This is light years away from Lou Reed's last live album from the seventies, Rock & Roll Animal. Here we have a kinder, gentler Lou in a predominantly acoustic setting. Being Lou Reed, the songs are usually strong, but this album eschews the harder moments of Reed's catalogue like "Heroin," "White Light/White Heat," and "Sweet Jane" for some of the more quiet fare. Reed does a quiet devotional take on "I'll Be Your Mirror," a sweetly rapturous performance of "Perfect Day" and the pointed social commentary of "Dirty Blvd."

There are three new songs, all culled from Reed's new unproduced musical version of H.G. Well's The Time Machine, which are also pretty laid back, with only the Velvetish "Into The Divine" working up any froth at all, but even it sounds like the type of tune that Reed could put together in his sleep. Perfect Night could just as well be called A Rock & Roll Animal Grows Up. Not that there's anything wrong with that.  (6/98)