TRY ANYTHING ONCE

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.