With a snoozilicious country-rock sound that makes even the Eagles seem crisp by comparison, Kozelek appears to have temporarily mothballed his greater sonic ambitions and opted instead for a niche as a latter-day Mazzy Star for boys.

Lacking individuality, distinction and imagination, this album is over-produced, overlong and over-indulgent.

A dull compromise of artistic intent and marketability.

If The Blueprint proved that coming back is easy, The Blueprint 2 proves it’s difficult to stay on top.

All but a couple of tracks here are dipped in the melodramatically thick strings of the opener- and the sum result is that it’s almost too much to take the whole LP in one sitting.

In attempting to show all of the things she has been doing since we heard her last, Aguilera lessens the impact of the better songs on the record. Instead, in between ten to twelve mediocre/good songs, we have eight to ten songs that would be better served as B-sides.

For once, Madonna has stumbled not because she reached too far, but because she didn't reach far enough.

Insufferably vacuous.

This record is Weezer-lite, emo-lite, corporate radio, MOR rock junk.

Its utter lack of anything approaching strong feeling relegates it to the realm of indie-flavored muzak.

It’s not that this album had to be catchy. But when an uninventive melody is rehashed ten times to the point that you wonder whether literal keys and strings are missing from the band’s instruments, what you get is a diffusion line of a product that wasn’t even selling well in the first place.

Adding a set of young female characters to this drab mix only accentuates that a concept is needed to bolster the actual music.

This is the band’s most listless, amelodic effort to date.

It’s all just too "over-" - overcooked, overheated, whatever you want to call it.

A couple of times on Uncle Dysfunktional the Mondays break out of their past and attempt to come to grips with more contemporary forms, but it’s less than convincing.

There are no great songs to speak of on Dumb Luck, and in fact there are just a few that I would hesitatingly call “good,” or more important, “memorable.”

There isn’t an ounce of life in Curtis.

An irritating listen.

Facelessly competent, they make self-important, self-consciously literate guitar rock past its sell-by date via a simple recipe: mix together some late-period Death Cab for Cutie, some OK Computer-era Radiohead, and add in a few Doves and some Decemberists.

Just go buy an album that isn’t this one.

No matter how many literary allusions or whimsically witty turns of phrase he packs into a verse, The Believer lacks the balance and blood of his previous work.

Morningwood does a great job at imitating, and they have spirit. But their spirit does not translate well to good listening, nor does it provoke the underwear-dancing and air guitar it hopes to achieve.

His music has lost a large degree of the vitality that it once held.

If you’re a fan of the genre, don’t bother with Dangerous Dreams unless you’ve absolutely exhausted your current dance records.

Sounding (at best, mind you) like an uninspired Afghan Whigs tribute band, it recycles motifs, melody lines, production tricks, and lyrics from the back catalog. Part of the problem lies in the production--it's far too muddled, loud, and flat--but even the most gifted producer would have trouble making a good album out of the Dulli-by-numbers on display here.

Easily Strait’s worst album in over a decade.

There’s no moderation on Cookies, no inner temperate telling the lads, "Enough’s enough," whether it’s following yet another crack about getting paralytic on drugs, another glammy, mascara-running-from-the-sweat-and-effort guitar solo, or that nth attempt to be cheeky.

"Progressive" doesn’t mean clocking in at over seven minutes no matter what. It doesn’t mean hitting every goddamn skin, tom-tom, and cowbell on your drum set. Being "Progressive" doesn’t justify an album cover that looks like a stoner stumbled upon a documentary on Mayan civilization. I’m not sure, but I think "Progressive" is about growth and change.