There is no better evocation of the dawn of a new, more questing consciousness than Joni's early albums.... Unfortunately, Joni's Jazz Odyssey leads her into less agreeable territory on the double-album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus, the tribute album of songs co-written with the late Charles Mingus.

For all the stray premonitions of patchouli-scented funk-rock, these are less jazz-rock meltdowns and more muscular free improv sessions, ones which suggest a very different direction from Bitches Brew. [Mar 2013, p.89]

You may well own these already, but the value of this collection is as a portrait of the artist through time, and a compilation of the irresistible outpourings of a man who never really knew who he was. [Nov 2013, p.83]

It may be the most accurate representation of her vision yet, a singular blend of abrasively charming feel-bad noir rock. [Jan 2024, p.28]

This set is a confirmation and welcome addition to the catalogue of recorded Alice Coltrane music and spiritual jazz. [May 2024, p.48]

This is Cheap Trick at their purest: a fierce, streamlined rock'n'roll gang. [Feb 2023, p.44]

Does the reissue/repacking thing properly. Forty years after they kicked-off post-punk in a blaze of punk, funk and revolutionary praxis, Gang of Four bow out with a box that deserves a place in the history books. [Apr 2021, p.38]

Beyoncé's seventh solo album is a flawlessly structured feast. [Oct 2022, p.25]

An inspired left turn. [Oct 2023, p.25]

The relative brevity of these four pieces permits an easier engagement with their approach, with the way these three remarkable musicians, while working at their own pace on every level, continue to explore a sound-world and a collective methodology entirely of their own conception. [Mar 2023, p.18]

This is a thoughtful, empathetic showcase of his interests, of intense feelings translated into a dreamy sonic atmosphere. It’s an album that meets the world in its moment, where global issues and far-flung international voices are more amplified and connected than ever.

What are we left with? A handful of wonderful "new" songs, some interesting also-rans and alternative choices, and the sobering realisation an entirely different double album from The River: a work not quite of equal quality, but still of a remarkable standard. [Jan 2016, p.86]

Freshness shines through on this vivacious eight-track recording of 17 songs, here reproduced in flawless quality – all analogue, promises Young, who mixed the record with Stills. It sounds like a dream. [Dec 2024, p.47]

Blue Weekend is a collection of songs that immediately dazzle, with a relentless array of strong hooks, nestled within a sea of diverse sonic colours. [Aug 2021, p.35]

Elitism for the People documents Pere Ubu creating their own private musical apocalypse and then forging in to start the world anew. Not a world to be drowned in, but one to treasure. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Diamond Jubilee feels like the work of an artist operating at the peak of their powers who is able to harness and crystallise all that potency and charge into a record that, on the surface, should be far too large, messy and stretched out to contain such a cohesive body of work. [Jul 2024, p.36]

He also plays an agreeably skronky, Jeff-Beck-style electric on several tracks, but it's when unplugged that Lage is at his most extraordinary. [Apr 2024, p.38]

Tribe carry their burdens as lightly as they did on rap landmarks such as People's Instinctive Travels and The Low-End Theory. [Feb 2017, p.38]

Mesmerising stuff. [Jun 2007, p.99]

Summerteeth captures the band as they shed the last vestiges of their alt-country beginnings and introduce the ingredients that would catch fire on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. [Dec 2020, p.53]

As ever with such pumped up reissues, the original album is still where the value does or doesn't lie. Most of Quadrophenia has stood the test of the decades better than might be expected. [Dec 2011, p.97]

An extraordinary achievement. [Album of the Month, Aug 2005, p.86]

This companion volume of archives gives us an opportunity to hear the roads not taken, the hesitations, to feel the jeopardy at each artistic crossroads and experience the risk and wonder of the journey anew. Across seven hours, six discs and 98 tracks, this is an astonishing bounty. [Nov 2024, p.44]

A kaleidoscopic trawl through formative memories, cascading with melody and intimate reminiscence. [Apr 2015, p.83]

He tells a sad story but one enlivened by his skills as a guitarist, his expressiveness as a singer and his insights as a lyricist. ... Every song has at least one line that will stop you in your tracks, some songs two or three. [Nov 2021, p.18]

Throughout, their balance of the tense and clanging with the urgently poppy is impeccable. [Feb 2015, p.76]

What strikes you is the sheer variety of styles and textures that Keenan and Cargill were playing around with. It’s a shimmering patchwork of ideas and moments, some more realised than others, some beautiful, some stark. .... Spell Blanket is a glimpse at what might have been. A memory of the future. [May 2024, p.42]

It's an embarrassment of riches. [Nov 2023, p.40]