This album was Williams' breakthrough, with excellent songs.... A 20-track bonus CD offers a 14-song live set from that time and some very nice radio performances. [Mar 2014, p.105]

It's hard to imagine a more comprehensive collection from such an important group. [Dec 2016, p.98]

Both of these albums twisted machines to Radiohead's will, to their need to hear soulful songs singing in their wires. And they're resonating still. [Dec 2021, p.102]

The empathy between the four is palpable. [Jun 2003, p.113]

The gold standard rock double LP, Ladyland now boasts 12 solo demos, eight studio outtakes (notably the stunning Angel Caterina, alias 1983), plus a September '68 Hollywood Bowl show. [Dec 2018, p.104]

Rich in sonic detail à la ’90s Outkast, ’00s Roots and present day Flying Lotus (whose fluid bassist Thundercat performs another star turn), Lamar undercuts his densely layered messages with acerbic ruminations on his newfound celebrity status that may prove polarising, but are never less than enthralling.

It still vibrates with Warren Ellis's ominous, cosmic-radiation synthesizers and loops, but Ghosteen is less tightly coiled and knotted. ... Cave finds a way to reach out, and reach through. [Dec 2019, p.87]

Ultimately, The Band raised all stakes, and a half-century later, musicians are still striving for its excellence. [Jan 2020, p.90]

This 4-CD box is the monument to both the cult and the art. And it's great. [Oct 2009, p.117]

The live disc's souped-up version of Drive notwithstanding, what comes across is that AFTP is at heart a sublime collection of folks songs. ... A winning package. [Dec 2017, p.103]

It's stunningly polished new take on their heavy concept album. [Nov 2025, p.98]

Siamese Dream is full of bombastic romanticism and undiminished power. [Feb 2012, p.108]

The Who Sell Out still remains fresh 53 years after its original release, and is thus worthy of this lavish and careful archive treatment. [Jun 2021, p.97]

As Hear My Song proves, she was never about the standard. An inability to rein herself in, to be anything other than Laura Nyro, remains the hallmark of her stop-start career. [Feb 2024, p.92]

If Guthrie sometimes plods wearily, betweenwhiles you get a hot stew of the laconic anger and irony that inspired the Seeger-Dylan-Springsteen-Bragg-and-beyond heritage. [Dec 2013, p.101]

Even though it'll never be fully completed, Smile is a welcome time capsule from an unrepeatable moment in popular culture. [Dec 2011, p.106]

The recovering dope fiend's songs cut even closer to the heart. [Aug 2013, p.104]

Crafting a sound that incorporates stinky Funkadelic psych with Prince harmonics and Rick James' pimp disco, this is hip hop with the power to convert even the most reactionary nonbelievers. [Jan 2001, p.107]

A return to fundamentals closest in kin to Lamar’s 2012 debut, proving that, questionable sleeve design aside, he’s in imperious form.

The quantity and quality of the songs they have unearthed that didn't make it onto Deja Vu is pretty amazing. [Jun 2021, p.99]

It's more of what we know, which should suit Metallica heads just fine. [Dec 2017, p.105]

More evidence of the vast scope of his artistic vision. What’s extraordinary is how it continues to expand, containing multitudes no one else thought of.

Black Messiah is an exquisite realisation of what D’Angelo does best.

[Inyo] As a standalone release, like SOPS [Streets Of Philadelphia Sessions] and LA Garage Sessions '83, this would rank among Springsteen's best. [Aug 2025, p.88]

Finds her super-brassy, minimally-tooled groove machine in peak form. [Oct 2023, p.97]

You don’t need to know how many times and ways Wilco addressed these songs over two years to be dazzled and moved by the madrigal-guitar and astral-piano dance in Muzzle Of Bees, or the jaunty pop-psych bait of Handshake Drugs with its undercurrent of helplessness and allusion to Tweedy’s own battle with prescription medication (soon won through rehab). But it’s an instructive windfall in dedicated experiment and resolve. [Mar 2025, p.94]

Re-contextualises them as an act who wrecked glorious havoc on their unchanging musical parameters for decades. [Aug 2023, p.95]

Though true sub-notes of contemplation are hard to find in Noel’s initial tranche of songs, there’s vulnerability in his solo version of Half The World Away recorded live in a Tokyo hotel room on September 16, 1994, as Oasis madness spiralled in earnest. It’s this expanded edition’s one true unreleased gem. [Jun 2014, p.102]