★★★★★
Holed up in the Cotswolds as the 80s dawned, Steve Winwood created his second solo album in solitude, if only to avoid the organic sound of Traffic. Seeking a new techno-savvy mood, Winwood aimed himself at a different crowd: the coke and car keys set, who wanted a soundtrack for oblivion. Except Winwood couldn't quite go there...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
In lieu of the usual assortment of outtakes and alternate recordings, only a small array of which appear on this deluxe edition of Steve Winwood's Arc of a Diver, the two CD set includes a BBC Radio documentary which follows a customary blueprint of interspersing scripted intros to interviews of peers including brother Muff and co-musicians such as the late, long-time Traffic collaborator Jim Capaldi...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-01-14
★★★★★
Can any other musician of a similarly lengthy career claim to have such a hiccup-free CV as Winwood? Granted, his most recent work doesn't quite reach the dizzy heights of yore, but the wealth of his past triumphs suggest we should forgive him for easing off the pedal slightly as he cruises into his 60s...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2010-12-21
★★★★★
Sound: Throughout his 40-year-plus career, Steve Winwood has learned to reinvent himself. Sure, he's not doing it quite as blatantly as Madonna, but you've got to give the man credit for adapting with the times. He's covered jazz-based rock with Traffic, a bluesier take on the genre with Blind Faith, and in the '80s struck it big as a Top 40 staple. So what does Winwood do in 2008...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
Combined with Stomu Yamashta's ersatz electronic classicism on Go, Winwood's chronic meandering seemed vaguely interesting. On its own again, it just seems vague.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-11-29
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-11-29
★★★★★
What can you expect of a man who could have sung like Ray Charles and chose instead to follow in the voiceprints of Jack Bruce? Classy arena-rock, that's what, redolent at its best of his fellow studio obsessives in Steely Dan, only never as smart, and at its worst more like REO Speedwagon...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-11-29
★★★★★
Winwood hasn't been a song artist since Dave Mason left Traffic, but at least here he takes responsibility for his own atmospherics. Instead of consorting with Ijahman or Stomu Yamashta, he's laid down this lulling British-international groove all by himself. Overdubbing, the technique is called. Very up-to-date.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-11-29
★★★★★
Launched on a chart-certified comeback, he tries to consolidate his gains by writing songs instead of tripping over them the way he did with "While You See a Chance." Somebody throw a synthesizer at that man's ankles.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-11-29
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