I'm sorry if FETCHER is bowing out of the club: she has interesting reviews and slightly puzzling qualms as far as I'm concerned. Give me 10 mins with an artist and I'll have my unshakeably dogmatic verdict ready before the song ends.
With Al Stewart, I did my due diligence and listened to all the tracks - or at least I presume I did because on almost every one I found my attention wandering off about half-way through.
Title track was a biggish hit for AS and is quite catchy. Next up, Valentina Way, starts with a sprightly riff which doesn't suit the soul-searching lyrics very well. AS's lyrics are always consumately put together and this song is no exception. "What a sight to see. It's a tragedy" he sings, but of course with AS, there is no tragedy. Everything remains light, well-crafted, and pretty soon you know that going in to each song: nothing is going to disturb the mildly pleasant soft-rock sound. So even though AS casts far and wide for his subject matter in a way that's both unique and commendable, it doesn't ultimately matter because the destination is always another polished performance, intellectual but not emotional. Palace of Versailles is not an evocation of the Palace or the French Revolution, it's just another example of AS's cleverly-crafted song-writing that to be honest left me wondering, "Why is AS telling me about this? He doesn't sound passionate about it at all: perhaps he just flicked open a historical encyclopedia and started from there."
In Life in Dark Water there's just a hint of spooky mystery. In Song on the Radio there's a very welcome bit of screaming sax, but for me the music never shrugs off its soporific good manners.
So, sorry Trollheart, after you were generous with your review on my album choice, with all it's glitching, I'd like to be able to do the same, but I feel constrained: I gave Phil Ochs a score of 8/10, but Time Passages was less enjoyable for me, so it has to be a 6.5 or 7 really.
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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
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