There is an unassuming brilliance to much that they do and, as ever, We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River is a-bristle with finely-tooled detai.

In ditching the band ethic, they've tapped into the finest folk gothic traditions of death, suffering, misery and hardship and fashioned a paradoxically uplifting, transformative record of extraordinary power. [Album of the Month, Jul 2003, p.110]

This new 2024 remix by Paul Hicks and Dhani Harrison brings the album into greater relief when compared to previous releases: the orchestral arrangements are brought out of the murk, Harrison’s vocals are clearer and sharper, and the album’s peculiar air of dry, ascetic starkness is increased. .... Rather than being driven by a holier-than-thou smugness, this is an album whose wracked, painful honesty and sense of deep disappointment rivals that of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. [Review of the Year 2024, p.42]

Makes you want to chain-smoke while swigging a quart of Jim by the neck and taking agreeable houswives to stud. [Aug 2003, p.110]

Sincerity of intent is one thing. But they've got the music to back it up.... This is Scissor Sisters' first Greatest Hits collection. [Feb 2004, p.70]

Excellent and indispensable. [Sep 2011, p.94]

The Smile Sessions fits into no present-day category, context or franchise. [Nov 2011, p.105]

Not since Lennon howled "Mother" have there been songs as naked and fraught as "Mama Here, Mama Gone" and "March 11 1962." [Jun 2010, p.88]

Laced with enough blue-eyed longing to make the most diehard Gram Parsons fan weep with wonder and the sort of verbal acuity that would give even Dylanologists pause for thought, Elephant is where the tabloid phenomenon of summer 2001 prove they are no flash in the pan by making a truly phenomenal record. [May 2003, p.94]

Audacious cybernetic pirouettes such as "Poison Lips" and "Flashmob" bear the hallmarks of a musician enjoying a purple patch, who is able to caress from his machines a spectrum of emotion that leaves the listener purring with pleasure. [Oct 2009, p.119]

Loveless holds it own as one of the great rock albums, period. [Jun 2012, p.90]

The Brewis brothers may be at odds with the modern world, but in this stunningly realised double album, they've created the ultimate sanctuary.

It's the most extraordinary smorgasbord of styles, moods, modes, a far more daring, jolting record than 2001's Essence. [Album of the Month, May 2003, p.88]

Street entirely avoids DIA’s flinty spectrality and staticky crackle and turns a bright light on the smart, compact and relentlessly exciting arrangements he’s here coaxed from the band.

It would be fanciful, not to mention disrespectful, to say that Morrison has waited his whole career to make this album. But he makes it sound like he has. [Apr 2006, p.96]

I doubt there'll be many better albums released this year. [Jun 2003, p.98]

Hubble bubble! From weird sources and high ideals comes a spooky, sensual piece of pop sorcery. And it's bewitching. [Dec 2009, p. 91]

This year's 'Stankonia.' [Sep 2001, p.96] [Review of UK version]

This is an excellent album that manages to be both a mature summary of an artist’s career and something completely fresh and new.

Much of Suicaine Gratifaction sounded like it had been written in a mood of morose introspection, but Come Feel Me Tremble is brazenly exclamatory. [Jan 2004, p.102]

It is quite simply stunning. [Apr 2022, p.30]

The Libertines is a record of such raw autobiographical honesty that it carries a weight few others in 2004 can match. [Album of the Month, Sep 2004, p.94]

The production is beautifully OTT, with everything stretched and digital, zeroes and ones working binary overtime to warp some of Herrema and Hagerty's greatest anthems into robotic rock mantras. [Feb 2013, p.94]

Josh Pearson has gone there so we don't have to--we should be grateful he's returned to tell the tale. [Apr 2011, p.72]

The Fine Art of Self Destruction is one of those amazing records that appear seemingly out of nowhere... that within a couple of plays sound already like something you've been listening to for years. [Album of the Month, Dec 2002, p.128]

[A] breathtaking, virtually flawless album. [Sep 2002, p.104]

While what was lost with Smith is immeasurable, what he left was amazing, and New Moon is an appropriately spectacular monument. [Jun 2007, p.112]

A unique and unlikely moment of retrieval, restoration and renaissance. [Nov 2004, p.98]