Two-thirds of the songs fail to cohere.

This is a dry affair dominated by standard-issue R&B production monotony, and an egregious misuse of resources.

Redundant, needlessly long, Those The Brokes rarely matches the 60s California-dreamin' good-vibes pop of its successful self-titled predecessor.

Most of this over-egged sissy-boy schlock would make James Blunt wince.

Uniformly mediocre.... It leads one to assume he's either lost the ability to discern the padding from the profound or he just didn't give a shit.

A floundering mess that bores you to tears.

The result is exactly what you'd expect: loud and hard garage rock devoid of personality or originality.

So while Yellowcard's hearts may be in the right place, it's clear they're simply incapable of realizing this clumsy faux magnum opus.

Considering the expensive talent involved, this is a colossal disappointment.

Sitek attempts to do Johansson (and us) a favour by burying her monotonous voice deep in the mix, but unfortunately, the musical support isn’t interesting enough to carry the album. Skip it.

Jay proves that, yes, he really has nothing more to say except to state the fact that he's back.

For Mötley Crüe, every new record is a Faustian deal: their former glory as 80s hair-metal badasses in exchange for sustained economic success in a diminished, lame-ified state.

The problems that litter No Line fall into two categories: mind-numbing blandness on the part of the band or embarrassing, face-palm-inducing vocal choices by Bono.

The most listenable song is the Chavril duet Let Me Go, which has zero of either musician’s “edge” and a whole lot of adult contemporary schmaltz.

In lieu of artistry or any semblance of lyrical spark, DST offers monotonous production and relentless chanting.

Past the dancehall signifiers (Paul's increasingly strained lilt and tepid syncopated pulse), the new record is brazenly mediocre.

Songs you'd expect to swell and boil over--which is what Modest Mouse are good at--often end up trudging humourlessly (Ansel, Be Brave), and things get far worse in the moments where humour is actually the goal.

These 14 purpose-punk "anthems" (songs with loud multi-tracked vocals during the choruses) sound like Anti-Flag hastily thawed them out of mid-90s cryogenic stasis in a moment of frenzied conviction that we've never needed them more.

This isn’t music so much as it is economic exploitation of a demographic.

Topping off this overproduced, underwhelming effort are Roberts's over-enunciated lyrics. Even at his best, he comes off like a guy crashing an Of Montreal album.

Authentic is ridiculous right down to the heavy-breathing interludes, which worked for Usher circa 2003.

Rebirth is – without qualification – the most embarrassing album of the last 10 years. Embarrassing for him, for his audience, for rap, for humanity.

He rushes through the tunes, slurring syllables as if enunciating the lyrics would be too much work even if he could remember all of them. And clearly, one day wasn’t enough rehearsal time for his hired band, who are so often in vamp mode while trying to figure out where Morrison’s going that they lose track of the tunes.

Everything on My Bloody Underground suffers from Newcombe’s chronic lack of focus, leaving the entire mess sounding like half-assed sonic sketches farted out in a friend’s basement over a woozy weekend.

The closest this popportunistic foursome comes to satisfying songsmithery is "The Getaway," whose title is sound advice for potential buyers of this album.

A dreary dump of sad sack pop blather that makes poor use of the substantial talent on hand.

This is not an observation about theme--the record is unremarkable in both sound and execution.

It seems as if they've done everything possible to distance themselves from their original, much more interesting sound, opting instead for songs with barely enough hooks and coherent structures.