Unconvincing and safe. [Feb 2004, p.102]

There are toe-curling moments. ... However, their voices are a convivial fit, most effectively on the gentle 22nd Street and the harsher, more restless Night Shift and both escape, dignity intact. [Jun 2018, p.114]

Fluff, maybe, but very entertaining fluff. [Dec 2009, p. 115]

There's no hint of an artistic left-turn here. [Dec 2013, p.103]

Much as their guitars cascade and their lyrics have a dark undertow, there's too much heavy-footed stodginess, notably in the plodding Staying Up, to make them truly engaging. [Jun 2013, p.103]

They've lost the spark. [Sep 2004, p.122]

The inimitable genius of B.I.G.--the mordant wit, the complex lyricism--is painfully diluted here. [Jul 2017, p.107]

Monkey Business proves that less could have been more. [Jul 2005, p.110]

Without Pop The Glock's digitised vocals Hartley sounds like a karaoke version of '80s rapper Roxanne Shante. [Aug 2010, p.126]

Back To Basics' pub-rock charm wears thin pretty quickly. [Aug 2015, p.115]

Compared to the Puppets' ornate '60s pop, Rascalize is straight Arctic Monkeys indie-rock, with echoes of The Coral. [July 2008, p.108]

This may be some kind of dance music but Play Music is sadly no fun. [Jul 2009, p.133]

What is surprising is how lacklustre an affair it turns out to be. [Oct 2004, p.128]

The result is a too quiet, curiously unfinished-sounding album with barely a moment to remember, let alone cherish. [Oct 2007, p.96]

This is middling hip hop fare devoid of So Solid's scrappy, feral energy. [Apr 2009, p.111]

The songs sizzle merrily, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts, and the relentlessness becomes wearing. [Oct 2008, p.139]

Like Leto's performance in the risible Suicide Squad, the result is unsubtle, self-important and not half as good as it thinks it is. [Jun 2018, p.106]

It features much gastly US po-punk. but Robert Smith and Franz Ferdinand take on songs from former Alice In Wonderland productions and just about win. [May 2010, p.125]

Halfway through... it becomes a directionless mess. [Jul 2004, p.113]

Admittedly, her FM-friendly singalongs aren't rocket science, just fantastically effective. [May 2003, p.109]

Epic pop has a new face, and it belongs to Joe 90. [Jun 2009, p.122]

Yet for all Stride's laddishness, this is a sophisticated album that never coasts or repeats itself. Making pop sound this effortless, this joyous, is no easy task. [May 2010, p.124]

Somehow contrives to bring us the worst of both worlds [of glossy dance floor beats and Manc rock swagger.] [Oct. 2011 p. 131]

Until they find their own voice, they'll forever be a tribute band. [Mar 2014, p.116]

No great leap forward here. [Oct 2015, p.106]

This is a catchy, cocky, Avril Lavigne-y debut, its surface gloss making up for an ultimate lack of depth. [Nov 2008, p.118]

Plain White T's are ultimately as bland and banal as the clothing they take their name from. [Dec 2008, p.133]

Their attempts at songwriting here are woeful. [Sep 2007, p.95]

Even the welcome presence of Boston's original singer Brad Delp, who committed suicide in 2007, can't save it. [Feb 2014, p.119]

Entirely meritless. [Apr 2013, p.104]

Shiny slabs of US radio rock. [May 2012, p.94]

So ill-conceived and shoddily executed it could well finish them off altogether. [Feb 2003, p.102]

When it works... he is as heroically spirit-raising and stomach-tighteningly emotional as he was on Play.... Yet, when Moby plods, it's as if the world is burning with boredom. [Apr 2005, p.121]

It's warm and heartfelt, but the scaled down production allows his grating Treesside vocals dominate to distraction. [Nov 2010, p.114]

Here, they are hitting their stride. [Feb 2005, p.98]

They remain spirit-crushingly average. [May 2005, p.114]

The lascivious lyrics have gone, replaced by monotone melancholic musings on love and loss that initially grate, but actually compliment the minimalist cello and piano arrangements. [Oct 2008, p.139]

Simply crazed speedcore played over actual cattle auctions. [Jan. 2012, p. 120]

The Devil's Rain is very silly indeed. [Dec. 2011 p. 136]

They may have no defining sound of their own, but they're admirable recyclers. [Oct 2008, p.141]

Nicole's tunes are so memorable you almost don't need to buy them. [Dec 2007, p.123]

Occasionally it's so insane that you can't help but be swept along with it. Mostly, however, it's so over the top the more likely reaction is to run it off and make sure you don't hear it again in a hurry. [Dec. 2011 p. 122]

It may not be an unpleasant listen, but it's a strangely soulless one. [Aug 2009, p.101]

Desperately slim pickings... betray this release's roots as a mere EP. [Jan 2004, p.116]

Although none of the newcomers quite supply the killer touch, the flow of soft-rock shimmies and cowbell-driven R&B lives up to the guestlist's promise. [Dec 2005, p.156]

Sloppy, emotion-free, chicken-in-a-basket ballads. [May 2007, p.125]

A rare peep at the methods of a great songwriter. [Feb 2004, p.98]

The '80s influence remain close to the surface secodn time around and Ryan James's lyrics are still hardly full of cheer, but it's a leap forwards. [Feb 2015, p.111]

They tear through 14 tracks in a flicker over 37 minutes without ever going anywhere even vauely new. [Apr 2009, p.100]

It's all doom and gloom, and it ain't pretty. [May 2007, p.125]

At times, they still stray into Nirvana territory, particularly on 'Braindead,' but they do so with enough brio to get away with it. [Nov 2008, p.123]

So while the agit-prop lyrics say little new, the best tracks--'Barcode,' 'Hit From The Morning Sun,' 'Julian' and the title track--are convincingly atmospheric. [Mar 2009, p.102]

At 20 tracks long, Imperial Blaze suffers badly from a lack of editing, however, Paul also spends hald the album in ballad mode. [Nov 2009, p.111]

[The album] is full of reductive, radio-friendly hard rock. [Nov 2012, p.86]

Where they were once a glorious mess, here they are simply a mess. [Apr 2007, p.114]

It tries to be everything at once, with varying results. [Oct 2005, p.114]

She has a fine technical voice but the emotional resonance of a car park. [Feb 2003, p.98]

The resultant chaos is addictive, energizing and catchy as hell. [Feb 2010, p. 108]

It works for the first three tracks.

While impeccably executed, as ever, a little more warmth and a little less ego wouldn't have gone amiss. [Dec 2009, p. 126]

Sadly, this follow-up shows signs of premature ageing. [Mar 2006, p.109]

Crass, brash, open freeway excess at its best. If only he didn't spend half the album apologising for them. [Jul 2004, p.118]

The drab orchestrations offer tepid schmaltz, not romance. [Dec 2002, p.112]

This kitchen-sink hybrid works remarkably well. [Nov 2008, p.117]

The majority of tracks scream "poor old bored celeb." [Nov 2006, p.139]

It ditches classic thrash for bland classic rock. [Aug 2013, p.96]

Like the rock equivalent of an SUV, All The Right Reasons is huge, polished and ultimately pointless. [Dec 2005, p.155]

Another dollop of rock sludge with a remarkably honest title. [Aug 2003, p.115]

Essentially, it sounds exactly like each of her four previous albums. Sure, she's consistent, but does she never tire of forever sounding the same...?

As warmly irresistible as the Feeling, the impossibly catchy 'Best Of Me' nods to Elton John's 'Your Song' and it's the finest moment here. [Oct 2008, p.150]

Embarrassing. [Dec 2003, p.134]

A nice enough idea, but being much quieter and more pastoral, it is also somewhat anti-climactic. [Aug 2005, p.128]

The former Verve leader attempts urban crossover. Look away now. [August 2010, p. 114]

It clings too rigidly to its electronic template and sorely lacks the breezy pop iinventiveness of old. [Apr 2010, p.115]

Anyone believing that Bush betrayed grunge's punk promise will feel like reaching for a shotgun. [Aug 2008, p.135]

They cook up an almighty storm, but as winds go, it's rather hollow. [Feb 2004, p.105]

Nine Track Mind whimpers like a sick kitten. [Mar 2016, p.113]

Tulisa struggles to get to grips with the predictably generic R&B ballads, but when the pace is upped and she shouts along to Young and the feisty M.I.A.-lite Live It Up, the personality that has turned her into a phenomenon of out times transcends her obvious limitations. [Jan 2013, p.112]

There are no highlights. Appalling. [Sep 2011, p.110]

There's little experimentation to interrupt the drive-time friendly tunes. [Nov 2004, p.119]

Middle-age is no excuse for such an unforgivably bland collection of over-emoted love songs. [Dec 2002, p.102]

Recent name change can't save disappointing debut. [Sept. 2011, p.105]

A far more rounded proposition than 2000's water-treading Chocolate Starfish. [Dec 2003, p.132]

Ultimately, this 11-track LP is nine songs too long as the rest swill around the bottom of the indie-rock barrel like thin gruel. [Apr 2014, p.121]

Fatally it offers nothing to suggest a band moving forwards. [May 2013, p.109]

A single 47-minute long track, subtitled An Electronic Night Ceremony, it begins with a slowly unfolding dystopian bass rumble to which a pulsing beat and subtle layers of electronic soup are laboriously added. Sounding more like the hum of a car factory (they still have them in Germany) than the celestial sphere of the title, it's a querulous throb of a record which, once heard, hardly invites repeated listening.

There's something truly peculiar going on here, and worth pursuing. [Sep 2002, p.110]

Home Burns lacks the dreamy charm of its predecessor, favouring a more knowing, prog rock ramble. [Nov 2001]

While the lyrics portray only stereotypes - whore, ladyboy, hick - the music is a tumble of racing rhythms underlying slow, reflective vocals with empathetic groans, sighs and howls of matching emotion from violin and cello.

A buzzy, incisive Randy Brecker on trumpet adds more than his fair share of excitement, and brings out the best in Summers's quavery delivery.

Canadian rocker goes live and (almost) solo. [Jan. 2011, p. 135]