Not Much Love for Hole Comeback Album

It's been 12 years—during which frontwoman Courtney Love has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons—since Hole last released an album, and critics are split on whether Nobody's Daughter was worth the wait.

• "With Courtney Love the only original member involved, Hole's return is nominal, but Love's resurrection is very real," writes Phoebe Reilly at Spin, praising a few standout tracks and the lyrics' "seething imagery." She didn't think much of the "pity party" slower number, however.

• Fans of 1994's jarringly authentic Live Through This will be disappointed, writes Amanda Petrusich at Pitchfork. Love has delivered "a forgettable collection of fairly generic, overproduced rock songs that feel, oddly, like a put-on—despite her public meltdowns."
• At 45, Love and her "ravaged growl of a voice" can still "scare the baby-men at the bar—and titillate a few, too," writes Margaret Wappler at the Los Angeles Times.
• Joe Heim at the Washington Post deems Nobody's Daughter a major disappointment. It feels like Love wants to make up for the lost years, he writes, but this album "only reinforces the image of Love as the narcissist, wasteful of her own talent, scornful of others, bitter and vindictive."

(More Hole stories.)