TRY ANYTHING ONCE

Worth a try indeed

With Eric Woolfson departed, "Project" was dropped from the band name, leaving just "Alan Parsons" as the artist. This is somewhat misleading as performance wise his contribution is limited. He is of course the producer, engineer, main songwriter, and general supremo, but as with APP albums, he gathers together a number of fine artists to assist.

The songs are generally strong, very much in the vein of the Woolfson/Parsons collaborations of the APP, it is almost as if Parsons is trying to prove that Woolfson was not the biggest influence after all. I have to say that this album goes beyond that, suggesting that in terms of moving on, Woolfson's influence may have been holding things back. There is a freshness and energy here which went missing on many of the tracks by APP on later albums.

"Mr Time" is the track which catches the ear initially. It's an instantly appealing, if ultimately very simple, song with a strong hook. There are however plenty of quality tracks, including four instrumentals in addition to good instrumental passages on the others.

Chris Thomson (Manfred Man's Earth Band) takes lead vocal on a couple of songs, his distinctive vocals giving the album a welcome variation in sound. Tracks such as "The three of me" and "Oh life" are developed well, hinting far more at the prog influences which made "Tales of Mystery and imagination.." such a great album.

"Try anything one" is a fine album, worthy indeed of trying at least once.

After the Parsons-Woolfson divorce that succeeded the "Freudiana" release, Parsons decided to go on as a recording artist. For respect towards Woolfson's contributions to the Project, Parsons decided to leave the Project moniker behind, and try something at least once (it would be thrice, eventually) - to let his fellow musicians bring their compositional input into the new repertoire, even allowing them to dominate the writing merits, particularly lifelong Parsons' partners Powell and Bairnson. The former gives only little room for his well known orchestral arranging talents in order to concentrate more on his role as a keyboardist (a very good one, indeed, owner of a wide breadth of finesse); the latter expands his instrumental talents including some keyboards, too. The fact is that the large amount of keyboard parts used all along the repertoire serves as an effective substitute for the massive, recurrent orchestrations that had been so tremendously crucial to APP's earlier efforts. So, in many ways "Try Anything Once" proves to be a kind of return-to- form after the increasingly poppier tendency that had been dominating the APP stuff from the "Eye in the Sky" days onwards. In fact, I actually enjoy it almost as much as "Friendly Card" (my all-time APP album) and a bit more than "Pyramid" and " I. Robot" (other Parsons faves of mine). The opening track 'The Three of Me' is a stunning introduction into the reconstructed musical world of this refurbished project: a pompous intro and a main theme that include some clever tempo shifts. The good art rock vibes remain active in 'Turn It Up' and the Ellliott-penned 'Mr. Time', two pieces full of subtle energy and effective catchiness, as well as some fluid mood variations that leave room for occasional eerie passages; the same goes for 'I'm Talking to You', a nice prog pop track, and the rockier 'Back Against the Wall', and since these ones are a bit shorter than the aforementioned ones, the sense of energy feels particularly enhanced in them, less subtle and a bit more bombastic, just like the opener. But nowhere do things get as bombastic as in the amazing closure 'Oh Life', a dramatic symphonic ballad that brings the listener back to the days of 'Shadow of a Lonely Man' (from "Pyramid") and 'Old & Wise' (from "Eye in the Sky") - but it's not as desperately melancholy as the former, nor as reflective as the latter, since it's basically focused on the narrative of a person's own ordeal, resulting on something more similar in attitude to the "Turn of a Friendly Card" suite. IMHO, 'The Three of Me', 'Mr. Time' and 'Oh Life' are the individual highlights in this album, but it would be really fair to state that the musical quality of the repertoire as a whole is quite even. The instrumentals are pretty interesting and varied: the techno-pop 'Breakaway', the Celtic-inspired 'Jigue' and its orchestral reconstruction 'Re-Jigue', and the dreamy new-age-ish 'Dreamscape', all of them work as effective preludes to each respective follower. The acoustic ballad 'Siren Song' portrays the most notable moments of pure, candid calm in the album, while the unabashedly AOR-ish 'Wine from the Water' momentarily wipes away any sign of density drawn by the first two numbers. In conclusion: my personal rating for "Try Anything Once" is somewhere between 3 ½ and 4 stars.

Try Anything Once was Alan Parsons' first solo album after the breakup of the Alan Parsons Project due to differences between Eric Woolfson and Parsons. As one might imagine, it still follows an almost predictable formula that had been implemented over countless APP albums. Again, Parsons' main role is producer and engineer, but he participates more on contributing to the performance by sitting behind the keyboards, and even contributing acoustic guitar, bass, flute, and backing vocals. In addition to his contributions, he brings along regular APP contributor and guitarist Ian Bairnson. After all, it wouldn't sound like a Parsons-related album without Bairnson. Other guests that contributed include David Pack (Ambrosia), Eric Stewart (Mindbender and 10cc), and Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann's Earth Band), among others.

So what does an Alan Parsons solo album sound like? In many ways, just like an APP album without Woolfson. It's chiefly pop rock with slight progressive tendencies in places. There's a selection of rock numbers, some ballads, some upbeat numbers, and some instrumentals. All of it of course is impeccably produced in the Parsons tradition.

Now, one might ask, is this really just like APP? And the answer is yes and no. Parsons does explore new musical ground on this album, but it's not really in the progressive rock genre. It tends to be more in the popular music arena in which he gets these new ideas. Another difference, is that many of the songs are credited to a wide variety of people. Parsons is only credited on six of the twelve songs. And finally, this is the first Parsons album released that has no theme.

Definitely an interesting album that should appeal to APP fans, but unfortunately, it leans more towards pop music than progressive music. Like in previous reviews for APP albums, I would recommend starting with APP's debut album long before acquiring this. Two stars. Chiefly for fans and collectors.

There is really no good reason to make a distinction between the Alan Parsons Project and the Alan Parsons Band; list this album together with the Project's albums in your collection. Musically this is very much a continuation of what Parsons had done through the years with the Project. This album is, I would say, better than most of the Project's albums, however.

As on the Project's albums, there are several different vocalists involved here, singing on different tracks. Surprisingly this works better here than on most of their other albums. The instruments are all very well played and the production is excellent (as always with Parsons).

The most interesting track is Jigue, which is a folky instrumental featuring fiddle and mandolin and other instruments associated with Folk music (in addition to electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards and sax). This piece could be categorized as Prog Folk or as modern Folk rock. I love that kind of stuff! Re-Jigue is a symphonic piece reprising the theme of Jigue.

Mr. Time would have fitted perfectly on Rick Wakeman's Time Machine album (which also was a concept album about time that actually sounded very much like an Alan Parsons Project album!).

The biggest problem with this album is that the songs, though all very well written, few are really memorable, or for that matter very adventurous.

"Try Anything Once" is the first Alan Parsons album without singer Eric Woolfson. And he dropped the word "Project" from the band's name. But the sound is still very much the same, a blend of art rock and AOR. Unfortunately, the AOR wins out hands down.

There are a few good songs. The Three Of Me and Wine From The Water both are reminiscent of classic 10CC (the latter helped by having 10CC's Eric Stewart on vocals). Breakaway does a fair job of capturing the feel of I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You from "I Robot". And Jigue is a fair instumental folk rock piece.

But the rest is well produced, but fairly bland adult contemporary rock, suitable for those stations Teri Garr used to do commercials for.

2.5 stars. I'll be generous and round it up.