"Best New Reissue" - "The Elements is a sort of concept album-its four tracks are titled "Fire," "Air," "Water," and "Earth." The music is an unusual assemblage of open-ended blowing, loping funk, and drone, with a heavy emphasis on sounds and scales from North Africa, the Middle East, and India ... There are no earth-shattering solos, no star turns, every musician is there to create this primordial sound-world. This collective approach is something Alice Coltrane did particularly well. Spiritually-minded cosmic jazz came into its own at the turn of the '70s, and this is one of the best albums the scene produced".