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

A willfully dumb concoction of crotch-grabbing Southern rock workouts and boneheaded strip-joint anthems. [Dec 2007, p.121]

A risible attempt to recapture long-vanished glories. [Nov 2007, p.137]

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

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

This is hollow, pretentious and deeply dull music. [Apr 2007, p.116]

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

There are no real songs here, only weak gags and unfunny skits. [Jan 2007, p.152]

A serious let-down. [Oct 2006, p.119]

A hideous mess of electro noodling and maddeningly obtuse, tuneless vocals. [May 2006, p.126]

An excruciating listen. [May 2006, p.129]

With each mid-tempo riff swamped by syrupy harmonies and machine-tooled strings, this is metal with the edges filed down and all the soul sucked out. [May 2006, p.128]

So migraine-inducing that the Crazy Frog would seem like light relief. [May 2006, p.129]

It's marooned in novelty. [Apr 2005, p.121]

Three tracks in you realise with horror that [it] is a concept album. Worse, it's a concept album of kitchen-sink dramas about Tony The Milkman and Doris The Housewife set to Saint Etienne's dated indie disco. [Jul 2005, p.120]

Contains far too many bland ballads. [Feb 2006, p.105]

Children moan, accordions groan and Bjork's disembodied voice occasionally growls into earshot. [Sep 2005, p.114]

Some rather ordinary, slightly tuneless indie rock. [Jul 2005, p.112]

As bland as paint. [May 2005, p.110]

Musically, it sucks. [Feb 2005, p.98]

As worthless as it's possible for music to be. [Feb 2005, p.100]

Alas, they're not very good. [Feb 2005, p.102]

Miserable and insipid. [Dec 2004, p.130]

A disappointment. [Nov 2004, p.124]

The feel is of youngish bucks cruelly taunting their 64-year-old granny. [Nov 2004, p.127]

The actual effect... is closer to a whinier Duran Duran, with even their slapped bass-driven grooves hobbled by the paper-thin production. [Apr 2005, p.124]

Half-written, overproduced songs collide with grandiose ideas, and the self-indulgence is astonishing as sounds and samples appear with little grace. [Aug 2004, p.116]

[They] continue precisely where they left off on 2002's Static Delusions..., bashing their way through 11 indistinguishable songs without recourse to wit, style or tune. [Jul 2004, p.112]