EVE

A very mysterious album. By the time their fourth was released, it was pretty much expected that an Alan Parsons Project album was going to begin with a dark electronic intrumental, and while "Lucifer" is OK, it also could have been the first song on I Robot or Pyramid. The rest of Side One is made up of songs dealing with the concept, which is done in with a very cynical approach, and while some of these songs would stand alone as decent individual relationhip commentaries, when put to an album about the nature of women, they often come across as unfair generalizations. For the most part that is. "You Won't Be There" conveys the intended expression of hurt and dissapointment very effectively with great orchestration and singing, and lyrics that do make a good point, which is something that can't exactly be said about "You Lie Down With Dogs" or "I'd Rather Be a Man." The latter of those two actually has some pretty interesting music with some really cool synth stuff going on, but those lyrics are really strong, to put it mildly. Fortunately, "You Won't Be There" is right after that one. There's one more song on Side One, and "Winding Me Up" is OK. The Side Two opener, "Damned if I Do" sums up the general attitude of the album, and is much catchier than any of the rockers on the first side. The album then attempts to show a nicer approach to the concept, and for the most part succeeds. "Don't Hold Back" is great anthem of encouragement sung by Claire Torry that gets stuck in my head for hours after hearing it. By far the best lyrics on the album; I just love that chorus: "Don't hold back/don't hold back/don't hold back and reach out/touch the sky with your mind's eye/don't be afraid to reach out." When I first heard Eve, it being a concept album about women, I was very surprised that there weren't any love songs on it. Then I realized after becoming more familiar with the album that the instrumental, "Secret Garden" is a wonderful tribute to the beauty of women, a masterpiece of composition, and a nice statement of love for the things that can't be expressed with words. Seriously, this is one their best intsrumentals - even the grooves on the record when spinning are a work of art. This very enigmatic album closes out with "If I Could Change Your Mind", which is a very beautiful, orchestrated ballad sung expertly by Lesley Duncan, who is smart enough to sing the pleading lyrics with a tinge of irony, which was probably the composer's intention. It leaves an exoticly bittersweet taste, and always makes me want to listen to the whole thing again. So in the end, Eve turns out to be a good album that just gets off to a really rough start.