Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Oct 30, 2013Musically speaking it’s a marvel.
-
Oct 23, 2013Though already condemned by Van himself, there's much to appreciate about this 4-CD expanded edition of one of the greatest albums ever recorded. It's fascinating to follow the development of a track such as "Caravan" across half a dozen takes.
-
Oct 23, 2013A good “deluxe” remaster job will do at least two things: one, it’ll strip away centuries of digital compression and make the music sound as if you’ve never heard it properly before; two, it’ll include additional material that gives insight into how the finished work was shaped. Moondance delivers on both counts.
-
Classic Rock MagazineOct 25, 2013While the remastering is a major improvement on previous CD releases, it is the session discs that are of most interest to anyone who grew up with this timeless record. [Nov 2013, p.101]
-
Oct 23, 2013"Here we go to the main course!" ad-libs Van Morrison on an extended "Caravan," one of the shaggy outtakes on this five-disc unpacking of the Belfast bard's 1970 jazzy-pop masterpiece. That LP is nearly all main course, and if the numerous alternate takes here often feel incomplete without their sublime, brassy final arrangements, they compensate with intimacy.
-
MojoOct 23, 2013[The 50 outtakes] are not fore the casual listener.... The big find is the rambunctious Mardi Gras party-style I Shall Sing, a small 1974 hit for Art Garfunkel but never released by Morrison until now; Van unsurprisingly give the tune a more soulful treatment. [Nov 2013, p.98]
-
Oct 25, 2013Yes, it’s fascinating at times to be a witness to the meticulous construction of great music, but the contents of this boxset feel a mite desperate, rather than generous, and the flabbiness of its 11-minute jams is entirely inappropriate for an album that famously doesn’t contain an ounce of fat.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 14 out of 16
-
Mixed: 0 out of 16
-
Negative: 2 out of 16
-
Mar 20, 2020
-
Apr 18, 2014