Personnel: Lou Reed (vocals, guitar, percussion); Mike Rathke (guitar); Laurie Anderson (electric violin); Jane Scarpantoni (cello); Doug Wieselman (tenor & baritone saxophones); Paul Shapiro (tenor saxophone); Steve Bernstein (trumpet); Fernando Saunders (bass, background vocals); Tony "Thunder" Smith (drums, percussion, background vocals); Don Alias (percussion). Recorded at Sear Sound, New York, New York. Lou Reed's first album of the 2000 decade is one of the strongest efforts of his solo career--an unflinching, plain-spoken meditation on jealousy, lust, and the general state of affairs between men and women. ECSTASY sounds like vintage Lou. The bass, drums and guitar are there, but the songs are unfailingly catchy, stylistically varied (the title song is a bossa nova) and more harmonically sophisticated than usual. The extra instrumental touches around the edges--'60s soul horns on "Tatters," Laurie Anderson's electric violin on "Mad"--register with maximum impact. Velvet Underground fans will be delighted to hear that the album's centerpiece, "Like a Possum," is an 18-minute, two-chord fuzz guitar work out; it's probably the most extreme thing Reed's recorded since the original "Sister Ray" on WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT. A triumph.

• Format: Vinyl
• Released: 4/13/2019