A disappointing mess. [Apr 2019, p.89]

Gone is any trace of the searing vitality that drove their earlier records; in its place a winsome urge to recreate all of the waftiest, wimpiest moments from pop history. [Mar 2019, p.91]

They’re aiming for a rockier sound--Walking The Wire has a guitar solo that could conceivably be influenced by U2 if you stick your head under a pillow before hitting play – but, as one listen to opener I Don’t Know Why amply demonstrates, it just comes off like Michael Bolton dad-dancing to Justin Timberlake at a family wedding. Pop deserves better. Rock deserves better. We all deserve better.

They’ve stripped away the guitars to the point where only trace elements remain. ... The whole thing makes Ed Sheeran sound like Extreme Noise Terror.

All the emo-rooted, posthardcore stylistic hallmarks are present and correct, embellished with a load of electronic arsing about on top, but the almost constant use of the same soaring ‘wo-ah’ pop hooks will soon have you wanting to hack your ears off with a pair of blunt scissors.

As a trad dad pastiche it isn’t funny enough, and as a parallel career it’s a painful vanity project. Either way, avoid.

Songs Of Innocence is stricken with lethargy, with a level of aspiration that extends as far as Coldplay and never explores further. [Nov 2014, p.93]

Maybe hilariously, considering the video-friendly drama being aimed at, First You Break It conjures images of Justin Bieber when he makes that inevitable nasty rock album, cavorting in a black puddle. [Summer 2013, p.89]

A parade of beige pop numbers that even Taylor Swift would turn down for being too generic. [May 2013, p.86]