Thieves Like Us look and sound like three yuppies trying out the music lark after being laid off by an investment banking firm.

But wait - is that the ghost of a melody on 'Lover's Leap'? Alas, no: it's merely the desultory whoosh of a once-promising career as it plummets, irretrievably, down the art-pop pan.

'Pocket Symphony' sure does drift over you like a duvet of mood-stabilising drugs.

Is this the best we can do? Desperate-to-be-authentic, carbohydrate-stodgy white blues, played by an elderly man pretending to be a tramp? Really, you deserve better.

Basically, it's the curse of Jewel: Yank bird with acoustic guitar, homespun philosophy and twee poeticism, where the songs ramble on and on to deliver some platitudinal twaddle...

This is a slew of hackneyed teenage poetry, trowelled onto a bed of sift-rock cliché.

Why are you half-arseing your way through such a thick slurry of clod-hopping ska-by-numbers? Or wallowing in pits of cliché?

It’s not Hudson’s foghorn bellowings that are the real enemy on this record, it’s that motherfucking computer program [Auto-Tune].

So listener-unfriendly that it's almost amusing. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

About as funny as pouring weedkiller on your genitals and then setting fire to them. [7 May 2005, p.66]

[They] not only resemble hoity-toity Fields Of The Nephilim lookalikes but are just as godawful to listen to.

'The Boy With No Name' is everything you'd expect from a new Travis album and less.

'Break The Cycle' is nu-metal as envisaged by Tipper Gore - 14 tracks of parent-friendly grunge-flavoured soft rock that make Creed sound like GG Allin.

The only person this record would ever appeal to is the man who made it--Jack Black. [11 Nov 2006, p.43]

Like a scented Lush bath-bomb of mediocrity. [27 May 2006, p.31]

What follows is the sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity - boy-band balladry, U2-style stadium rock and Metallica-esque melodic crunch are all attempted with predictably patchy results.

The title track sounds like it is vocalised by the female speech function on a Mac's TextEdit facility and is roughly the worst thing ever made, yet it's still only the third-worst track on the album

Radric Davis is deeply flawed, and ultimately Gucci has committed the worst crime in rap: he’s boring.

The beats are from the worst Ice Cube album ever made and the rhymes are sub-Coolio. [18 Dec 2004, p.51]

Yeah, it’s his shtick, and you could laugh with him if the music was in any way exciting. Unfortunately, however, Dark Touches filth-funk fury is made impotent by sheer lack of hooks.

Who needs anti-depressants when you have Jesus and schmaltz?

She has talent to burn, but rather than challenge herself, Stone has chosen to throw herself on a multi-million dollar bullet train to the centre of mediocrity.

Things limp from bad to tedious with 'White Noise', a song so passé it just bought its first shares in ITV Digital.

Ensconced in the current UK hip-hop trend of being both depressing and cheesy, 23-year-old James Devlin raps about weapons, swine flu and diabetes.

Sounds like helium-voiced rockers Rush discovering a social conscience. [30 Oct 2004, p.65]

James' big thing was anthems, and here they do every single anthem they ever thought of. The crowd think it's brilliant, and they cheer when Tim Booth talks about God. The crowd are plainly mad.

You can’t help but feel that Gary Go’s biggest ambition is to be on the soundtrack for "The Hills."

'Mimi' manages the unique trick of being self-indulgent without actually ever sounding much like Mariah. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]