EVE

By 1979 the world-wide plague known as disco had done its dirty work and sucked all the soul out of modern pop music and this album is a true reflection of that sad situation. I don't have a problem with this studio group being included on this site but finding anything even approaching the realm of prog on this record is harder than finding the Ark of the Lost Covenant and not nearly as exciting.

Parsons & Co. start things off with an instrumental named "Lucifer," that is only mildly interesting and becomes downright comical if you envision in your mind the Prince of Darkness doing his best John Travolta to this tune on a disco dance floor. "You Lie Down With Dogs" is an example of the "funky" disco sound that was popular at that time. Lyric-wise I think it would do rather well as the theme song for an anti-STD public service program. If there is a track that comes within a mile of being considered prog related it's the next cut, "I'd Rather be a Man." It has the unmistakable Alan Parsons Project atmosphere and it should be on the all-time top ten list of put-down tunes. It's hard to come up with a line more degrading than "I'd rather be a man 'cause a man don't crawl like you do." Ouch.

"You Won't Be There" is just a sappy torch song that brings to mind Air Supply. 'Nuff said. This is followed by "Winding Me Up," a lame wimp-rock song that begins with a requisite crank-up-the-toy sound effect. So clever. Alan tries to pull off an ELO imitation here but he fails miserably because the tune is so inferior. "Damned If I Do" starts with an ambience similar to some of his work on his excellent "Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe" debut but it doesn't last long because before you know it the number turns into yet another funky disco dirge. Yark. "Don't Hold Back" is another wimp rock ditty that could have been inspired by Olivia Newton-John. You get the picture.

"Secret Garden" is an instrumental that sounds great but ultimately goes nowhere. There's not even a decent melody. It does have some nice Beach Boys kind of harmonies in the middle section but, other than that, it would fit right in as background music on the Weather Channel during the "Local on the 8's" breaks. Last but not least you get exposed to "If I Could Change Your Mind," a Carly Simon-styled torch ballad that does nothing for me at all. I get more stimulus from watching. well, the Weather Channel.

It seems to me that Alan Parsons and his partner Eric Woolfson had stopped being trendsetters and had started trying to create hit songs by mimicking what was being played on the radio. While that makes a certain kind of logical sense business-wise, it rarely works even though the record executives of that era vehemently crusaded and defended that mindset. In the case of "Eve" it only resulted in the creation of an album of incredibly mediocre quality. Skip this one altogether. 1.4 stars.