THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD

The Turn of a Friendly Card was the Alan Parsons Project's fifth studio album and showed a remarkable improvement over the terrible Eve and mediocre Pyramid albums. This was definitely a return to the form of the APP on their first two albums. This time the concept was gambling and it was primarily inspired by Philip K. Dick's "The Game-Players of Titan." Again, it follows the successful formula APP has applied to every album they've made: a core group of session musicians with a host of guest vocalists. The production is up to the usual level and detail Parsons was widely known for.

Musically The Turn of a Friendly Card is chiefly a collection of pop rock songs showing some minor "progressive tendencies." The last five tracks are five parts to a title suite. This is similar to APP's The Fall of the House of Usher from their debut, except they aren't as closely integrated. The album featured three hit singles, Time, Games People Play, and Snake Eyes. Time did very well on the charts of the day and it catapulted Eric Woolfson into the limelight. As a result, he would sing more often on future APP songs, most of them receiving much airplay.

This album is about as good as I Robot, but not quite as good as APP's debut. A must-have for APP fans, but I would recommend others to start with their debut album before getting this. Remember, this is chiefly artsy pop-rock with only slight touches of prog rock. If that isn't your "cup of tea," it would be best to avoid. Three stars. Good, but not essential.