STEREOTOMY

With somewhat longer songs starting to make their way back on to the track listing, one might come to Stereotomy hoping to hear a return to the Alan Parsons' Project more imaginative prog-leaning roots. Nope - it's another art pop album in the vein of Ammonia Avenue or Vulture Culture.

It's the sort of thing which wouldn't sound amiss on the same playlist as mid-1980s era Genesis, and if you like that, you'll probably like this album, though as with its two predecessors you'll only like it; you won't love it, you won't rave about it, and whilst this incarnation of the Project might share the same bill as the contemporary version of Genesis, that's the big difference.

Sure, if you specifically want prog then neither act is going to offer you much - but if you come to this from a pop perspective, Genesis at the height of their pop period were simply more exciting and refreshing than the Alan Parsons Project were. For that matter, they did at least have little departures to offer like Home By the Sea/Second Home By the Sea; that's not the case here. Even if you personally don't like mid-1980s Genesis, you can imagine how someone might be very enthusiastic about them.

I can't think very many people at all are enthused by the Alan Parsons Project's mid-1980s pop albums, by comparison, and this might be my least favourite of the Ammonia Avenue/Vulture Culture/Stereotomy triptych, with Limelight in particular being a big cheesy torch song which does nothing for me. The long instrumental Where's the Walrus is the closest thing we get here to any sort of progressive flourish, and perhaps saves the album from being a write-off in my eyes, but it's barely clinging to a three-star rating whereas I'd put both of its predecessors at the low end of three and a half stars. It may well be the group's weakest effort, though Eve gives it a run for its money in that race.