The predictable impression of a rich man's plaything cast with superior company remains. [Aug 2013, p.84]

The lyrics are packed with so many trite clichés that you can’t help but wince, whether he’s wishing for world peace on Make Love Not War (which manages to make room for the Trump-supporting Love to thank the USA ‘and all the folks protecting us very day’), dredging up seafaring love metaphors on Too Cruel or fashioning sappy eco ballads like Only One Earth.

It would be exhausting to list all the crimes these two commit in the name of rock'n'roll on this record. ... Risible. [Sep 2022, p.75]

The worst thing is, for all the nauseating country-rock-lite choruses, this is agonisingly catchy. [Summer 2013, p.89]

The Kids Are coming (To Take You Down) is the one highlight of the album, a thundering radio anthem redolent of Cheap Trick. Its carefree joy is notably absent pretty much everywhere else. [Nov 2019, p.81]

At times recalling the impressive yet aimless psych squalls of early Verve, Ride or Tame Impala, and at others of Can trying to make sense of 1980s pop radio. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Post-pop indie rock at its drabbest. [Jun 2020, p.89]

For all the loving homages to past recording techniques, they sound laboured and bored. [May 2013, p.84]

A great version of The Fugs' Carpe Diem aside, Everybody Loves Sausages feels like an in-joke that was never funny to begin with. [May 2013, p.87]

One of the most musically interesting things he's done in years. ... However, a bitter aftertaste lingers long after the final notes. [May 2020, p.79]

A classical version of a rock album only reveals how tonally conservative rock is (formally, Quadrophenia’s compositions would have sounded hidebound in the late 19th century), while at the same time revealing classical music’s inability to convey the electric volatility and the spine-tingling, physical frisson that’s unique to rock.

As it is, there’s a certain Wagnerian tweeness about the record, its changes predictable, it’s progressions too easily resolved, his tunings over-familiar. The whole thing feels like drinking several pints of spring water.

Snapshot consists largely of new material written to ape the 50s and 60s standards they've been covering live since puberty. And that's it's downfall. [Nov 2013, p.95]

As a compendium of rock styles, it’s hard to beat--maybe that’s what they mean by Little Victories. But it’s all quite characterless.

All flutes and bubbles, A Jammed Exit could be a Jethro Tull B-side, and only dedicated lovers of the eight-minute free-form scree solo need apply to Nervous Tech (Nah John), which is essentially Frank Zappa having a fit. Run for the exits.

Papa Roach's not entirely convincing attempt to music in on the action. [Feb 2019, p.88]

From the manically undistinguished soloing of The Tempter Push to the leaden progressions of Walk Alone, it is uniquely generic, extraordinarily ordinary.

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

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.

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

Four 11-minute "Improvised modal drones." [Nov 2019, p.85]

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

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]

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]

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.