| 100 |
Observer Music Monthly
Virtually every song sounds like a leave-taking, though the overall mood is reflective and restrained, in places almost easy-going.
|
| 100 |
Stylus Magazine
It could be the soundtrack to death, love, pain, strength, joy, suffering, courage, despair, and faith all at the same time.
|
| 100 |
NOW Magazine
As with his last couple of releases in the American series, his voice no longer commands attention with booming authority, but there's something about that gasping frailty that makes this proud final bow even more endearing.
|
| 93 |
Filter
A hefty team was assembled to do this right... and do it right they do. [#21, p.93]
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
If this is, as Rubin has said, ''Johnny's final statement''... then it is a fitting one, completely representative of the faithful old man he had become, having long ago shed his outlaw image no matter how often others tried to resaddle him with it.
|
| 90 |
New Musical Express
Thank you very much, Mr Rubin--The Man In Black is still with us. [1 Jul 2006, p.36]
|
| 90 |
Paste Magazine
From beginning to end, it's as heartwarming and heartbreaking an album as you're likely to hear this year. [Aug 2006, p.86]
|
| 80 |
Spin
Though his delivery veers between strength and frailty, he's in full control. [Aug 2006, p.83]
|
| 80 |
Uncut
Unsurprisingly, American V is the most desolate of the series, bereft of the moments of playfulness that leavened its predecessors. [Aug 2006, p.92]
|
| 80 |
musicOMH.com
It is put together with a huge degree of dignity and respect that makes it the perfect swansong for the Man In Black.
|
| 80 |
Q Magazine
It makes a dignified final addition to the American Recordings series. [Aug 2006, p.109]
|
| 80 |
Rolling Stone
It's a hard record to bear, but it's a deep one.
|
| 80 |
Drowned In Sound
A fitting eulogy.
|
| 80 |
All Music Guide
Listening to this album, one can't get around the knowledge that it is a posthumous collection made in Cash's last days, but even without that context, it would have much the same impact.
|
| 80 |
The Guardian
V... is actually less tearjerking and portentous than IV.
|
| 78 |
Pitchfork
It's a satisfying and often moving final chapter to Cash's life and career, one that rejects self-pity and remorse in favor of hopefulness and even celebration.
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
You never heard a sadder album than American V.
|
| 75 |
cokemachineglow
It’s a pleasant collection, comfortably consolidated and comfortably nice, despite the lack of anything earth-shattering.
|
| 75 |
Los Angeles Times
If the force-of-nature power of his prime is often missing, in its place is an undeniable resolve and faith in his mission. [25 Jun 2006]
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
The music isn't afraid to call for tears, but it does so through understatement. Cash's voice is always exposed, whether it's full-toned or faltering, and most of the tracks are folky and reverent, placing measured finger-picking above churchy chords.
|
| 70 |
PopMatters
If A Hundred Highways had kicked off Cash’s American resurgence, it might have been greeted as a minor release, a nice offering by an artist who was in his sunset years.
|
| 70 |
Billboard
Perhaps the most intimate of an intimate series.
|
| 70 |
Amazon.com
The songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices.
|
| 70 |
Blender
Some selections are heartwrenching... But others bear the stain of sentimentality, denial, even exploitation. [Jul 2006, p.98]
|
| 70 |
Dot Music
This is not a 'commercial' release, at least not in the commonly construed meaning of the word. If you had to be picky, you could say that nothing has the impact of that cover of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" or Nick Lowe's "The Beast In Me". But that's beside the point.
|
| 70 |
Mojo
The dignity and sharp poetic instincts on American V are all classic Cash. [Aug 2006, p.89]
|
| 70 |
ShakingThrough.net
No one expects an album full of songs about death to be fun, but overall this set feels more ponderous than it should.
|
| 67 |
E! Online
This set of songs comes with a chill of morbidity that's hard to shake.
|
| 60 |
Under The Radar
Highways is a far cry from what made this now deceased legend eternal. [#14]
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