Complete third

"... Complete Third reveals that this wasn't a Syd Barrett-esque chronicling of psychosis in the studio, but a carefully crafted work of art. In some ways, Third was Chilton living out the old axiom about art and how it is only ever abandoned, never completed. Perhaps, then, it was regret that kept Chilton from ever really going back to this record. Either way, what he made was something truly special, right from the very beginning".

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"Best new reissue" - "Big Star's never-completed third album is enshrined in a triple-disc box that contains all known recordings from the 1974 sessions and finally makes sense of all the chaos ... Perhaps Third was, as Jim Dickinson claimed, the sound of decomposition. But by presenting the demos, working sessions and final mixes in order, Complete Third makes plain that far from being an unwieldy jumble, Alex Chilton meant to have Third sound as tortured, haunting and beautiful as the darkest moments of the soul".

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"Big Star's cult masterpiece is the sound of disintegration, of things falling apart - and of Alex Chilton's drug-fuelled lurch away from the powerpop of Big Star's first two albums ... What Complete Third shows is that the increasingly troubled Chilton arrived in the studio with finished songs, not sketches - and the atmosphere of chaos and fractured menace was wholly intentional, worked up in the studio and abetted by Dickinson".

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