After The Eye in the Sky, Alan Parsons Project originally intended to release a double album as a follow up. Instead, they split the project into two records: Ammonia Avenue and Vulture Culture, released ten months apart in 1984.
Like its twin, Vulture Culture is another underrated gem, showcasing the Project’s effortless blend of progressive composition and infectious pop hooks.
For the last decade or so, my understanding of the Alan Parsons Project’s discography was that the collective started strong with two prog rock masterpieces, had a couple uninspired albums in the middle, then had a return to form before dropping the magnificent The Eye In the Sky and hanging up the project.
But after a friend acquired several boxes of (mostly sealed) LPs and dropped them on me to take my pick of, I have since learned that they released four records after what I thought was their swan song. Ammonia Avenue, the first record after Eye, hits more than it misses, even if it’s still overshadowed by the record before it.
I’ve been a die hard Alan Parsons Project for years. I Robot was one of the first records I purchased, and remains one of my favorites of that era. But as long as I’ve been collecting, I’ve passed up more copies of this record than I have total records in my collection.
The consistent low ratings I’ve seen in comparison to other records in the APP discography—as well as the album art, which was a rare miss by Hipgnosis—assured me there was nothing to miss.
But listening to it now, I realize that even at their worst, the Alan Parsons Project is still more inventive and infectious than most of their peers.
As difficult as music taxonomy is on its own, metal brings its own challenges. The delineations between the different subgenres get so microscopic that it feels pointless.
For years, I struggled to figure out where exactly sludge metal fits. Many of the bands typically labeled sludge felt more like post metal to me. Others were undeniably doom.
But this record is undeniably sludge: it is thick and heavy, oozing out of the turntable for eighty minutes.
For the last fifteen years, Massachusetts sextet Caspian has explored the vast sonic expanse of post rock. Their palette has included glitching electronics, soft horn sections, gritty metal riffs, and the occasional vocalist.
On Circles, their fifth full length, finds them getting more experimental than ever before, without sacrificing any of their heaviness.
Generally, I could give or take ABBA. But, they’re one of my wife’s absolute favorites, so when their first Greatest Hits compilation appeared (sealed!) in a box of records, I had to keep it for her sake.
It is her birthday, after all.
When I first met Nathan Edwin, it was like a nexus in the universe.
The paths we weaved through similar childhoods, musical tastes, general vibe, same first name, and choice of college converged in an intersection that was one part admiration, one part friendship, and one part bitter rivalry.
And while we may have moved apart musically, there was a moment in time where we were both employing the same sort of subdued, scrappy folk rock that drew as much from legends like Dylan and Guthrie as it did more contemporary voices like Bright Eyes and Devendra Banhart. Luckily, Nate stuck around that vibe a lot longer, which is good since he was way better at it than I was anyway.
To further showcase just how much I’ve been slacking on this blog, this record was sent to me at the same time as Jet Black’s wonderful L’Ere du Vide, which I got before Christmas.
Admittedly, it was a little hard for me to give this record the time it deserves, buried as it was under a deluge of Christmas records that I was spending more time with. But as I’ve listened to this bit of rambunctious alt-rock, I’ve fallen in love with it.
As broad as I like to think my musical tastes are, there are times that I might actually be pretty predictable.
Take for example my love of dark, guitar heavy, shoegaze inspired indie rock. So infamous am I for my love of this aesthetic that around Christmas, a friend messaged me this album on Spotify saying I would probably like it.
Later that same day, another friend sent me a vinyl copy as a present.
They were both very correct.
Post rock is typically a patient genre. Bands build elaborate landscapes of cinematic splendor and emotional catharsis that evoke the heights and depths of the human experience. But this usually takes a while: it’s not unusual for a post rock tune to sail right past the seven-minute mark—or even the ten minute mark.
But on -aire, The End of the Ocean achieves the same evocative heights without wasting any time.