The message may project the present-day feeling of hopelessness and conspiracy, but as the medium is soulless, effortless and tinkers along with less musical substance than when a bunch of 13-year-olds get together to form their first garage band, it's the listener who'll feel mocked, cheated and wanting to escape. [No. 149, p.55]

Continue to blame "hipsters" for cultural ruination but can't find any to shame because they stopped wearing white belts a long time ago. [No. 148, p.53]

It's difficult to imagine even a hardcore completist wanting to hear Chilton's interminable orgasmic noises on the title track, long stretches of drunken studio banter or yet another two versions of Third's "Jesus Christ." [No. 144, p.53]

The vocals are on point in Ashcroft's non-plussed yet quintessentially pop-edged delivery, but these arrangements lean more toward boredom and self-servitude. [No. 133, p.53]

Krug's mushy, mixed-down vocals and the lack of dynamic range often sucks all the life out of the music. [No. 132, p.57]

Weezer, the 10th album by Weezer, is about as good (or bad, your call) as Weezer, several measures worse than Weezer, and a once-you-hear-it, you'll-never-unhear-it skid mark on the shorts of Weezer. [No. 130, p.51]

It's unlistenable dreck. [No. 126, p.55]

Paper Gods is an exercise in shamelessly rehashing every tired, vaguely transgressive cliche that's defined Duran Duran's 30-plus-year career. [No. 124, p.55]

Hideously tedious sounds of the "definitive" Primus lineup drowning in a soupy melange of chocolate and cutesy pretense gone way, way wrong. [No. 114, p.61]

What Is This Heart? certainly isn't done any favors by Krell's stock, dejection-by-the-numbers lyricism and the baring of his overextended falsetto against the array of muted synths, strings and drum machines that crop up from song to song, as the album cycles through every tired adult-contemporary R&B trope in the book. [No. 111, p.55]

There are seeds of talent in Phox, but this album doesn't let the band flourish. [No. 111, p.59]

Rod and Gab's fifth album is bereft of personality. [No. 110, p.59]

It's the sort of record today's 15-year-olds are going to feel embarrassed about owning five or six years from now. [No. 108, p.56]

Their latest is another reliably pleasant, if inconsequential offering. [No. 106, p.52]

[A] joyless, meticulously crafted trudge. [No. 106, p.52]

Stale, vapid and generally awful. [No. 105, p.55]

Despite valiant efforts at punking up "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and "White Christmas," this is starting to sound like a bad joke. [No. 105, p.52]

This time it's insipid, acousti-stomp faux-psych of the down-to-mid-tempo variety, and autopilot riffers that come off like MADtv skits about stoner metal. [No. 104, p.59]

Mediocrity this aggressive should cancel itself out at some point. [No. 101, p.53]

Queens Of The Stone Age lumbers its way through a series of increasingly skronky, sludge-by-numbers jams and sound. [No. 100, p.57]

The failing of Plain, however, is its lack of direction and absence of cohesiveness. [No. 98, p.55]

Not only does Bankrupt! propose a big, stadium-ready sound, it offers one that nearly suffocates its creators. [No. 98, p.59]

Take the fake phone call and run, don't elephant walk, away. [No. 98, p.56]

A poor pastiche of Aphex Twin, Spandau Ballet and Gary Numan. [No. 96, p.60]

Phillip Ekstrom's vocals echo the tortured moan of Robert Smith with a trace of Ian McCulloch's attitude, but he never manages to find his own voice. Except for the implied reggae pulse on "Blues," neither does the band. [No. 96, p.56]

After all these years, the band still possesses no originality or musical inventiveness that could distinguish it from the pack. [No. 93, p.58]

The whole record is all skittering drums never finding their place, and shivering synths that drift in search of a landing pad. [No. 94, p.58]

Unfortunately all this hi-watt talent [guest vocalists] can't cover up Iha's weak vocals, which pass from winsome to wan early on and never recover. [No.92 p.54]