THE INSTRUMENTAL WORKS

As the title suggests, this is a compilation album comprised of a selection of instrumentals from Alan Parsons Project albums. Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson were known for including a couple of instrumentals on every album, but grouping them together is a strange choice for a band better known for its pop rock ballads.

The compositions themselves generally are good, if a bit unexciting, and the production is of course flawless. It's a good easy listening album, but it's not very progressive, as the Project always had more of an art-pop rather than progressive inclination. As Ivan_Melgar_M mentions and the road on the album cover seems to unintentionally suggest, this is music more is suitable for driving rather than active listening.

The biggest issue is that the Alan Parsons Project recorded concept albums, where the track ordering was deliberate and the tracks sometimes segued into one another, so here the instrumentals tend to sound out of place when lumped together.

Nevertheless, it was my first introduction to the Alan Parson Project, bought cheap from a discount bin. The music was pleasant enough to interest me in the band, but this was rather due to its melodic qualities rather than its progressive ones (though the two need not be at odds with each other).

Paseo de Gracia is my favorite piece and it's probably the most progressive number here, with its ambient introduction, followed by an orchestral flamenco section, with an electric guitar solo on top. I also favor Pipeline and Mammagamma due to their hypnotic rhythms.