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]

Exhaustive box set. ... Very much like a portrait artist will make numerous sketches, so we see the evolution of these songs as Bowie rewrites lyrics, improves melodies, tweaks arrangements, each stage an improvement on the previous. [Jan 2023, p.94]

Astounding... More even than his Exile On Main St., this is Tom Waits' Basement Tapes. [Dec 2006, p.104]

This is a thoughtful, artfully curated release that furthers the artists' reputation. [Aug 2025, p.93]

Dream River may be Callahan's most beguiling album yet. [Oct 2013, p.89]

If you're the kind of listener who has come to associate outtakes from classic albums with meagre, dryly forensic spoils, prepare to be very pleasantly surprised by Disc 3.... Rumours reminds us why we should continue to indulge them. [Mar 2013, p.100]

Sparely and intuitively performed, it's simply excellent. [Aug. 2011, p. 94]

there are shivers galore on this box. [Jan 2020, p.96]

It's the sound of a band at the absolute peak if its powers. [Jul 2015, p.100]

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]

Like Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man's Out Of Season, say I'm A Harmony operates on a different plane. [Dec 2017, p.93]

The Magic Numbers have made one of the records--perhaps the record--that 2005 is destined to be remembered for. [Jul 2005, p.110]

A magnificent record. [Jan 2004, p.104]

The seething, sweat-drenched yet shiny Doolittle is the complete package--and still a reason to believe. [Jan 2015, p.108]

The parallel blossoming of a writer and performer climaxes in two discs of Dylan's October 26, 1963 show at Carnegie Hall, the apotheosis of the vibrating imagery and magnetic command of his breakthrough phase, where Ballad Of Hollis Brown is a demonic spell but in truth every damn song is a transcendence. Who needs electricity? [Dec 2025, p.92]

Dry Cleaning have lost none of their distinctive edge, their idiosyncratic set-up proving to be endlessly elastic, as big as they want, as small as they need, 
to capture the chaos of the world. No hidden messages here: Secret Love is a wonderful record.

This is long-form drone perfection. [Sep 2019, p.91]

It's remarkable how organic and right (as opposed to gimmicky) the church voices sound on these 14 melodic folk, spare soul and various-tempo blues songs. [Apr 2006, p.98]

Even Russell's most intimate recordings could make him feel like a phantom; as details are filled in, the phantom expands. [Aug 2023, p.94]

Brooklyn duo deliver shock psychedelic masterpiece. [May 2010, p. 96]

It sears through the essence of what makes this band special, the brave voice and ebullient delivery of singer-songwriter-guitarist James Mercer. [Apr 2004, p.98]

Who's Next may not have been Pete Townshend's chose destination, but it encapsulates The Who better than anything before or since. It's the art=school provocateur, the bare-chested rock god and their virtuoso, brandy-soaked rhythm section at their peak. [Nov 2023, p.96]

Songs terrific, band sensational, and -- big plus -- Costello's voice late-developing way beyond that pinched whine into an instrument of substance and character. [Oct 2004, p.97]

From experimental to twisted pop, drill to R&B, techno to Ambient, James draws a precise and brilliant musical Venn diagram. [Jul 2021, p.87]

Life Is People is superb. [Sep 2012, p.84]

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]

Some of the best songs he's written since Heartbreaker. [Jan 2004, p.98]

Smilers is a masterpiece from a songwriter who's quietly chronicling the blanched last days of a sunshine empire. [July 2008, p.112]