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

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.

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.

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.

An album of dull, vocal virtuoso ballads.

For the uninitiated, they churn out a joyless mess of badly tuned indie guitar, spasmodic jazz drumming and cutesy vocalisations, and on 'O'Malley, Former Underdog' they overlay this with irritating electronica that is reminiscent of the noise your discman makes when your mobile phone is in the same pocket.

You can smell the impotent melodic desperation a mile off.

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.

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

As welcome as emphysema.

Like most of the cities Doves sing about, these songs are grey, drizzly, often unpleasant, and more often than not... very, very dull.

A very slickly produced record that's practically unlistenable.

There are many more interesting artists out there doing the kind of thing Jamie does with more panache and originality with voices that don't make me want to throw myself under an underground train, but they're not from Wimbledon.

Someone should put Blink 182 out of their misery.

If The Delays had succeeded in making the latter five-sixths of their debut as wondrous as the first portion, they could be credited with fair miracles.

About as boring as a record can be.

So while Hamilton Leithauser believes he's made a record comparable to the legendary 'The Basement Tapes', it seems almost churlish to point out that you'd be far better off digging out a copy of 'The Basement Tapes' and listening to it, than going out and purchasing 'A Hundred Miles Off' and listening to it once.

A rather predictable and mundane package.

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

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

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.

This air of superiority is pervasive on 'Our Earthly Pleasures', which is a pity when you consider contemporaries such as Franz Ferdinand can do clever without it getting in the way of the fact all they're really doing is making good pop records.

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.

Listen to this record and you realise that by comparison, Robbie Williams does actually have some soul. And if that's not a damning indictment of one of the most execrable records you're likely to hear this decade, I don't know what is.

What we're offered here is pretty much a second take on the discordant beeps, Mani-ripped basslines and lazy hip hop breaks of their first album, with the addition of some hideously nipped and tucked string samples padding out their attempted lyrical bravado.

Yes, 'Don't Believe The Truth' is an improvement on the trilogy of folly that is 'Be Here Now', 'Heathen Chemistry' and 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants'. But so what? Can't polish a turd, you know.

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.

With each track they descend further into the mire.