The songs are beautiful in ways only Ray Davies can achieve, but the album's scattered feel keeps it from being more than the sum of its parts.
All this started as three friends talking about music, and it remains just that - a shared exploration, which we now want to share with you.
Inconsistent, but there's a lot to dig. The songwriting is hard to knock, and Damon Albarn leads the pack well with his social satires and cutting commentary.
Quite simply one of the greatest anti-war albums of all time. In this current political climate its significance has only increased.