Sleeve: On the front, haunted, diffident Drake looms out of a forest clearing (even glummer variation on cover for 1994's superior Way To Blue retrospective). More wood on back: Nick's college tuck box.

Sleevenotes: Gentle hymn of praise to the John Keats of doomed English folk rock by Time Out's

Peter Paphides.

Content: Fifteen selections from three fatalistic, melancholic Sixties/Seventies albums and this year's collection of outtakes, demos and remixes, Made To Love Magic

High points: River Man, Northern Sky, Fruit Tree, all pastoral nirvana.

Low point: Yet another "definitive best of" turns out not to be so.

Glaring omissions? Time Has Told Me, Time Of No Reply, One Of These Things First, Things Behind The Sun.

Anything new? Original Robert Kirby string arrangement of Magic, from Made To Love Magic

Justified or feeble excuse for release? Cynical grave robbing.

Where might this end up at Christmas? Lonesome as discarded wrapping paper.

Updated: 08:59 Thursday, December 23, 2004