[Laura Nyro's admirers] refer most often to the extraordinary "New York Tendaberry" … as the possible apotheosis of her particular genius and radical musical vision.

A dark and violent and often forbidding album, "New York Tendaberry" measures with a graphic intensity the extremes of addiction and private despair….

["Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat"] largely surrendered the anguish of "New York Tendaberry."

The mood of "Christmas," it will be noticed, is less victimised, more a celebration of her victory over the self-destructive forces she had so traumatically exorcised….

Now we have "Nested"; a superb and generally enthralling return to the kind of inspiration that so charged those original records of the late Sixties and early Seventies. The immediate comparison is, I suspect, with "Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat"; there is here a similar balance of introspection and exuberant celebration, the same melodic authority and confidence.

Simultaneously, it shares...