The trio only really let loose on their sprawling, wailing cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Your Youth Go To Waste." [Feb 2006, p.86]

It's all very well intended, but seldom rises above the superficial. [Dec 2008, p.108]

Too often they sound like Sting fronting Counting Crows. [Jul 2009, p.93]

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

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

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

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]

This treads the thin line between appealing whimsy and finicky, smartypants noodling. [Jun 2007, p.111]

Too often there's a pileup of overwrought, over-long ballads that struggle to make headway. [Jan 2005, p.121]

This eponymous effort does little to dispel the notion that he's a bit of a swaggering caricature. [Jan 2002, p.142]

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]

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

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]

Coombes and Goffey undoubtedly had fun romping through "Queen Bitch," or tackling "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" in the style of The Zombie, but you'll never play this album more than once. [Apr 2010, p.91]

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 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]

As a studio album it's dull and rather pointless. [Dec 2008, p.116]

Their latest was recorded in Berlin and Iceland, with whichever musicians were around at the time, lending Newcombe's whacked-out psychedelia cum space/drone rock a stoned-jam feel that doesn't always work to the songs' advanatge. [Apr 2010, p.83]

It's primitive, geezerish stuff but lacks, say, the finesse and humour of contemporary Mike Skinner's work. [Oct 2005, p.112]

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

Why, when Dragonforce are doing this for real? [May 2007, p.96]

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

There's a flightiness that lends the album a showreel quality. [Apr 2005, p.97]

Preparations smudges the distinction between Herren's Prefuse 73 and Savath & Savalas aliases, and shares with Golden Pollen, his summer S&S release, a listless drift. [Dec 2007, p.101]

Soundwise, Chinese Democracy is all over the place.

This is pretty gloomy going, not rendered much easier by the lugubrious baritone in which Beck delivers his emotional autopsies, or the vague, amorphous melodies. [Nov 2002, p.116]

Their brand of gut-wrenching emo, aligned to fearsome fantasy rock remains both wildly overcooked and deeply derivative. [Jun 2013, p.79]

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