and thin on the ground. [Jun 2013, p.78]

Tough and determinedly sexed-up, here you'll find talk of beefs, booty and bitches, rather than brotherhood. Producers Neptunes and OutKast's Mr DJ oversee this exercise in alluringly moderne hip hop. [Oct 2008, p.83]

Most rewarding are the serene "Something to Shout About" and the cascading "Down On The Corner": respectively, the No 1 smash Electronic should have had and the massive hit a reformed Smiths still could. [Mar 2003, p.95]

There's little evidence [of reinvention] on a collection of soul-pop ballad s that sound like Jay Kay singing the James Blunt songbook. [Oct 2011, p.93]

The guitars still kick, but charm is thin on the ground. [Jul 2005, p.89]

The qualities that once made The Verve the nation's top anthemists are recognisably intact on this new effort, from its stately pace to its burnished sense of grandeur. [Feb 2006, p.70]

If the odd clunker remains ('Hostage Of Love' could be a Meatloaf out-take) Slipway Fires largely sees a return to the introspection of debut album "Up All Night."

A dozen songs of unremitting blandness by a man with absolutely nothing left to say. [Oct 2005, p.96]

One-hit wonders no more, White and de Martino now sound prepared for a big pop future. [Mar 2012, p.101]

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

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]

The tracks are so sparse and lo-fi as to fell half-finished, and Svenonius' smouldering delivery fails to catch fire. [Dec 2017, p.27]

A solid, by-the-numbers Billy Idol album. And that is both its triumph and its tragedy. [Apr 2005, p.99]

Despite some inventive electronic tinkering, the pose wears a bit thin through repetition. [Sep 2003, p.98]

"SuperRandom" might be a better name. [Nov 2011, p.98]

The downhome strum of "Stuck Like Glue" has a certain charm--at least until its horrific cod-dancehall break down--but fails to redeem a depressingly calculated record. [Mar 2011, p.101]

His most visceral album in years. [Jun 2021, p.28]

It's sleek, groomed and genetically engineered to within an inch of sonic perfection, but there's very little that's memorable. [Nov 2004, p.120]

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

20 Y.O. is a lazy timewarp, not a retro treat. [Dec 2006, p.114]

This is too timid for modern R&B, too bland to rival Blige, and won't halt the sharp decline since 2003's "Rock Wit U." [Sep 2008, p.110]

The fault lies in the lightweight material. [Feb 2011, p.84]

Sisters Of Mercy fans will remain defiantly nonplussed. [Nov 2005, p.103]

Five years in gestation, these revved-up anthems are fuctional enough, but none have the catchy ska-punk bounce of the band's late 1990s commercial peak. [Sep 2008, p.99]

Ultimately, In My Mind falters through narrowness of vision. [Dec 2005, p.120]

The pace is laidback and determinedly downtempo compared to some of their more rebarbative free rock releases. [Jan 2009, p.96]

Feels for the most part like a vanity side project from Beyonce's solo career. [Jan 2005, p.115]

Based around some laughably accurate and truly entertaining pastiches of artists including Bjork, Bowie and the Pixies, the rest of the album is pure filler. [Aug 2003, p.100]

By no means a rebirth, but feistier and more fun than last year's Destiny's Child record, for sure. [May 2005, p.95]

This promising debut proves they're proficient at penning ragged Buzzcocks-ish pop... but also exposes the limitations of [Masters]. [Feb 2005, p.79]

These tuneless songs which either brim with maudlin self-pity or bounce along with enforced jollity. [Oct 2009, p.123]

[It] lives or dies on whether you think... Jack Black is a comic messiah or a juvenile chump. [Dec 2006, p.129]

Starts badly and gets worse for a very long time (77 minutes). [Jan 2002, p.146]

Gone is the Suede-lite of The Tears. Instead we get acoustic guitars, lush string arrangements and the previously cagey Anderson pouring his heart out. [Apr 2007, p.92]

The Mooney Suzuki are NYC's retro-homage to America's spandex pop-metal scene. [Sep 2004, p.98]

[Has] an uninspiring production line-up. [Jul 2006, p.101]

Jet's third album has the Guns N' Roses references to the fore, but is worryingly lacking in pizzazz. [Aug 2009, p.94]

This sees David finally jettisoning his twee heritage for a filmic kitsch. [Jun 2002, p.116]

Bob Rock's big production ladles on the reverb, merely emphasizing hollowness at the core. [Dec 2011, p.81]

In among the glitch and twitch, however, lies the odd choice moment. [Nov 2005, p.114]

My Bloody Underground is the sound of someone geting My Bloody Valentine about two-thirds right, which is to say that while BJM can certainly conjure interminable, feedback-slathered drones, they lack Kevin Shields' gift for sonic invention or melody. [June 2008, p.83]

James Devlin adds orchestral strings and cinematic melodrama to his hard-edged urban rhymes on this cluttered second album. [Mar 2013, p.70]

Sincere but Hokey homilies test the patience, but she brings imaginative vocal skills and real life experiences to "White Room," which displays a certain determined character. [Jun 2011, p.86]

It's hard to tell whether These People is an intentional, semi-Springsteenian work of self-reference, or whether Ashcroft just hasn't had any other ideas. [Jun 2016, p.69]

Another wildly implausible Shaun Ryder comback. Just when we needed one. [Aug 2003, p.98]

Like most big pop groups, they're great at singles--Rodney Jerkins' 'When I Grow Up' fashionably disses fame-- but fail when it comes to albums. [Dec 2008, p.115]

The generic patchwork of this debut LP suggests it's business as usual at the modern pop production line. [Oct 2009, p.102]

"My Foolish Heart" is delivered with some delicacy, "Sunny Side Of The Street" is playful, and "Fly Me To the Moon: floats Rod's voice over synth strings and a lazy piano. Otherwise, stick with Sinatra. [Jan 2011, p.103]

Their third full-length radiates the stale resignation of a band whose moment has passed. [May 20111, p.93]

ADD is death mental headache. [Nov 2011, p.84]

Squire's voice is awful, while his music and lyrics are those of a busker. [Nov 2002, p.113]

It's hard to fight the feeling this is average songwriting buffed into something near-palatable by the amount of money spent on it. [Apr 2004, p.101]

The Runaway is FM pop at its most heartfelt. [Jul 2010, p.112]

Thomas' lyrics are too frequently overwraught. [Mar 2003, p.98]

The results are frequently souless and over-produced. [October 2007, p.93]

A bit hard to deal with in one sitting. [Apr 2002, p.93]

A band slowly escaping the weight of their still-obvious influences. [Aug 2005, p.104]

A sparky and honest mess. [Mar 2005, p.94]

The album's ersatz old school mode inevitably pales when judged against the revolutionary Flash asides. [Mar 2009, p86]

It smacks of compromise. [Jul 2007, p.109]

They've turned their backs on disco and privileged operatic rock while retaining their--ahem!--inimitable sense of fun. [Dec 2006, p.106]

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

An album characterised by comically overwrought anthems and production-line lyrics. [May 2017, p.26]

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

A fascinating portal into one of the great musical minds. [Jan 2014, p.89]

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]

Even a nice take-off of moody Pharrell-style R&B, "Gangsters Want To Cuddle Me", and a rap by Adam Green can't save Dark Touches from being fairly irritating. [Nov 2009, p. 88]

His fourth album is unlikely to convert the legions of naysayers, but some sparks of invention penetrate the blanket of aural blandness and vapidly anthemic pop. [Dec 2013, p.66]

If anything, though, this pop machine is too tightly drilled. [Jul 2005, p.94]

Wyman and his band soon settle into a series of mid-tempo songs whose predictable arrangements are matched by bland lyrics and a voice that sounds like it would much rather be someplace else. [Jul 2015, p.84]

From there [after the title track and 'Out of Dreams'], though, the tunes disappear into a black hole of generic Liverpudlian guitar pop. [July 2008, p.100]

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]

Metal has teken giant evolutionary strides these past few years but, like mammoths frozen in ice, Def Leppard remain perfectly preserved in their own oblivion to them. [July 2008, p.91]

A less full-tilt affair than their first effort... but no less fun. [Jul 2004, p.95]

Unfortunately, Scouting For Girls occasionally meander out of their depth. [May 2010, p.102]

Hope In Hell is entirely dreadful, a grim farrago of frenzied riffing and belligerently adolescent lyrics. [Jul 2013, p.69]

These pallid songs comprise a barely disguised homage. [Mar 2014, p.80]

Gwen Stefani should be nervous. [Oct 2008, p.105]

Occasionally they break from formula, but the tired beats and repetitive rhymes ensure Double Bubble would have even a Full Moon Party shaking their heads. [Sep 2008, p.104]

The emotional distance in their music is hard to bridge. [Jun 2006, p.126]

It's grisly. [Sep 2009, p.90]

The results are risible but the joke is no longer funny. [Feb 2003, p.77]

[A] fruitless bid to affect euphoria. [Apr 2005, p.97]

At its best, Margins is unobtrusively impressive. [Nov 2010, p.101]

Tourist begins earnestly... and continues through 11 torpid ballads, drained of all their earlier quirks, seemingly laboratory-designed for those who find Keane too edgy. [Feb 2005, p.83]

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

It almost works. [Nov 2011, p.84]

It's harder to fault the tunes, however, smeared thick with QOTSA sludge or pretty 'Dakota' clones 'It Means Nothing' and 'Daisy Lane.' [Nov 2007, p.123]

Some old punk hands (notably erstwhile Black Flag guitarist Dez Caden) conjure up some acceptable punk bubblegum. [Dec 2011, p.90]

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

Her music is similarly annoying, with her sugar-fuelled rockabilly-pop, she's the female Jack Penate. [Jan 2008, p.93]

While nothing else here is quiet as astonishing, ["Junior Dad" is] a perfect ending to the most extraordinary, passionate and just plain brilliant record either participant has made for a long while. [Dec 2011, p.80]

Maybe they should have bigger ambitions. [Spe 2009, p.79]

As he mostly prefers to copy the sound of the original guitarists rather than stamp his own unique style on these over-familiar songs, you have to ask what's the point? [Dec 2010, p.105]

Shapeshifter features mostly stockpiled instrumental pieces characteristically driven by Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms. [Jul 2012, p.82]

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

Without recourse to crossover tricks, it's arguably more consistent than 50's last outing, although topics--guns, beef, money--may leave you wondering what rap has become. [Oct 2008, p.90]

The best you can say is that it's a great marketing ploy. [Dec 2005, p.112]