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]