St Jude proves that there is much more to The Courteeners than first meets to the eye.

The second album from Cheltenham's The Duke Spirit sounds every bit the heads-down attampt at chart-bothering major rock album. Except, well, it's on an indie, and the tunes don't always match the band's stadium-echo ambitions. [Mar 2008, p.86]

Clearly full of ideas and enthusiasm, FrYars suffer from a cheapness of sound, the instrumentation often too basic and one-dimensional to give songs od potential the lick of sonic paint they deserve. [Nov 2009, p.94]

It's a more anthemic, traditional and radio-friendly Feeder that greets is on their eight album. [Apr 2012, p.77]

It would be silly to expect surprises from the Fairports at this late point, and their first album in four years proves as well tended and predictable as a Cotswold village. [May 2011, p.85]

There's a swaggering big-band reading of "Just One Of Those Things" and a clever soul-jazz recasting of Rhianna's "Don't Stop The Music", but otherwise Cullum has morphed into a kind of Britpop Randy Newman, which suits him well on the excellent "I'm All Over It". [Dec 2009, p. 87]

Under the bluster, though, frontman Ritzy Bryan adds a consistent emotional intensity best heard on "Cradle," reminiscent ofg Lush at their most bruised and bruising. [Mar 2011, p.93]

Such a stylistic spread can leave it slightly centreless, but a strong emphasis on groove runs throughout. [Mar 2017, p.25]

Much of Intriguer leaves one yearning for the unbound pop of "Now We're Getting Somewhere" or the straightforwardly confident balladry of "Better Be Home Soon." [Jul 2010, p.104]

What has sadly gone missing here, however, is Farrell's voice. [Jul 2007, p.112]

The uninitiated will find it a good place to start. [Jan 2013, p.81]

[Almanac is] pleasantly dreamy for a while, but over the course of 40 minutes feels just a little insubstantial. [Apr 2013, p.79]

Benson's fifth solo album rarely deviates from his established modus operandi. [May 2012, p.67]

They've been an oddly schizophrenic beast, vacillating between sparse dronescapes and percussive rock jams conducted with primitive intensity. Peer Amid sits in the latter camp, although it constitutes both a sharpening offocus and a step up in ambition. [Feb 2011, p.99]

It's hard to shake the feeling that this return to decay-drenched digital rock is the sound of Reznor playing to the gallery. [Jun 2005, p.97]

The duo's artfully woven sonic tapestry is somewhat spoiled by the po-faced new age banalities of their lyrics. [Oct 2012, p.74]

Not quite essential, but a neat genre exercise. [Dec 2016, p.30]

the focus on matters of the heart is limiting, reducing the genre to the level of rusticised boy-band pop. [Oct 2012, p.84]

Mudhoney these days, for all their pioneer status, mostly just sound like a regular, decent rock band. [Apr 2006, p.105]

They're feeling the chill of middle age, when a night on the sofa with an M&S ready-meal holds more appeal than feeling like an auntie at the church-hall disco ("I Only Smoke When I Drink," "No Longer Young Enough"), and the wisecracks are harder to pull off. [Jan 2018, p.23]

The duo can't help sounding like they're holding back a little. [Oct 2006, p.99]

No real lost treasure, then, but some interesting baubles. [Apr 2013, p.89]

While Lanegan could sing the Richard Stilgoe songbook and still enthral, there remains a hint of contrivance about Soulsavers' self-consciously cinematic, grungey trip hop. [Sep 2009, p.95]

There's ambition and wit here, and fans of alt.country Texas veterans like The Gourds and Old 97s will find much to admire. [May 2011, p.87]

It's all a very respectable, and closer "P.I.G.S" is great, just slightly disappointing if one had hoped for more than acceptable continuity soundtracks. [Jun 2010, p.90]

The promising flourishes of "Burn It Down" and "Explosions" give way to "Meteorites" and "Is This A Breakdown," mediocre indie rock plods. [Jun 2014, p.75]

It finds her singing in an appealing vibrato somewhere between Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks. Her Aesthetic, though, is a million miles from the lacquered gloss of either as she delivers her lyrics of desperate melancholia over a raw, all-hope-is-gone sound which conjures the emotional brutality of Tonight's The Night. [Feb 2011, p.99]

The album sounds like one good idea stretched out to a meandering and repetitive 40 minutes. [Oct 2016, p.32]