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Alan Parsons - A Valid Path CD (album) cover

A VALID PATH

Alan Parsons

 

Prog Related

2.60 | 98 ratings

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Gatot
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars I am not a great fan of Alan Parsons even though I like his music and I made a set of collection of his album - studio and live. One thing I always find in common about Alan Parsons albums is that there must be something that I like - especially the soundscape. Well, he is basically an engineer-turned-musician. For sure he is an excellent engineer with a significant contribution to The Beatles' seminal album 'Abbey Road' as well as legendary prog album Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of The Moon'. His music is basically leveraging his talent and expertise in sound engineering which I think he is really smart in doing it. He might not be a great musician but he teamed up with musicians that could help him make a good music. I salute him on his approach. At the end, I enjoy his music especially under the Alan Parsons Project. The Alan Parsons BAND is more on focusing his own way in doing music, especially this 'A Valid Path' album where the music is basically is his own.

The album opener 'Return To Tunguska' (8:48) is really an excellent instrumental and it's positioned correctly as opener. The music is really packed with digital and spacey / ambient nuances with the touch of Gilmour guitar work. It's a great experience playing this track outloud using a well decent stereo set where you can enjoy all subtleties in the music. I do enjoy and pay high respect his sound engineering expertise as well as musicianship. I can say two thumbs up for this track and I alway replay it especially after having known that all tracks with vocals are not good and boring. You can sense it right away after the excellent opening the music suddenly drop to a lackluster 'More Lost Without You' (3:20). I don''t think people even with background of pop music would like this track. 'Mammagamma 04' (5:05) is another instrumental which sounds quite OK even though it's not as good as opening one - too much dancing or disco rhythm performed her - something like House Music, I think. 'Tijuania' (5:10) is a better instrumental than track no. 3. 'L'arc En Ciel' (5:22) is another good instrumental especially I like the bass recording and guitar solo. Yes there are dancing rhythm but it's quite OK overall. 'The Raven (from A Recurring Dream Within A Dream)' (4:06) is something like retroactive of previous work and it sounds boring. 'You Can Run' (3:52) is a pure R&B music. The album conclude with another instrumental with dancing rhythm 'Chomolungma' (7:07)

It's not quite strong musically as an album but it's also not bad. Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Gatot | 3/5 |

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