Formula is strictly adhered to, and while pace may differ from one jolly strum-about to the next, the void where there should be a worthwhile tune remains.

But most of all, these songs really blow, man. Way to top-load it with three half-decent tracks at the start.

Devoid of inspiration, lacking in any edge, this is pathetic.

This aggressive tone is a constant throughout and pretty much breaks new boundaries in sounding absolutely ridiculous.

In the end, Hymns is quite a listless journey.

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

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

He is annoying, simple as; his repeated ego-stroking irritates like a mosquito bite on an already sunburned forearm – it only adds to the pain.

Big Mess is hardly much more than ten stabs at reclaiming a relevancy that was only marginally theirs to begin with.

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

The Rapture have kept all the ingredients from their previous successes, but they have forgot to ignite the oven.

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.

It’s crushingly disappointing from a band that can sound so much better.

Not everything on By Default is misogynistic, mind, it’s just that when the lyrics aren’t threatening or creepy, they make [any] sense.

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

‘Timebomb Zone’s ugly rave onslaught strikes first – you feel the stretch of a wince appear. ‘Champions of London’ and ‘Boom Boom Tap’ follow up with a one-two punch; you never saw it coming. Maybe ‘Give Me A Signal’ would be a late highlight, and it is, unless you’ve heard ‘Higher State Of Consciousness’ more than once, or ‘Poison’, for that matter. You never stood a chance. The only reasons to recommend this record over its predecessor is that it’s shorter and doesn’t have Sleaford Mods on it.

In trying to be all things to all fans, all critics, all expectations, all click-bait corners, Harry Styles has failed to make a defining statement.

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.

In all of this, it's not that any one song is outright horrific (okay, 'Pink Lemonade' is pretty unbearable), more that the entire experience is a chore.

The sad thing is that while nobody expects Kaiser Chiefs to be re-inventing the wheel, we do expect a pretty rock-solid, perfect pop record. Yours Truly, Angry Mob most definitely isn't rock solid or perfect in any sense.

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

With the genre oversaturated beyond belief, bands need to produce something special and original to stand out from the crowd. Radio 4 fail to do that.

There really is nothing of great merit to this album.

He has made the most anodyne and bland pop album possible.

Not only are these not the greatest songs in the world, they're not even a tribute to them.

The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.

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.

Lyrically, the album only deteriorates into further embarrassment.