It was as close to an out-of-body experience as I’ve had listening to music in my adult life. I was working for The Times back then, and it was just one of several promo CDs I took with me as I was embarking on a long car journey. By the end of the third song You’re Only Crying For Yourself, I recognised a feeling that hadn’t grabbed me with this intensity since the first time I first heard High Land Hard Rain, aged 14, in 1983. It was something akin to panic – panic that the world beyond this car didn’t know about these songs and that somehow made my reality almost irreconcilably different to everyone else’s. I called my editor on Monday morning and told her that we had to make this our album of the week. And the other thing I remember was that I was so nervous writing my review, the way you would be nervous writing a letter declaring your feelings for someone with whom you had fallen in love. Because I had.

Pete Paphides