"He doesn't study his record collection, he plays with it like a little boy playing with toy soldiers - and it's this sense of uninhibited delight that animates Adams' magnum opus, an effortlessly ambitious and seductive 70-minute epic of an album that begs to be divided into quarters and pressed on two 12-inch slabs of vinyl.
Taking as his primary references points the Band, Dylan and the Rolling Stones circa "Exile on Main Street," Adams continues his fruitful collaboration with Ethan Johns (son of legendary producer-engineer Glyn Johns), who not only nails the sounds of late-'60s/early-'70s recordings but also drums behind the beat like Charlie Watts and revives the lost art of rhythm guitar. With another second-generation ringer, Stephen Stills' boy Chris, on lead guitar, this inspired little combo adds Stax/Volt horn lines here ("Touch, Feel & Lose"), Left Banke harpsichord there ("When the Stars Go Blue") and "Music From Big Pink" textures throughout, while impersonating the Keith Richards-Mick Taylor guitar tandem to startling perfection on the rawkin', raucous "Street Walkin' Blues." While he's at it, the kid also comes up with a fever dream of an art song in "Sylvia Plath" that recalls Leonard Cohen at his most romantic and Randy Newman at his most cinematic. "Gold" secures Adams' place in the post-millennial rock pantheon and contends for album of the year."

(Bud Scoppa, All Music Guide)