"After a spell of middling albums - the previous really satisfying set was 1982's Tug Of War - Paul McCartney was clearly determined to make Flowers In The Dirt a return to form ... enlisting a spikey sparring partner, this time Elvis Costello ... Discs two and three here are given over to their two demo sessions, properly mastered. The first ranks among the strongest post- Beatle solo work out there - acoustic, raw reminders of his undiminished melodic and vocal prowess. Indicative of the quality on offer is an impassioned, stripped-back The Lovers That Never Were, on which there's a real sense of the partnership clicking and that makes the official version (from 1993's Off The Ground) sound rather phoned in".