VULTURE CULTURE

Vulture Culture continues the Alan Parsons Project's path towards a more commercial sounding album, much in the same respect as their previous endeavor, Ammonia Avenue. The album follows the usual APP formula of a general theme or concept, with the same host of session musicians and vocalists. This time the theme dealt with popular culture and a critique of consumerism. Originally this album was intended to be the second LP of a 2-LP album, and it shows as it sounds quite similar to Ammonia Avenue. The problem is, if this had been released this way, the second LP would have been the worse of the two. Vulture Culture seems quite a bit less inspired, both musically and lyrically, than Ammonia Avenue, and was a far cry from their Eye in the Sky and Turn of a Friendly Card albums.

Thus we have another pop rock release from APP, barely showing any resemblances towards progressive rock. Many APP fans tends to agree that this is where APP lost their stride. I wholeheartedly agree with this opinion. The Alan Parsons Project would never really approach the success and quality of music as they had in their prior albums for the remainder of their career. Two stars. For die-hard fans and collectors only.