Review Summary: The album is as good as its two smash hits!
Al Stewart puts it all together here; you've got historical epics (Lord Grenville), love songs (Broadway Hotel), dreamscapes (Flying Sorcery, One Stage Before), social commentary (Midas Shadow), as well as two of Al's biggest hits (the title track and On The Border). The songs work as hooky pop and as lyrical gems. You could have this on in a coffee shop and nobody would think it out of place, but you may also listen with headphones and be mesmerized.
This is the album where Al Stewart sheds the folk label, though not quite the music (see Sand in Your Shoes). That it is the second to be produced by Alan Parsons is not coincidence. Parsons suggested the saxophone solo on the title track as well as the Spanish guitar in On The Border--it's hard to see how either cracks the top 40 in the USA without Parsons' input.
Al would write better lyrics than the four lines I list next, but for pure atmosphere and language I keep coming back to "On the morning of a Bogart move/In a country where they turned back time/You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre/Contemplating a crime." These four lines kick off the biggest hit he ever had, the title track, and though I wasn't yet in high school at the time, I remember thinking 'I want more of this.' I wouldn't dive into Al Stewart's catalogue until much later, but I've had no regrets. If you're a fan of thoughtful pop, but you haven't listened to a complete Al Stewart LP, start here.
