“Two tracks from the first The The album that I’ve always thought of as one, because of how they flow together. Although technically, Burning Blue Soul is not a The The album as it was initially released as a Matt Johnson solo album. But nobody really heard it, so after the success of Soul Mining, it got repackaged for a bit of cash-in, which isn’t as bad as it sounds because The The was always pretty much just Matt Johnson anyway. Either way, Burning Blue Soul is a darned fine album, a dense and connected and beautiful flow, even with all the noise and chunks of rusted metal just left lying around — an essential piece of soundtrack from a movie about the ongoing decline and fall of the British Empire that no one’s gotten around to making yet. But they will someday.” (Philip Random)