FREUDIANA

In what started out as the eleventh album of the Alan Parsons Project, over time morphed into solo project with the band name and album title called Freudiana. Like APP this is headed up by Eric Woolfson, who wrote all of the lyrics and most of music. What is different is Brian Brolly, who convinced Woolfson to make the new album adaptable to the stage. The changes produced two different results. First, the album successfully married Freud, pop, rock, prog and Broadway into something that is quite unique and interesting. The second result was that without the Alan Parsons Project moniker, the album was either not released in the USA or had such a small footprint that it sank pretty much without a trace. It's unfortunate because it is a very good piece of work. I had tried to track down the album for 10 years until I finally found it overseas in a small New Zealand CD store.

Lyrically, the songs all deal with the works of Sigmund Freud. Eric Woolfson again displays his writing prowess to great success. A little bit of background reading may be necessary to fully understand a couple of the songs but it is not a prerequisite to enjoy the album. Musically, it sounds like an APP album: multiple vocalists, an orchestra, a very solid band, wonderful production with some stage musical mixed in. Don't let that last piece stop you from tracking down Freudiana. A shame that bad marketing decisions prevented Freudiana from reaching the audience it deserved.

A strong 4 star rating.