The title track veer uncomfortably close to cookie-cutter sloganeering, but there's more focused spikiness to the manic pop charge of "One last Chance," while "Up On the Moors" ticks all the pogo-anthems boxes of the band's glory days. [Feb 2018, p32]

Abrasive album. ... Tracks like "Pleasure Seeker," "Oblivion" and "Power" demand the listener either sit up and take notice or run screaming for the hills. [Mar 2019, p.26]

The stripped-back production adds a sense of immediacy and places focus on the fine vocals of hall and Golding, plus guest vocalist Hannah Hu. [Oct 2021, p.33]

His sixth solo album has some decent uptempo moments. ... Less compelling are the albums world-weary ballads, but one old downtempo number, "Foreign Sand," benefits from a stripped-back acoustic treatment. [Nov 2021, p.35]

McKenzie tries to have it both ways, peppering Freak Out City with schlocky tunes like the title track and "Too Young" that fail to deliver comedically or musically. [Sep 2025, p.33]

Funplex consists largely of a series of witless retreads of school disco hit 'Love Shack,' with Fred Schneider's deadpan "woo!" recalling an increasinglt weary holiday rep. [Apr 2008, p.83]

Korn are too lumpen to handle 'sophisticated.' [Jan 2006, p.102]

As is generally the case with Loaf's oeuvre, the ridiculousness of the enterprise is redeemed somewhat by a recognition of its own absurdity. [Jul 2010, p.112]

Curiously short on atmosphere. [Nov 2005, p.100]

The results may lack the stamp of originality, but the likes of "Silver Living," "Giving Out," and "I Know It's You" are vibrant, brimful of melody and lots and lots of fun. [May 2013, p.71]

Like most of their work, it all sounds teasingly familiar. [Jun 2005, p.97]

System is like travelling backwards to a time when Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson ruled the earth, except this time the studio overlord is Madonna collaborator, Stuart Price. [Jan 2008, p.100]

Return To Form's one of their better efforts. [Mar 2010, p.90]

A gift for deadpan couplets alone can't quite elevate him to [Rufas Wainwright or Pet Shop Boys'] league, [but] this album offer signs that, if he want to, Robbie might escape the neurosis of celebrity and mature into a genuinely witty songwriter. [Dec 2009, p.121]

[Like Rats proved] Kozelek could turn his wry tone to any old thing and make it lovely. [Mar 2013, p.73]

GVF strut and swagger through a sweeping hard-rock extravaganza that propels them from emulators to inheritors of a rich legacy. [May 2021, p.27]

This is a conventional effort, featuring four-to-the-floor rock and likeable disco-indie. [Aug 2010, p.102]

None of it is in any sense inspired, and Hammond tries his hand at that Swiss-finishing-school skank once too often, but many tracks here could comfortably make it onto First Impressions of Earth.

La Costa Perdida brings them full circle, back to their Californian roots. [Feb 2013, p.80]

While no reinvention, Paper Gods is both entertaining ad typically Duran-esque. [Oct 2015, p.75]

For some of the mercifully brief 33 minutes and 43 seconds of this album there is some merit in the messiness of this L.A. four-piece's palette of punk powerchords and sustained hoarseness. [Jan 2008, p.88]

There's a self-indulgence at play when can become aggravating. [Nov 2006, p.128]

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

They only really have one kin do f song and tempo, rollicking yet melancholy, but they write them very, very well. [Oct 2011, p.84]

This follow-up tries too hard to prolong the high. [Apr 2009, p.80]

Dross Glop sounds a long way from Battles themselves. [Jun 2012, p.69]

Even if the production pores over old memories, when they fire on all cylinders the combination of their best MCs creates more than a nostalgia trip. [Dec 2017, p.33]

There are more fine moments--"powder Man" is softly somnambulant, and the cinematic soundscape of "Kubrick" is an intoxicating affair--but self-editing is notably absent. [Apr 2019, p.39]