TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION

Alan Parsons Project was, alongside with Pink Floyd, one of the firsts progressive rock bands i ever knew and one of the firsts progressive bands i ever listened. However, my father only had the Alan Parsons Project vinyls so, as i grew up, i slowly lost touch with this great band, until i bought a CD with the 1987 remix and could relive the pleasure of listening this album once again, but with digital quality this time, what makes Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe much more enjoyable because it has a lot of piano and pianissimo parts that were outshone by the vinyl residual noise.

By the way, i said love at first sight because i have forgotten almost completely how good this album was because i didn't listened it since i were a child, so when i listened it again it was almost like i were listening it for the first time.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe could be easily considered a concept album because it was made around a theme and the whole album follows that theme, the theme being make music inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe poetry and to use those very poems as the lyrics to the music they inspired.

Though Poe's poetry isn't exactly upbeat, not every song of the album is introspective, minimalistic or has a sad mood. Actually, there are songs that are pretty festive and songs that don't relate much to the album in a way or another, like the song The Tell-tale Heart, for example, that has vocals from its beginning that are completely of the wall (in a bad way) or the song (The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, which have a bit too much of a dancing beat for its own good. Another issue is that some songs seem to be a bit shorter than they should be, like the opening track A Dream Within a Dream. Those potential problems, however, are easily erased or forgotten by the overall quality of the songs themselves and the overall quality of the album.

The highlights are: A Dream Within a Dream, The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher and To One in Paradise.

Grade and Final Thoughts

After being the sound engineer for Pink Floyd in their acclaimed album Dark Side of the Moon, Allan Parsons decided to make a project so he could make music and get more cash than he did as a sound engineer. Clearly inspired by Pink Floyd, more specifically by the PF album Dark side if the Moon, and Moody Blues, this album sits somewhere between Dark Side and days of Future Past and, like both albums, i think Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe is a terrific album. Due to that, it deserves an equally good grade, so it is 5 stars for the Allan Parsons Project debut album.

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