Justin Moore’s “Here Comes My Girl” and Brothers Osborne’s “I Won’t Back Down” both sound like expensive karaoke. The best tracks take more than a few liberties with the source material. [Jul 2024, p.41]

Laurie reprises his well-intentioned but essentially unconvincing bluesman shtick. [Jun 2013, p.75]

These days her winning innocence has turned to mature craft, but she's lost none of her integrity or emotional honesty. [Dec 2002, p.129]

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

A solid if formulaic record. [Nov 2010, p.94]

Fourth album time for Turin Brakes, and practice is edging the duo closer to perfection. [Oct 2007, p.113]

It's unlikely comfort is their aim, but that's the effect oif this over-familiar blend of woozy disaffection and slow-burning sensuality. [Apr 2010, p.83]

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

The harmonies remain pretty, but the smoothness of those Nashville sidemen exposes the thinness of the songs. [Nov 2011, p.86]

Wildflower is more satisfying, less self-consciously searching for radio-friendliness [than C'Mon C'mon]. [Nov 2005, p.100]

The four players are able to design the tracks in architectural detail, each part locking into the rest with unerring precission, and this tautness keeps the album from sagging through its most challenging stretch. [Oct 2008, p.78]

Now 29 years on, The Devil You Know can't quite muster that kind of muscle [heard in Black Sabbath's "Heaven And Hell"]. [Jul 2009, p.88]

As a musical representation of physical and mental decline, it is morbidly compelling. But in the wrong mood, it's a bit of a trudge. [Feb 2016, p.75]

Amid this poor material, the Chili Peppers still manage t deliver a handful of very very good songs. [Sep 2011, p.86]

The whole thing tingles: you're in the presence of diamond-hard greatness. [Nov 2004, p.110]

Some delectable details pop up early on, like the swirling organ that shape-shifts "Thirsty Man," but the nearly unrelieved combination of Early's tang and the Cripple Creek cadences grows wearisome by the LP's second half. [Jan 2014, p.71]

At times it's hard to see the point of such a meticulous homage to motorik.... Nevertheless, [it's] DIV's most aesthetically satisfying album. [Dec 2004, p.145]

Yes, it's true--this is a great record. [Sep 2013, p.94]

Pierson's first outing without Fred Schneider and co is produced to sound immaculately (and blandly) like 1980s American new Wave pop; enough to make "Love Shack" seem cutting edge. [Mar 2015, p.80]

His vechile of expression alternates between acoustic confessional and clapped-out pub rock, leaving Dangerfield pootling down the middle of a fairly nondescript road. [Feb 2010, p.81]

Some of it sounds like coffee-shop background fodder. [Apr 2006, p.96]

Solid rather than eventful. [Nov 2005, p.111]

Fairly generalised misogyny pervades the album, though it would be churlish not to not that tracks like "White Trash Party" or "On Fire" both display flashes of Eminem's wit. [Sep 2010, p.92]

Musically, affairs lack Manson's customary anthemic poise, but tracks like "Heart-Shaped Glasses" draw on Berlin-era Bowie and Iggy's The Idiot with brooding panache. [Jul 2007, p.107]

Their equally unexpected return sees them back on full-tilt, pivot-on0a-penny form, with their own label and--judging from that title--hardened professional resolve. [Aug 2011, p.81]

On the whole, it's a little in hock to its influences, although the closing eight-minute title track is a fine exception. [Jun 2013, p.73]

The overall effect is both dark and playful. [May 2014, p.74]