Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
The Alan Parsons Project - Stereotomy CD (album) cover

STEREOTOMY

The Alan Parsons Project

 

Crossover Prog

2.77 | 250 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

AtomicCrimsonRush
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
1 stars Following in 1985 hot on the heels of the dreadful "Vulture Culture" comes this marginally better album by the Alan Parsons Project. I have been listening and reviewing every APP album over this week and now we are really scraping the barrel as far as prog goes. There is little to none here so the band have simply become a throwaway 80s act. Yet they can play so well and have some incredible skills; it is just that it is not on display on these mid 80s albums. For that you need to go back to the first 3 albums and "Eye In The Sky". Anyway, here are the mid 80s and it is as usual a death to prog and a hello to radio friendly slush.

Here we have on offer the best track Stereotomy, that is polished studio 80s clarity, tinny synth drums, 4 on the floor sig, and pleasant vocals. The band really play it by the numbers on this release, even Eric Woolfson is wasted talent on this. Occasionally you get some uptempo rock such as In The Real World, with catchy choruses sung too many times and Woolfson's instrumental break.

The next few track blur into insignificance and then it is the instrumental Where's The Walrus? It has a techno beat that appealed for a while though is nothing really special. The guitar is well played, the sax sounds nice, the beat is vibrant, but it is nothing like the amazing instrumentals on earlier APP albums such as "Pyramid" or "I. Robot". Cottle is on sax but is not as good as Mel Collins. Andrew Powell once again provides orchestra but it is not enough to save this album from oblivion.

Next up is Light Of The World, a sappy ballad with nice singing and nice keyboards but forgettable and tedious. We finish with two extremely short tracks, though I am ready to give this one up so it is good that it is almost over. Chinese Whispers (1:02) and Stereotomy Two (1:18). How do I describe these? The first is slow and tedious guitar and keys and then a reprise of a song that opened the song; anyone else smell filler here?

There are some who will like this but as a prog fan reviewing on a prog site it is simply a worthless album. I have heard all APP albums up to this point and it is getting worse. I have heard the best and hopefully the worst which is this album and "Vulture Culture". Hopefully the next album "Gaudi" will be much much better, but I am not holding my breath on this.

AtomicCrimsonRush | 1/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.