It took U2 10 years to reach this level of blandness.

You can smell the impotent melodic desperation a mile off.

Someone should put Blink 182 out of their misery.

Seriously poor, lowest common denominator bullshit.

There's little of the pop sparkle that shone through the likes of 'The Modern Age' and 'Last Nite' even when - as with 'You Talk Way Too Much' - they're rewriting old material, and Julian's vocals are, to be blunt, awful, sounding uncomfortable to record and rather complacently nasal.

This is a dog of an album, by anyone's standards, but if you play it next to 'If You're Feeling Sinister', which we did, then it is the sort of dog that shits all over the kitchen and has constant mange.

It must take a fair amount of skill and a peculiar single-mindedness to create something this consistently bland and tiresome.

This is so so crap.

So there are a couple of standout tracks, and the rest falls on its arse.

The vast bulk of this album is the sort of stuff you'd expect from an averagely talented bunch of first year music students. Who smoke way, way, way too much dope.

There are no great ideas, or stunning movements, just ego-driven mush set to chocolate box arrangements. Oh, and a tendency towards the kind of vocals that Pink Floyd or Chris Rea might have been proud of.

About as boring as a record can be.

How anyone can describe Leeds' The Music as a "best new band" is beyond me. Unless they're over fifty, sport a footballer's perm and weep at Almost Famous.

Startling for all the wrong reasons.

The songs are pretty, the guitars are mellow, all complimentary and measured; dull, in other words.

If this was the work of a new artist it's debatable whether it would even have seen the light of day, and it's certainly unlikely we'd've felt the need to even comment on it.

Hidden amongst the bilge, there are six proper songs here, with words and everything. But they only serve to prove how erratic Belle And Sebastian have become.

What once felt like maverick defiance on the part of the 'Shop now leaves them looking directionless, with Tjinder sounding increasingly like an unattractive combination of smugness and bitterness.

Lyrically, he's got one thing to say: Kid Rock is back, Kid Rock has lots of money, Kid Rock has the dames licked down, Kid Rock is hard. Which is all good when done properly, with wit, but Kid Rock is not clever, and he's not funny.

Not even the added muscle of playaz like Kid Koala, Afrika Bambaataa, Plug 3, Prince Paul and Mike Patton manage to lift this album above the low level pastiche it seems happy to be.

Excruciating, toe-curling Pain, the sort that makes you want to leap through windows or run over children.

An album of dull, vocal virtuoso ballads.

Supporters have argued that this is " a perfect comedown album". In the sense that you'll feel like you're coming down even if you haven't taken anything, yes.

As welcome as emphysema.