THE INSTRUMENTAL WORKS

The Instrumental Works was another Alan Parsons Project compilation containing most of the instrumentals the band had created from their I Robot album through Gaudi. Parsons often used at least one, but sometimes two or three instrumentals on each of his albums, either as a break between songs, as introductory matter, or sometimes as singular works themselves (like I Robot for example). One thing that I find common amongst APP's instrumentals is that they are formulaic and often very mechanical sounding (as if a computer had composed them). Very many of them start off with a simple melody or rhythm and as the song progresses, layer upon layer of complementary components are added, usually reaching an almost wall-of-sound climax and eventually being faded out. This formula isn't always noticed when listening to their studio albums, but becomes more apparent after listening to this compilation.

Besides Parsons' composition style, this is for the most part a rather enjoyable listen. For me, it's primarily his impeccable producing and engineering abilities that really show on the instrumentals. The downsides I have with this release are missing tracks that should have been included. These include Lucifer (how did they miss this one?!?!) and at least two of the instrumental sections from The Fall of the House of Usher off their debut (was it because it wasn't released by Arista?).

Because of these missing tracks, I'm leaning my rating more towards two stars. Even so, if you are at the least bit curious of Parsons' producing abilities and don't want to listen to their mostly pop prog based songs, these pseudo-progressive instrumentals might just do the trick. Otherwise, I can only recommend to collectors. There wouldn't be any reason to purchase this if you have all their key studio albums.