Eve --- The Alan Parsons Project --- 1979
This one was a little hard for me, as I'm a huge APP fan and it's difficult to choose a favourite album --- Gaudi, Ammonia Avenue, Eye in the sky, Pyramid, all could have had a chance. But when I look at the totality of the albums and what I don't like about any of the above, there's very little I can say I don't like about Eve, and it flows so well it's almost, but not quite, a concept album.
Their fourth album, it shows the Project just about coming to a zenith, although their big breakthrough would not be for three more years with "Eye in the sky", its instrumental leadin "Sirius", used for some sports over there in the Land of the Free, I believe. On a general theme of women and their influences on men, typified by songs like "You lie down with dogs" and "I'd rather be a man", it features the usual lineup of various vocalists, though is perhaps unique in that one of the tracks is sung by Clare Torry, who the prog-minded among you will recognise as the name and voice behind those amazing
vocalise in "The Great Gig in the Sky".
I'm not going to say every track is gold. There's one I'm not crazy about, and interestingly enough it's the abovementioned one where Torry takes vocal duties. I just find "Don't hold back" a little pedestrian and generic, filler compared to tracks like "You lie down with dogs", "Damned if I do" and "Winding me up". And then there's the hallmark of the APP, superb instrumentals, the first of which, "Lucifer", opens the album in fine style. The closer is another Parsons trademark, the soft rock ballad, but listen to "If I could change your mind" and tell me you're not moved.
I've always found the different vocalists used on Parsons' albums a clever touch, as he seems to get just the right man (or, occasionally as here, woman) for the job: compare David Paton's snarl on "I'd rather be a man" with Chris Rainbow's softer, more melodic and relaxed tone on "Winding me up", or even Lesley Duncan's gentle yet slightly bitter take on the closer. Each vocalist brings their own magic to each particular song, and together they become very much more than the sum of their parts.
Alan Parsons went solo in 1993, ditching the Project name and yet retaining or inviting back many of the bandmembers, though Eric Woolfson, his collaborator for fifteen years and co-founder of the band, split from his partner and pursued his own career, sadly passing away in 2009. But together Woolfson and Parsons created some excellent albums, and for me this is the pick of the bunch.
TRACKLISTING
1. Lucifer
2. You lie down with dogs
3. I'd rather be a man
4. Winding me up
5. You won't be there
6. Damned if I do
7. Don't hold back
8. Secret garden
9. If I could change your mind