THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD

This album reminds me back to The Alan Parsons Project's debut album "Tales Of Mystery and Imagination" where the two masterminds of the project Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson managed to reassemble the soul of its debut and after loose album (composition-wise) "Eve". Parsons went back to guitar and keyboard rather than overusing the influence of synthesizers and computers. He returns to the "concept" album approach like he did with "Tales". The focus is now on "games" in the broad term and almost all tracks are talking about this except one track "Gold Bug" which represents a narration of Edgar Allan Poe. It might be a reminder to the listeners that The Project had ever been very successful with its debut on Edgar Allan Poe thing through "Tales" album. It sounds inconsistent with the main tagline of "games" but it could be a marketing gimmick. Who says marketing is only the domain of Philip Kotler or Al Ries and Jack Trout? Musicians can do good marketing job as well, folks! , the thread of the "Tales" album and thereby a nice little reminder of his successful debut.

The Project, like its successful debut, concludes the album with a "supposed-to-be" monumental epic which consumes 15 minutes and a bunch of orchestra but it functions as rhythm section rather than main role. Unfortunately, this epic of five parts sound like disjointed music as there are no smooth transitions from one to another.

It's a good album but it's not an essential one. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW