While its synthetic atmospheres initially intrigue... The music wavers indecisively between structure and formlessness, ending up as curiously misshapen objects, half-finished designs.

Alas, it's unlikely that the applause will stretch to actually wanting to listen as the looping metallic effects, heart-attack drums and seemingly played-backwards female vocals confuse more than impress.

While their true believers might not mind the record’s overall lack of variety, for anyone new to the band there’s little on None The Wiser to separate them from the indie-rock chaff.

Sadly, The (I)NC have mistaken the ultra-safe sound of maximum R&B for the scream of revolution. [24 Jul 2004, p.49]

Too often, ¡Tré! falls back on a formula--fast, box-ticking choruses fashioned from chords you can count on the fingers of one hand--that Green Day have pretty much stretched to breaking point.

If it’s your introduction to them, there’s likely just about enough to convince you to dig a little further. ... But if you’re a survivor of the ‘00s indie scene, there are no new tricks here that’ll stump you. The by-the-numbers feel of ‘Four Leaf Clover’ makes us feel like the unlucky ones, and ‘Tesco Disco’ should have been left in the reduced section.

It does little to either push Turner forward or tell these stories satisfactorily.

Gone are the fizzy sun-drenched hooks and pint-chucking riffs, and in their place are mawkish vocals, melodramatic breaks and dreary lyrics.

There are far too many children’s voices, snatches of birdsong, glissandi of saccharine strings, and always the half-heard, half-sensed thwack of Frisbee upon social media manager.

'Plans' is produced within an inch of its shiny, whitebread life and the Cutie seem to have lost their faux-naive subtleties, becoming the non-thinking man's Coldplay along the way. [27 Aug 2005, p.74]

Their rootsy rattle'n'roll fails to connect with anything more grabbing than a vague lyrical nostalgia.

Their default position is to panel it: hard-driving Zep-worship so unvarying in its pace that Everyday Demons comes on like one long undead riff plus a lot of yawled guff about about being an ‘Evil Man’ with ‘Demon Eyes.'

An affectionate, fuzzy-felt melodic alt.country rocking affair with sugarcane barbed lyrics. [26 Jun 2004, p.54]

A slow slog through a murky alternate dimension, from a band who made their name on vibrancy and experimentation, Inside The Rose is frustratingly lacking in both.

All we learn from these wispy solo offerings is that Lemonheads songs are not improved by persistent cassette hiss and background noise.

Radio-friendly insipidness.

It's a bit of a mess.

Amid the smartly rendered pastiche of this debut, Bainbridge references Prince and Janet Jackson, yet turns those joyous sounds unpleasantly arch.

Mostly it's just a heavily lacquered drone, an album so restrained as to sound almost calculated. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

Sounds like an even less energetic Alicia Keys. [24 Jun 2006, p.43]

It’s hard to see where Bugg goes from here: he’s either a man still in search of a niche or, more worryingly, locked into the wrong one.

Tongue-in-cheek humour is Pump’s biggest selling point, but many of the album’s 16 songs (most of which have a running time of just over two minutes) feel like little more than regurgitated punchlines or uninspired variations on themes already set up and adequately executed on the rapper’s early tracks.

Sure, 'J.Lo' is competent, but like Lopez's voice, it lacks sincerity and warmth.

Despite some positives, Gesaffelstein isn’t able to recreate past glories, nor advance on them--or even successfully reinvent himself. By the end of it, you’re mostly left feeling confused and underwhelmed.

Through this, In Plain Sight has a frustrating tendency to lean on cliché; there’s a nagging feeling of déjà vu in listening to a record that has been made thousands of times before.

A pleasant listen, but it's hardly fresh.

Honesty is often lost in overproduction, both in the music and in his lyricism. It is listenable, summery and occasionally thought-provoking, but tired in its laboured pushes for emotional sincerity.

Occasionally they hit an addictive groove, but you'd hope so given that the songs are each five to 10 minutes long. Messy, and not in the good way.