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“Lord of Lords, released in 1973, was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! It was the final part of a trilogy that began with Universal Consciousness and continued with the expansive World Galaxy. Like its immediate predecessors, the album features a 16-piece string orchestra that Coltrane arranged and conducted, fronted by a trio in which she plays piano, Wurlitzer organ, harp, and timpani with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ben Riley. Riley was familiar with the setting because he had been part of the sessions for World Galaxy.” – All Music

“The last of those albums, 1972’s Lord of Lords, is now being reissued on vinyl by Superior Viaduct and it may be the most ecstatic record she made. The music—unnerving, slow-building, a throbbing organism of sound—is cosmically cinematic. Lord of Lords was the final and most fully realized installment in a trio of albums—the others are 1971’s Universal Consciousness and 1972’s World Galaxy—that put Coltrane’s jagged orchestral arrangements alongside her dark, rumbling piano, arpeggiated harp, and Wurlitzer organ. (Bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ben Riley are relegated to the sidelines.) These works represent a radical turn away from Coltrane’s previous records, which for the most part operated very much in line—stylistically and spiritually—with the kind of modal, swing-oriented jazz popularized by her husband and occasional bandmate, John, who died in 1967.” – Pitchfork

“This record, her last for Impulse!, finds Coltrane bringing her universal sound to a string orchestra. Here, her band is the same throughout, with Charlie Hayden on the bass and Ben Riley on drums. The uniformity of the band, and the size of the orchestra, gives Lord of Lords a more settled feel than Universal Consciousness, though it is no less wandering and expansive. But where its predecessor threw fits of joy, kicked up dust with its fiery dance, Lord of Lords soars.The sheer breadth of this sound is staggering, and the way it places the formal orchestral parts alongside Coltrane's experimentalism sounds remarkably fluid. To hear the dramatic phrasings of the orchestra, coming in powerful rundowns on tracks like "Andromeda's Suffering", rolling over Riley's heavy cymbal clanging and Coltrane's own vibrant starts and stops is as impressive as it is unsettling.” – Pop Matters

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