Señor Smoke suffers from nothing more then a total lack of discernable hooks to balance out the glaringly juvenile lyrics, cheese-filled synthesizers, and schlock-rock guitar stylings.

So the mission statement of this CD is clear; this is a product made by the emotionally and culturally sterile for people who either have no conception of love, depression, or any other emotional state outside of pop culture cliché, or those so desperate for entertainment that they would deceive themselves into thinking the feckless chicanery of this masturbatory ensemble resembles soulful expression in any way.

The album is essentially a tried-and-true big-budget rock album gimmick writ large: smother the listeners in a minute or so of formless noise (using the artiest guitar and keyboard settings imaginable, of course), and then snap them out of the doldrums with the sweep of a heroic chord progression.

There's nothing inherently wrong about writing songs about enjoying booze and drugs, but this isn't something I'd put on under the influence of either. Just imagine what it sounds like sober.

Like all Nickelback releases before it, All The Right Reasons was made for all the wrong ones and follows all the formulas and clichés you should be bored to death of by now.

Menos el Oso takes the act of melodizing the banal to dizzyingly silly new heights.

The blandest rock n' roll record possible.

They are to hip-hop what No Doubt was to ska.

Weezer's once unique aesthetic has been replaced by something formulaic and ultimately too safe.

It sounds like a cross between Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson without the soul, the Banana Splits, the Grease soundtrack and shitty disco records.

It's pretty much all the same synth leads, bang-bang beats, and tired rhymes as every other Aftermath related project since The Eminem Show, which wasn't that great either.

While this is drastically experimental by their standards, there is nothing here you haven't heard done infinitely better many times before.

Comets on Fire, 90 Day Men and No Doctors all released albums within the last year that proved classic rock to be relevant in today's music community. The difference between these bands and Black Mountain is that it doesn't sound like the members of Black Mountain had to crush their souls to write their songs.

The subject matter on the indistinguishably titled Love, Angel, Music, Baby is painfully mainstream throughout.

Destiny Fulfilled starts off pitifully and only gets worse.

Even by Cornell's extremely shallow standards, this is unbelievably lazy production. [Joint review of both discs.]

Each CD is crammed to a full 50 minutes with some of the most heinous crimes against good taste since Wham's "Wham Rap! '86." [Joint review of both discs.]

If Tegan and Sara were looking to release something which sounds like so much of the girl based rock, which can be found on TRL and on the radio waves, then they could most likely consider So Jealous a wild success.

One Plus One is One sounds like an attempt to make a more serious statement, but with little substance invested in it. The result is Badly Drawn Boy's first boring album.

It Falls Apart is a mess of overproduction and features bland songwriting.

Revolutions is an extremely boring affair, never building any momentum from the start to finish.

More than one track goes on about how love will eventually get us to heaven and such, and the sickly, sugary sweetness of it all just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.