Various Artists - Volume 17 (CD)

All Music Guide

This Fifth Birthday Bumper Bonanza includes brand new and unreleased tracks by Elastica (the only OK "Love Like Ours" is their return), Cocteau Twins ("Touch Upon Touch" is pure shimmering excellence), Divine Comedy, Longpigs, Throwing Muses, Fruit (Patrick Fitzgerald, ex-Kitchens of Distinction; that now-split-up band's drummer Dan Goodwin also appears on this track), Elvis Costello (covering Sleeper acoustic, great), Auteurs, Bettie Serveert, Björk, Rare (with ex-Undertones/That Petrol Emotion guitarist Sean O'Neill), Morphine, the reunited Curve, and 18 others, many of them electronic dance music outfits. Though most of the bands fail to give away their best stuff (Costello and Cocteus aside), you also get the full, 192-page, quality magazine containing long, astute interviews with all the above, of course

- Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover, All Music Guide