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- MojoNov 4, 2025Her reading of Anthem makes Leonard Cohen’s hymn to resilience and resistance feel like a bespoke gift from another writer who knew about life in the shadows. .... It’s as that distant flickering light, illuminating the path to better times, that Staples excels. [Dec 2025, p.76]
- Nov 12, 2025One needn’t be familiar with her storied biography to appreciate the richness of her vocals. The Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award winner continues to inspire with her performances. If anything, she’s only getting better with age—although she’s always been one of our best artists.
- UncutNov 4, 2025Cook puts Staples right at the front of the mix, accentuating her voice to the point where it's like she's whispering in the listener's ear. [Dec 2025, p.37]
- Classic Rock MagazineDec 5, 2025Nathaniel Rateliff serves up a heavenly cloud of backing vocals on Beautiful Strangers. And while Eddie Hinton's Everybody Needs Love sounds a little trite written down, spiced by a Bonnie Raitt slide solo it's irresistible. [Jan 2026, p.79]
- Nov 13, 2025All in all Sad and Beautiful World is another always welcome collection of Staples’ mastery and it’s very much in evidence that she remains at the top of her game.
- Nov 7, 2025It's no surprise that Staples puts as much of herself into the rest of the songs. The selections span over 60 years, and in most cases suit Staples as much as those who first recorded them.
- Nov 6, 2025It's a bravura performance from all concerned; for all the album's unquestionable strengths, you may wish for a drop more of the same raw sawdust-kicking passion and bite during some of the more restrained proceedings that follow.
- Nov 4, 2025Cook does a great job of keeping the focus on Mavis. None of the guest spots are intrusive. In fact, it’s only the slide guitar parts from Bonnie Raitt or Derek Trucks that are attention-getting. The overall effect is that of Mavis, a living saint and the voice of empathy, leading the hushed gathering in prayer, best evidenced in her take on Curtis Mayfield’s “We Got To Have Peace.”
- Record CollectorNov 4, 2025Her voice may sound a little deeper and more gravelly and her delivery might be punctuated with a few more breaths at times, but there's no denying her command and power. [Dec 2025, p.100]
- Nov 4, 2025Staples transforms disparate material across genres and decades — some well known standards, some semi-obscure originals — into her most powerful statement as a solo artist in more than a decade.
