It's tuneful enough but, really, the case for the dismantling of 2010's nostalgic apparatus starts here. Less hypnagogic pop, more over-the-hillwave.

This is really little more than a half-baked infantile indulgence.

No matter what instruments are used, their weedy, aggro-pop retains the impression that it’s the chosen soundtrack for lifeless 35-year-olds stuck uncomfortably in suburbia.

We’re all for people celebrating the music they love free from boundaries of race and that, but there’s something inescapably grating about hearing a German/English newspaper heiress wittering on about fucking Babylon in thick patois. Crushingly disappointing.

Communion takes no risks and says nothing.

At least once they had a snappy poetic sensibility and an admirable interest in history. Unfortunately, now they are pure turgid Americana pastiche.

There’s something to be said for creating music exclusively for the club or to be bumped in car stereos in the summer, but with a bland, out-dated musical architecture, The WIZRD doesn’t even offer that. I

Ultimately it feels short on substance, with the sort of atmosphere that can drain through your fingers.

The record lurches between cliched harpsichord-driven ditties and cringeworthy soft-rock pop songs that rely on the inventiveness of their concept over the originality of their music.

Tides is ambient in the same way as a water feature in a garden: soothing at a glance, but ultimately boring.

This is a further stumble away from the glory days of 'Ten'. [29 Apr 2006, p.39]

‘CLB’ sounds jaded and dull, as if it was a chore to make. It’s certainly a chore to listen to. ... It offers nothing new to the rapper’s canon, merely going through the motions on his old formulas instead.

11 tracks of the same old maudlin balladry.

It batters through good taste, though its reggae-lite template is musically forgettable.

What should have been a worldly record of peace ends up limping with musical dissatisfaction that outweighs its virtue. [29 Jul 2006, p.31]

‘The Balcony’ is informed both by their struggle and their noughties indie elders. All this adds up to a dated sound.

Cash deserves better than this. In fact, he deserves to be left in peace. Some things should just be left alone.

‘The Battle at Garden’s Gate’ is a mixed bag of heavy metaphor and lazy observation.

Despite his surprisingly palatable baritone, this remains an album you won't want to listen to more than once.

For the most part, The Stoop is a tuneful if beige Ronson-esque production, set against clever-lyrics-for-stupid-people.

Pleasantly tuneful pop-punk. [23 Oct 2004, p.51]

Within the first four songs, 5SOS shout out underachievers, college dropouts and kids battling low self-esteem. They do so with winning sincerity, but even that can’t quite make up for the record’s derivative sound.

He's only gone and come back. And improved, actually: we counted two more hits than "Back To Bedlam." Be very afraid.

Morning View's insurmountable flaw is that Incubus sell themselves as an Intelligent and Sensitive rock band, without actually appearing especially intelligent or sensitive.

What's left of the genius glam-punksters has returned in the guise of an above-average pub-rock band. [22 Jul 2006, p.31]

‘Changes’ is a knackering listen. Overly reliant on trendy production and profound(ish) romantic proclamations, it’s a disappointing comeback from an artist who has a track record in creating hits.

The abstract hip-hop guru’s fifth full-length offering, in the tradition of wayward cut-and-paste instrumentalism, is one almighty mess.

Myths 004 certainly hits the mark for “embracing the chaos” as a “crude holiday scrapbook”, as they promised in a release accompanying the EP. But is it actually an enjoyable listen? Not really.

Not so much leaping between time-signatures as entire time-zones, the gristly riffs and ambient metal meanderings of ‘Sonder’ strive for a kind of stoic, sombre enormity, but they clash badly with Tompkins’ often slick pop vocals.

The effort in attempting to redefine their sound and head back to the ’80s is clear, but it’s sorely undermined by a lack of originality and ideas.

More often than not on Future Dust, they find themselves adopting a tame version of what they could produce. Limp and lifeless, Future Dust is an album from a band who can give much, much more.

Weighed down by star power, which eclipses Pop Smoke, ‘Faith’ feels more disingenuous than its predecessor.

[Songs Of Innocence] has only a handful of standouts.... This is a serious mis-step that might win a week's worth of good publicity, but could foreshadow a year's worth of bad.

As a solo artist who’s far eclipsed the output of his former epoch-defining band, no one can criticise Brown for trying. But he can definitely do better.

Every single one of the lyrics is either a really, really lame Spacemen Zero drug innuendo (the – hey! – 10-minute epic ‘’Half-State’), about ‘twisted’ love (the – hey! – ‘stripped down’ ‘Sweet Feeling’s Gone’) or mentions “highways”.

There’s nothing game-changing about The New Classic, just recycled hustlin’ tropes and an ugly, nasal double-time flow overcompensating for mediocre wordplay.

But damn those cruel hormones - Hanson's collective balls have MmmDropped, and the giddy rush of adolescence seeks to mutate Mercury's finest investment into a trio of crack-voiced hulks.

There's little here that's moves on from the kind of trip-hop balladeers that abounded in the late '90s or indeed the singer-songwriters that Sheeran admires such as Damien Rice or James Morrison.

For the most part, ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ is business as usual for Drake, who plays it safe and falls back on familiar terrain. ... But it’s not just a case of recycling here. There are some proper duds too.

Made In The AM doesn’t really change anything for One Direction; it's simply another slick set of pop songs designed to strike a chord with their teenage fanbase and win over a few older fans along the way.

The Wombats have aimed low, and in its own special way, This Modern Glitch is a triumph for mediocrity.

Spark is right about one thing at least: this album is boring, and everyone who says otherwise is a fucking liar.

In short Tha Carter IV flops not because it's straight-up bad, but because it's boring.

There's just an unavoidable sense here of a band who aren't quite sure what their purpose is anymore.

It's just that it all feels so pointless and half-arsed that it's impossible to muster more than an apathetic shrug in judgement.

New Jersey's The Static Jacks haven't got the most ambitious creative palette.

Mostly Americana and mostly unremarkable. [29 Apr 2006, p.37]

It’s all nicely polished, but there’s nothing underneath.

APTBS mask a lack of ideas or something to say by inventing louder volumes than everyone else.

The departure of backing vocalist Ryan Richards robs the band of one of their dimensions, and come the lunk-headed thrash of ‘Grey’ you’re left wondering if this renewed heaviness is there to paper over a lack of ideas.

Make no mistake, this is a poor, poor album.... Frustratingly, it's a waste of talent. For Snoop has lined up an array of musical back-up here (Swizz Beats, Timbaland, Eve, Master P: all marshalled by Dr Dre), and his is one of the most distinctive voices in rap, but he chooses simply to repeat himself with it.

The more you delve into it the less you find, because it’s all affectation.

It's functional, but dispensable.

What used to feel like surfing amid the cumulonimbus suddenly feels like snorkling in soup.

Further success should elude them. That, it seems, is firmly restricted to the past.

'Light Grenades' offers little change to Incubus' formula of having Brandon Boyd perform his brand of strained vocal gymnastics. [2 Dec 2006, p.30]

Bangarang, a stopgap EP ahead of his debut album later in the year, still fails to confirm whether his unashamed populism is deeply naive or profoundly cynical.

Despite the odd catchy moment such as ‘Die Happy, Die Smiling’ you’re left thinking that those yodelling fucking elf-botherers Sigur Ros have got a lot to answer for.

Speck’s mimicry is little more than pale homage to a real eccentric, highlighting the gentle sadness and underlying soulfulness of Pink’s music. PDA lacks this, and comes across as frivolous.

There are glimmers of loveliness in the industrial-calypsos of 'Drool' and 'Bananas,' but that just makes the wilful awkwardness all the more frustrating.

Sound smart? It would be if he hadn’t served it up with such flaccid beats.

Where White’s ‘Shakin’ sweated sassy evil, Moon’s is hamstrung by contrived effort.

Self-loathing, self-pitying, self-centered, bad-tempered American rock. [6 Nov 2004, p.59]

The problem is Shawn Christensen's bellowingly unsubtle vocal style, which batters every last vestige of restraint out of its way as it strains for greater heights of veins-bulging volume-as-passion.

With pace set to 'perky', the occasionally impressive hooks of (oh yes) 'Summer Fling, Don't Mean A Thing' and (oh no) 'Dumped' merge into a glossy mud from which nothing to rival All The Small Things emerges.

Musically, it's nowhere near as life-changing as its subject matter, but MacNeil's mortality menagerie make cute enough companions in the void.

The lead single, the excellent, Bowie-ish wibbler 'We Are All Made Of Stars' is a total red herring. The other 67 minutes and 17 tracks are 'Play' Redux; familiar-sounding "oh-lord-my-dog's-just-died" samples over shopworn pianos and strings, straining to be epic but lacking the crucial element of surprise that made 'Play' sound so innovative.

Immersion is less fun, harder work than In Silico. It feels like Pendulum are trying to be more than an anonymous CD you put on at a party when everyone's too boxed to DJ any more. They shouldn't.

There’s something very ‘mopey American teenager’ about Lightning Bolt.

Jamaica Plain is inessential stuff.

Riceboy Sleeps' is a tedious album of orchestral drones, produced by manipulating piano, strings and choir samples on solar-powered laptops

While Monastic Living might say something profound about this awkward, enigmatic band, if you’re out to explore Parquet Courts for the first time, the facts are plain: you should pick any record rather than this.

It’s a solid enough debut that really comes to life when the band don’t play it safe. However, lacking the star power that’s expected from musicians like these (you’d never know who was in this band without being told) it’s little more than the soundtrack to a great Friday night down the local boozer.

Ultimately 'Porcelain' proves that there's more to great bands than good musicianship. [10 Jul 2004, p.49]

‘Expensive Pain’ has its moments, but overall feels like a rushed project that lacks the quality control of previous albums within Meek’s catalogue.

We feel like we got sold herbal E and it didn’t even get us stoned.

The record veers off along theatrical tangents that recall Muse or ELO as much as Sunset Rubdown but ultimately don’t seem to make sense.

Really, what's to be gained from simplistic sloganeering like, "We don't need no more lies!" [20 May 2006, p.33]

Lil Xan is by no means the worst thing to happen to hip-hop, nor does he symbolise its death. However, he isn’t very good either. Stretched to a full album’s worth of material, Xan’s music, like a certain branded prescription drug, quickly tires those with little tolerance.

There's the odd good song... but these are rare moments from a band wallowing in coarse experimentalism. [20 Jan 2007, p.31]

Some tracks are merely forgettable--‘Days Of Decision’, ‘Lenny’s Tune’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’--while others charge headfirst into oddball territory.

Wait For Me, though, mostly confirms even cheap-sounding wallpaper remains, sadly, wallpaper.

Their new stuff is – at best – like a minutely less-annoying Staind.

His production work on this fourth album adds a brittle EDM crunch to their formula, but lacks enough choruses ripped from the candy-curled fingernails of the Pet Shop Boys to stop the likes of 'Chemistry' and 'Real Real Love' sounding painfully dated beside Jungle, La Roux or even Daft Punk.

He’s writing about his time in hospital (‘Hospital!), his new home (from ‘Good Morning Berlin’: “Hipsters with beards eating falafel / Wander these streets like herds of cattle”) and desire to remain relevant in his forties (the title track’s indie shuffle). Well, fine, but such navel-gazing offers us little reason to love his album.

There are flickers of funky light on the lush old school soul of ‘Ground Zero’ and the Motown-esque ‘Other Side Of Town’, but for the most part it’s all depressingly castrated.

Sadly, as 'Balls' proves, age has inexplicably withered Sparks' bow-legged muse; where once was genre-bending acid eclecticism and inspired wit, Sparks now seem content to dole out tired, tinny electro-pop and unfunny puns.

Steele would surf in the morning and retreat to the studio later on. It’s the kind of idyllic setting where days simply just pass by. Unfortunately, too many of the tracks on Two Vines do exactly the same.

From 'Gimme More's' heavily treated vocals that sound like a sex addict's cry for help to the electro throb of 'Piece Of Me', where fembot Brit tackles the paps with laser eyes, it could really do with a few more human touches.

[They] are so busy trying to be Supertramp they've forgotten to add anything of themselves. [3 Jun 2006, p.35]

It isn’t even that the songs are bad – it’s worse than that: they’re largely forgettable. Gone are the pithy couplets and catchier-than-a-rash hooks, replaced with lacklustre imitations.

A bit like playing Russian roulette in reverse: you spin the disc and pray in vain for something to stick in your brain. [19 Jun 2004, p.56]

The Strypes maturing isn’t surprising or disappointing, but the loss of the identity that made their ascent so startling is. That it seems to have been swallowed up by an unoriginal and dated indie sound is all the more galling.

Friendly Fires remain knowingly cheesy and in-your-face and their Technicolor live shows will continue to thrill regardless. The worst part of ‘Inflorescent’ is that you won’t hate it; you’ll just forget you’ve even listened to it.

Identity is everything in pop, but the majority of this record serves only to bury what made Gwen Stefani unique in the first place.

As if the macho posturing wasn't bad enough, 'Haunted Cities' is also a mess musically. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

If there's one thing that this Arizonan four-piece have been masters of since their inception in the early '90s, it's consistently possessing the over-bearing sentimentality of a teenage girl. Their seventh studio album certainly doesn't veer very far from their past emotional sensibilities.

As uncharismatic as its creator, it's certainly boring, but no more so than anything Richard Ashcroft has come up with.