TRC Review in London's Time Out magazine, 5 Dec 2001. (Couldn't find on their website, so here it is...)

Maybe the key line in this record comes in "The Everlasting Now" when, after angrily blaming a godless world for the fall of funk legend Sly Stone and citing 'Accurate Knowledge of Christ and the Father' as the route to all salvation, a cartoon-voiced Prince impersonates his lost audience: 'U know, this is funky but I just wish he'd play like he used 2, old Scagglyhead...' The little fella's still holding a grudge 'cos we preferred the earlier, funny ones.
But what choice do we have when Prince unveils a new hardcore religious concept that dwells on how obedient a woman should be on the title-track opener? Or writes slave-name angst like 'Family Name', which uses stereotypically Jewish names to make a worrying point before trying to cop out with a Martin Luther King speech? Or produces deliciously sexy soul-jazz like 'Muse 2 The Pharaoh' which suddenly slips into a rap insisting that 'The opposite of NATO is OTAN' (???) before making nonsensical and suspect links between 'devils' dressed as light, the Halocaust and 'white jailbait'?
The sleeve sticker tries to hype 'The Rainbow Children' as 'controversial'. Perhaps it would be, if anyone were listening any more. Strangely, the music here is Prince's best since 'Lovesexy'. But it's smothered and scuppered by a thematic angle - Jehovah Witnesses meets The Nation of Islam meets a gabbling nutter at Speakers Corner - which is too much of a mess to define itself, controversially or otherwise. And if that sounds like a bewildered former fan letter a former hero off lightly, then you caught me purple-handed.