Alan Parsons Project

Eye in the Sky

Nice Rebound

Review Score:

(10/10)
This is Alan Parsons sixth album. He started to slide after the second album (the fantastic I Robot) and hit bottom with his fifth (the boring Turn of a Friendly Card). He rebounded nicely with this, one of two best CD's.

Alan Parsons was a studio engineer who worked on a number of classics, including Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the Beatles' Abbey Road. He used his studio experience to "form" the Alan Parsons Project, which is more of a studio exercise than a real group. By using various studio musicians, he was able to expand the music beyond the confines of a structured group.

Project is a very good name for this "group". Each album is built around a concept. Sometimes it works well, like the electronic, spacy, progressive music that compliments the story in I Robot. Sometimes it doesn't work, and the songs are forced into the concept, as in Turn of a Friendly Card.

Eye in the Sky has a looser concept (Egyptian mysticism) than most of Parsons' albums, so there was more flexibility in the song writing. The songs are a little bit lighter and more poppish than on I Robot, but still have the same progressive, electronic sound. The music is very good throughout, quite a rebound from the bland playing of the fourth and fifth albums. The only song I don't really like is the title track, but mostly because it could not hold up to the constant airplay. It does have a fantastic instrumental lead in.

I lost interest in Alan Parsons after this album. I'm not sure what his later CD's are like. Unfortunately, you it is hard to get a good idea, because the rabid Parsons fans give 5 stars to everything he does.

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