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The Alan Parsons Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination CD (album) cover

TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

The Alan Parsons Project

 

Crossover Prog

4.08 | 789 ratings

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Gatot
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars I knew Allan Parsons for the first time was due to his involvement in the making of Pink Floyd's seminal album that changed the music industry in 1973. That wonderful album would not sound they we hear right now without the minds and the skills of Mr Parsons, I admit. Even, my CD of Dark Side of The Moon is the original version, no remastering, but I still consider that the sound produced by this record was awesome. With that experience, I expected that this first album of Allan Parsons Project would sound the same or at least close to Dark Side album. It does not seem so even though I purchased the digitally remixed version. This album sounds a bit dry because it has less bass sounds. But it does not mean that this is not a good production. It is.

As the album name implies this is a concept album about a writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) whom at end of his life, exactly on October 3, 1849, in mysterious circumstances he is discovered unconscious and is taken to hospital and he dies four days later. The album kicks off with a narration by Orson Welles that remarks the first track "A Dream within a Dream" (4:13) with some orchestration. The music enters with bass lines and drum work in repetitive notes followed with nice keyboard work and guitar. The music moves in crescendo with drum sound and it slowly fades out maintaining only the bass guitar to keep the beat. "The Raven" (3:57) enters beautifully with EMI vocoder voice line combined with orchestra and real Parsons' voice. It's a good track combining clean vocal, stunning guitar solo and orchestra.

"The Tell-tale Heart" (4:38) is a rockier track performed in an operatic singing style accompanied with a melodic arrangements of guitar, keyboard, bass guitar and drumming. At the background, the orchestra enriches the music textures especially during quiet passages. "The Cask of Amontillado" (4:33) is a song-oriented music with powerful melody that is really tasty to most ears, performed with excellent vocal and orchestration. This is my favorite APP track because I love the melody very much. The orchestration part is really good and I urge you to play it outloud with your stereo set. "(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (4:20) brings the music into uplifting emotion with a combination of electric guitar solo, soaring keyboard sound and voice line.

The album features an instrumental epic "The Fall of the House of Usher" that comprises five parts: Prelude (7:02), Arrival (2:39) , Intermezzo (1:00), Pavane (4:36), and Fall (0:51). The epic is exploratory in nature and it contains excellent orchestration work. It finally concludes with a ballad "To One in Paradise" (4:46) using acoustic guitar and backing vocals as main rhythm section.

Overall, it's a very good album that delivers relatively light progressive music and it may favor most of music buffs, be it prog lovers or not, because is pretty accessible. Some people call it as ear-candy prog. The CD package has an excellent sleeve with liner notes by Allan Parsons, chronology of Mr Edgar Allan Poe, musicians CV and lyrics. It's an excellent package. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Gatot | 4/5 |

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