A five-star album or a resplendent one?

For decades, Stereo Review, which is now Sound & Vision, had a quirky review system.  Instead of giving an album a concrete rating, such as a letter grade, a 1-10 rating, or a number of stars, the magazine would summarize each album with two adjectives.  One adjective applied to the performance; the other applied to the album's sound quality.  Although a review below the adjectives elaborated on the album's strengths and weaknesses, it was interesting to make a listening or purchasing decision based upon such at-a-glance adjectives as "resplendent" or "lugubrious."  (Reviewers used those two adjectives, among many, in the Classical music section, where the descriptions were especially imaginative.)  Eventually, the magazine started rating recordings on a one-to-five star scale.  That's handier for the listener, but every now and then, I'll read a review and think, "It would be quite a compliment to the artist to see this recording rated as 'gripping' or 'intoxicating.'  That's a summary you wouldn't find in just any publication."