There's barely a narrative other than posturing. It's not really an album, more a relentless ad campaign.

Nothing, not even their own past as a middling indie-pop crossover act, is sacred, and it’s sad to see The Kooks attempt to conjure past glories and fall flat.

I only wish that they had given us something with a little more substance rather than the bland mess we’ve been left with.

Sébastien Tellier has a tendency to tackle substantial topics, and it often smacks of dilettantism.

It screams often, confused, like the mess that it is.

If this is peroxide, it’s a heavily diluted solution; there’s certainly nothing caustic here, and scant evidence to suggest, as she protests to be the case on the title track, that there’s anything burning in her heart.

It’s a confused effort, with the songwriting faults, misguided lyrics, and the foolish sidelining of Cage the Elephant's greatest weapon (Schultz’s voice) torpedoing the vast majority of tracks.

Fade Away is the sound of a band clinging to the lost potential of their past for buoyancy, trying desperately not to drown in their own aimlessness.

It's completely inessential at best, or a cynical cash-grab at worst.

2 of 2, then, is an incredibly frustrating experience.

The Diving Board feels like an album made by somebody who’s spent the last few years performing the same set list night after night in Vegas.

Their debut is just minute after minute of hollow pandering.

What’s not so easy however is appraising something so overwhelmingly awful and so lacking in merit as BE without sounding like one of the smug, condescending middle class intelligentsia.

Lyrically, the album only deteriorates into further embarrassment.

Many demons are slain at the altar of the Reverend in the course this album--wit, eloquence, incisiveness and originality to name but a few.

This is a bad album. The power ballads have some good elements. You might sing one of these songs at karaoke one day. You should not listen to this album in its entirety.

Sadly, the quality of song writing and accompanying musicianship--i.e., everyone except 'arry--is mediocre at best.

Napalm is a long ass 18 track slog, and the pointless thug boasts scattered throughout the album.

This is an utterly pointless record with no artistic merit, creative spark or genuine ambition whatsoever.

Taragana Pyjarama is unstimulating, oddly soothing in an anesthetized way, hypnotic in the most guileful sense.

There really is nothing of great merit to this album.

Form & Control's only real highlight is its title track... But when it's surrounded by so much dross, it's hardly redeeming, and getting loaded may well be the only way to endure the rest of this tripe.

The bulk of the problems lies with the performance itself, and the material chosen.

In many ways it's a hip joke of an album.

This is a piece of chewed-out gum; with no viable nutrition, no flavour and no joy. Do yourself a favour and spit it out.

There isn't really an awful lot else to say. Famous First Words might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless.

Yet none of this is enough to relieve the air that everything on Curse Our Love has been intentionally dumbed down to make it as easily digestible as possible. Above all this album's great many sins, this is what offends the most.

A voice like Maguire's deserves infinitely better than the calculated dross on display here.