Davies’ tune sense is still relatively intact, and he turns out loose melodies amid nimble bar-band grooves. Unfortunately, Davies’ feistiness fades at times, and he lapses into blandness.

The music is beautiful and the vibe mellow, though Merchant gets Dixieland-brassy with Wynton Marsalis and tries some I-Threes-style reggae. But it’s like that My Morning Jacket song about the sexy librarian: You wish she’d let her hair down more.

His emotional delivery drives highlights like ''Millions'' and ''Drugstore Perfume.'' Elsewhere, though, the disc isn’t urgent enough to pack the same punch as Way's best work.

Frontman Stuart Murdoch entreats over a soul groove on B&S' eighth disc, which loads up on Sixties-pop goodies without diluting the group's willowy kink.

Minus usual vocal sidekicks Isobel Campbell and Greg Dulli (who appears briefly on the vintage drum-machine jam "St. Louis Elegy"), Lanegan's chafed baritone works best with bold backdrops.

It can verge on its own kind of formula, but high points are high.

They rarely take these topics [mental health, relationships, addiction, and their faith in God] too far past surface level brushes, resulting in a lot of talking sad and saying nothing.

Mathambo is at best a serviceable singer-rapper, and the record is so all over the place, so mercurial from song to song and even bar to bar, a listener never gets a chance to settle in and grab hold.

Now solo, she's rocking the current micro-vogue for Eighties shoegaze pop: guitar-synth swirls, paper-thin New Wave bass surge, space-waif vocals like a spring breeze that barely billows your window curtains.

They are incapable of shaping a song, teasing out tension, friction or emotional swoop; they're happy to just play it.

The overall effect can be saccharine, but the Concretes' big orchestration and sweet fragility are a winning combo. [19 Aug 2004, p.122]

Yes, it's long on shtick ("Ladies and Gentlemen, emanating from the Secaucus Lounge at the fabulous Fandango hotel, the Bluenotes!" crows an emcee), and the mediocre songs haven't improved.... Most impressive is "Ordinary People," which reappeared in 2007 as the highlight of the latter-day outtake collection Chrome Dreams II; here it's a 12-minute working-class anthem with brass underscoring Young's soaring guitar rock instead of masking it.

The most surprising thing about the record is just how blatantly a group that once skewered conformity in songs like "Suburban Home" brashly embraces nostalgia.

You're advised to ignore the ridiculous plot particulars and concentrate on the album's modest pleasures: chiefly, Plan B's lovely, Smokey Robinson-style tenor and deft melodic touch.

This sprawling album [is] his most solid release since the original Documentary. It's nothing more or less than the complex story of a lifelong hip-hop fan who's happiest when he can see himself as part of the history he embraces so vocally.

Stretching beyond SremmLife, their party-starting choruses are squeaked, squawked and shouted; mellower stuff can get a Makonnen-esque broken falsetto ("Swang"); "By Chance" succeeds with a haughty Dana Dane accent.

Returning a decade later, they're still crushing violent, angular riffs (see the hellacious "Government Trash"), but they're also writing catchier songs that bring out conventional rock influences.

These saccharine tunes and too-cute melodies could desperately use some of the band's old abrasive edge.

More Adventurous sometimes gets too precious, but at its best it achieves a kind of cinematic grace.

There are moments of pop bliss on the Petties' latest to rival their Eighties hits. [Feb 2020, p.85]

Pleasant but uninspiring. [9 Mar 2006, p.90]

Vapor Trails is Rush's most focused effort in many years, thanks to a renewed emphasis on songwriting.

In the end, Diamandis can't quite shape Froot into a coherent vision.

Bachmann employs his band sparingly as he rambles on in his trademark croak and empties the ashtray of his brain.

Titles aren't exactly subtle ("Murderess," "Last Mistress"), even if the twin-guitar jams are opaque.

Despite opening big, bright and airtight, I Like It When You Sleep... gets boring-melty during dream-gaze reveries like "Please Be Naked" and "Lostmyhead." Even so, when they hit the right kind of moody sheen ("Somebody Else," "Loving Someone"), the 1975 are an enjoyable balance of desire and distraction.

Their third album deepens the rockist intentions with a track called "Heavy Metal" and a sound that's like Spoon or Fountains of Wayne dipped in distracted keyboard/noise-guitar ooze.

On The Double Cross--the title is a sly reference to their 20 year career--they play to their strengths with a succinct set of tunes that seamlessly blend the sensibilities of the band's four distinct songwriters.