Love Over Gold

Pitchfork 8.7/10 In places, Dire Straits sound almost like they were working toward a rock-oriented spin on new-age music, one where the sonics overwhelmed the songwriting.

Rolling Stone 4/5 In a period when most pop music is conceived purely as product, Love Over Gold dares to put art before airplay.

All Music 4/5 Since Mark Knopfler is a skilled, tasteful guitarist, he can sustain interest even throughout the languid stretches, but the long, atmospheric, instrumental passages aren't as effective as the group's tight blues-rock, leaving Love Over Gold only a fitfully engaging listen.

Mojo 5/5 Building on the "making moves" refit of the band's previous album, Knopfler crafted a series of long-form-in-the-studio narratives, a schizophrenic mix of dark romance, flip cynicism and brooding paranoia built around Ed Walsh's menacing synthesizers that seemed to capture early-'80s Britain's dark mood of industrial unease.