EYE IN THE SKY

To me Alan Parsons Project represents relatively good hi-tech pop ("Prog-Related", if you like) music of its era, from the mid-seventies to mid-eighties. I have listened to their albums since my late teen years (23 years), never very actively but never having been totally bored with them either. Two best albums are no doubt the Poe-inspired debut and Pyramid (1978), then maybe comes I Robot, Gaudi or this one, all tastefully produced and containing some very nice tracks but in the end perhaps a bit uninnovative and too commercial-sounding, and including some very dull (usually radio-friendly) songs. The same can be said of all the other albums as well, only the amount of interesting stuff gets smaller and smaller, and they started to repeat themselves badly.

Eye In The Sky is quite a typical APP album. There are two instrumentals (the opener 'Sirius' is short but great) and several vocalists. Lenny Zakatek and Elmer Gantry are regular APP vocalists, and naturally, as always, Eric Woolfson (Parsons' writing partner), who I don't really consider that good singer. His 'Silence And I' is nevertheless among highlights, though the James Bond-esque fast orchestral section is a bit banal. Also the soft voice of Colin Blunstone was heard already on Pyramid ('Eagle Will Rise Again'); here he sings equally dreamy and sentimental 'Old And Wise'. I like it, but it lacks the glory of the earlier song. Chris Rainbow, if my memory serves, sings the mellow 'Gemini'. (Wasn't he, by the way, also guesting on CAMEL's Single Factor...?)

There are a also couple of songs I never liked. But on the whole this is a fairly good and safe Parsons album, if not the very best of them.