Eye in the Sky provided the Alan Parsons Project with their first Top Ten hit since 1977's I Robot, and it's hard not to feel that crossover success was one of the driving forces behind this album. The Project never shied away from hooks, whether it was on the tense white funk of "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" or the gleaming pop hooks of "Games People Play," but Eye in the Sky was soft and smooth, so smooth that it was easy to ignore that the narrator of the title track was an ominous omniscient who spied either on his lover or his populace, depending on how deeply you wanted to delve into the concepts of this album. And, unlike I Robot or The Turn of a Friendly Card, it is possible to listen to Eye in the Sky and not dwell on the larger themes, since they're used as a foundation, not pushed to center stage. What does dominate is the lushness of sound, the sweetness of melody: this is a soft rock album through and through, one that's about melodic hooks and texture. In the case of the spacy opening salvo "Sirius," later heard on sports talk shows across America, or "Mammagamma," it was all texture, as these instrumentals set the trippy yet warm mood that the pop songs sustained. And the real difference with Eye in the Sky is that, with the exception of those instrumentals and the galloping suite "Silence and I," all the artiness was part of the idea of this album was pushed into the lyrics, so the album plays as soft pop album -- and a very, very good one at that. Perhaps nothing is quite as exquisite as the title song, yet "Children of the Moon" has a sprightly gait (not all that dissimilar from Kenny Loggins' "Heart to Heart"), "Psychobabble" has a bright propulsive edge (not all that dissimilar from 10cc), and "Gemini" is the project at its dreamiest. It all adds up to arguably the most consistent Alan Parsons Project album -- perhaps not in terms of concept, but in terms of music they never were as satisfying as they were here.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Sufficiently recharged via Taxi, Ferry got down to business and the following year released Mamouna, notable among other things for being his first recordings with the help of Brian Eno since the latter split from Roxy Music back in 1973. Rather than playing the wild card as he so often did, though, Eno concentrates on (to use his own descriptions in the credits) "swoop treatment" and "sonic awareness." Slightly more to the fore are Ferry's usual range of excellent musicians and pros. Steve Ferrone once again handles drums as he did on Taxi, while Richard Norris also reappears on loops and programming; other familiar faces include Nile Rodgers, Robin Trower (the album's co-producer), and Carleen Anderson. One of the most intriguing guest appearances comes at the very start -- "Don't Want to Know" has no less than five guitarists, including none other than Roxy's own Phil Manzanera. Whereas his '80s work seemed to fit the times just so, with his own general spin on things providing true individuality as a result, on Mamouna Ferry seems slightly stuck in place. Compared to the variety of Bete Noire, Mamouna almost seems a revamp of Boys and Girls. Combine that with some of Ferry's least compelling songs in a while, and Mamouna is something of a middling affair, almost too tasteful for its own good (and considering who this is, that's saying something). There are some songs of note -- "The 39 Steps" has a slightly menacing vibe to it, appropriate given the cinematic reference of the title, while the Ferry/Eno collaboration "Wildcat Days" displays some of Eno's old synth-melting flash. Overall, though, Mamouna is pleasant without being involving.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

If ever there were a manifesto for 1970s rock, one that prefigured both the decadence of the decade's burgeoning heavy metal and prog rock excesses and the rage of punk rock, "This Ain't the Summer of Love," the opening track from Agents of Fortune, Blue Öyster Cult's fourth album, was it. The irony was that while the cut itself came down firmly on the hard rock side of the fence, most of the rest of the album didn't. Agents of Fortune was co-produced by longtime Cult record boss Sandy Pearlman, Murray Krugman, and newcomer David Lucas, and in addition, the band's lyric writing was being done internally with help from poet-cum-rocker Patti Smith (who also sings on "The Revenge of Vera Gemini"). Pearlman, a major contributor to the band's songwriting output, received a solitary credit while critic Richard Meltzer, whose words were prevalent on the Cult's previous outings, was absent. The album yielded the band's biggest single with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," a multi-textured, deeply melodic soft rock song with psychedelic overtones, written by guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser. The rest of the album is ambitious in that it all but tosses aside the Cult's proto-metal stance and instead recontextualizes their entire stance. It's still dark, mysterious, and creepy, and perhaps even more so, it's still rooted in rock posturing and excess, but gone is the nihilistic biker boogie in favor of a more tempered -- indeed, nearly pop arena rock -- sound that gave Allen Lanier's keyboards parity with Dharma's guitar roar, as evidenced by "E.T.I.," "Debbie Denise," and "True Confessions." This is not to say that the Cult abandoned their adrenaline rock sound entirely. Cuts like "Tattoo Vampire" and "Sinful Love" have plenty of feral wail in them. Ultimately, Agents of Fortune is a solid record, albeit a startling one for fans of the band's earlier sound. It also sounds like one of restless inspiration, which is, in fact, what it turned out to be given the recordings that came after. It turned out to be the Cult's last consistent effort until they released Fire of Unknown Origin in 1981.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Download not available
In recent years, the pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981) has finally been getting the wider recognition she deserves. Highly respected among her peers, Williams worked as an arranger for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman; mentored Diz, Monk, and Miles; and, though far from an avant-gardist, recorded a 1977 live album with free jazz firebrand Cecil Taylor.  In 1945, Williams wrote "Zodiac Suite," which gracefully fuses jazz and classical. Each of its twelve pieces correlate with an astrological sign; several of them have dedicatees. Different versions of the work—ranging from trio to large ensemble—have been performed and recorded over the years. Now, the ace pianist Aaron Diehl, a long-time admirer of Williams, has teamed up with The Knights, a New York-based chamber orchestra, to record this carefully researched version of the composition. Diehl's regular trio mates, bassist David Wong and drummer Aaron Kimmel, also appear on the album, along with special guests."Taurus" is one of the standouts in Williams' finely crafted string of twelve gems. The piano intro moves from spare chords, accompanied by quiet, droning strings, to a cascade of keyboard notes. Later, blues lines from piano and orchestra break into a confident stride before a variation on the opening section closes the beguiling piece. The easy-going swing of "Virgo" takes its sweet time to unfold. Trumpeter Brandon Lee solos over the finely executed orchestration; his horn's burnished, bluesy tone is a sweet match for the sophisticated, buoyant arrangement. The closer, "Pisces"—the only track with vocals—evokes the theatre music of Kurt Weill. Soprano Mikaela Bennett gives convincing dramatic shape to the intriguing melody and lyrics. (Williams probably penned the words.) In under three minutes, the song moves through several moods, and like much of the album's material, impresses with its achievement of breadth within concision. Diehl's well-known touch graces Zodiac Suite, whether he is in the spotlight or playing a supporting role. The pianist's consistent sensitivity and precision, along with The Knights' vivid performance, honors Williams' great artistry and spirit. © Fred Cisterna/Qobuz

Released without prior fanfare during the waning days of a long, violent summer, Long Violent History is an understated protest album from Tyler Childers, one that attempts to place the political protests of 2020 within a broader context. Childers makes his intentions plain only at the end of the record, when its title track -- the only original song here and the only one with vocals, too -- asks his fellow white Kentuckians that if they lived through the same experiences as their black neighbors do, would they then acknowledge that institutional racism exists? When "Long Violent History" was released as a single, Childers accompanied it with a six-minute video explaining his goals and why he's a supporter of Black Lives Matter, and while those interviews do provide context for Long Violent History, the album itself is powerful enough to stand on its own. For the first eight songs, Childers and his band run through eight instrumental -- almost all bluegrass -- standards (the opening "Send in the Clowns" is a bit of a ringer), giving them such a high lonesome reading, they're nearly mournful. All of this sets up the gut punch of the closer, a song that pulls this mountain music into focus, helping to suggest that Kentuckians are bonded by a culture that stands above racism. It's the rare protest album that doesn't need words to shout, and it's all the more powerful because of it.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Steve Lacy's independent debut Apollo XXI earned the Internet member his second Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album -- to go with one for Ego Death -- and prompted a deal with major-label RCA for his follow-up. Between solo projects, Lacy as a collaborator was less active than usual, contributing to LPs by Thundercat, bandmate Patrick Paige II, and Ravyn Lenae, seemingly reserving a higher percentage of his energy for solo pursuits. More obviously, he went through a breakup, the inspiration behind Gemini Rights, and switched up his approach by turning the tables roughly 90 degrees with a host of fellow producers, songwriters, and instrumentalists taking seats to assist him with his vision. Gemini Rights naturally is less scruffy than Lacy's earlier releases. Without losing the off-the-cuff "don't overthink it" charm of Apollo XXI or the preceding Steve Lacy's Demo, it's greater in definition and detail, and the songwriting is more deliberate, with no evidence that Lacy is tamping down his free-spirited, deep-feeling personality. While he isn't above expressing a little bitterness and arrogance now and then, each song has some combination of warmth, tenderness, and a sadness combated at times with shrugging acceptance. The whole thing aches. "Bad Habit" is the emotional and literal center, a ballad with lovelorn diffidence so strong that its candid proposition at the end is (humorously) shocking. "Sunshine" is a post-breakup scene filled with unresolved tension between Lacy and duet partner Fousheé. Lacy is at his sharpest lyrically ("Sayin' 'My ex' like my name ain't Steve...Still I'll give you dick anytime you need"), and his guitar toward the end takes bittersweet flight before landing softly. Although the fun and friskiness in past songs like "Playground" are missed, he does add some different bright colors to his mix here, as on "Mercury," a tough bossa nova groove in which his expressions oscillate between regret, acceptance, and longing. From top to bottom, Lacy's strums scratch an itch with a tinge of abrasiveness. Keyboards supplied throughout by sensitive and unobtrusive players John Carroll Kirby and Ely Rise, background harmonies from a quartet of women (including Lacy's sisters), and occasional production help from DJ Dahi and the Internet's Matt Martians all enhance Lacy's sound without complicating it.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Written and recorded in the first half of 2023 and delving into painful moments from her past, Snow Angel is the full-length recording debut of TV actress, Broadway alum, and burgeoning pop singer Reneé Rapp. Highlighted by nuanced ballads, a certain amount of sass, and a dramatic title track with arena rock-ready climaxes, it features production by Alexander 23. His approach also includes touches of alt-R&B stylings on songs like "Poison Poison" that help distinguish Rapp's Beyoncé-informed mix of vulnerable and confident contemporary pop. Following some minor chart success with her single "Too Well" from the Everything to Everyone EP in 2022, Snow Angel marked her Billboard 200 debut when it reached the Top 50, faring even better in the U.K., where it landed in the Top Ten.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Pianist Ramsey Lewis first came to fame as the purveyor of swinging soul-jazz in the mid-'60s, but like a lot of musicians he underwent some major changes by the end of that decade. Sun Goddess (1974), Lewis' biggest success of the decade, is miles away from the finger-snapping supper club sounds of "The In Crowd." By this time, Lewis had transformed himself into a jazz fusion funkateer, riffing on electric piano and synthesizer amid arrangements that meld jazz with funk, R&B, and yes, even touches of progressive rock. Sun Goddess is also something of a stealth Earth, Wind & Fire album, as it features most of the key players from that band, and bears echoes of EW&F's jazzier, more atmospheric side.© Rovi Staff /TiVo

Download not available
Culcha Vulcha marks the first time Snarky Puppy has recorded in a studio in eight years. Between 2006's The Only Constant and this, the Texas-bred, Brooklyn-based collective issued a generous slate of live albums according to a single strategy: capturing a single dynamic performance and messing with it as little as possible. This date proves they can accomplish that in a studio, too. Culcha Vulcha was cut at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas and in Brooklyn. There is no dearth of energy or spontaneity on this strikingly varied set. The musical reach of bassist Michael League's compositions allows for dynamic group interplay as well improvisation and exploration. Things get off to a roaring, funky start on "Tarova," with all 17 members shaking it down led by organ, Rhodes piano, fat, thrumming bass, hot snare breaks, swinging violin, and blazing horns that touch on everything from Muscle Shoals to East Indian modalism to Southern gospel. "Semente," alternately, is a Latin jazz workout that nods at Mexican bandleader Luis Arcaraz's mariachi-inspired lyricism combined with Afro-Cuban rhythms and Northern Soul with its killer string chart. "Gemini" is more nocturnal and spacy as the melodic interplay between guitars and Rhodes is balanced by a hypnotic drum kit pulse, then underscored by an out saxophone solo. "Grown Folks" delivers a bubbling funk bassline, a jazzy hip-hop drum shuffle, and a neo-soul harmonic line around bluesy, cinematic horns and dubby jazz keyboards. The soundtrack vibe is also present on the glorious "Palermo," recalling at once Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni, and Jon Hassell's Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics, with labyrinthine woodwinds, keys, brass, and rhythms. "The Big Ugly" is post-psychedelic jazz-rock grounded in deep soul. Layers of keyboards -- Rhodes, clavinet, organ, and an out-of-this-world Moog solo by Cory Henry -- alternate roles up front as colorful horns take on wah-wah and solo guitars, strings, crashing tom-toms, and kick drums, all grounded by a nasty, elastic bassline. Over nine-minutes long, it is an anthemic, suite-like closer. Culcha Vulcha is an inseparable whole; each tune is a doorway into the next, with no visible seams. No matter how different individual tracks are from one another, they unfold like stages in a dream. Any listener who has derived satisfaction from Snarky Puppy's live recordings will easily find it here, too. This is the place where musical restlessness and discipline meet creative adventure.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Live-Evil is one of Miles Davis' most confusing and illuminating documents. As a double album, it features very different settings of his band -- and indeed two very different bands. The double-LP CD package is an amalgam of a December 19, 1970, gig at the Cellar Door, which featured a band comprised of Miles, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, guitarist John McLaughlin, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on organ, and percussionist Airto. These tunes show a septet that grooved hard and fast, touching on the great funkiness that would come on later. But they are also misleading in that McLaughlin only joined the band for this night of a four-night stand; he wasn't really a member of the band at this time. Therefore, as fine and deeply lyrically grooved-out as these tracks are, they feel just a bit stiff -- check any edition of this band without him and hear the difference. The other band on these discs was recorded in Columbia's Studio B and subbed Ron Carter or Dave Holland on bass, added Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock on electric pianos, dropped the guitar on "Selim" and "Nem Um Talvez," and subbed Steve Grossman over Gary Bartz while adding Hermeto Pascoal on percussion and drums in one place ("Selim"). In fact, these sessions were recorded earlier than the live dates, the previous June in fact, when the three-keyboard band was beginning to fall apart. Why the discs were not issued separately or as a live disc and a studio disc has more to do with Miles' mind than anything else. As for the performances, the live material is wonderfully immediate and fiery: "Sivad," "Funky Tonk," and "What I Say" all cream with enthusiasm, even if they are a tad unsure of how to accommodate McLaughlin. Of the studio tracks, only "Little Red Church" comes up to that level of excitement, but the other tracks, particularly "Gemini/Double Image," have a winding, whirring kind of dynamic to them that seems to turn them back in on themselves, as if the band was really pushing in a free direction that Miles was trying to rein in. It's an awesome record, but it's because of its flaws rather than in spite of them. This is the sound of transition and complexity, and somehow it still grooves wonderfully.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Progressive rock bands stumbled into the '80s, some with the crutch of commercial concessions under one arm, which makes the Moody Blues' elegant entrance via Long Distance Voyager all the more impressive. Ironically enough, this was also the only album that the group ever got to record at their custom-designed Threshold Studio, given to them by Decca Records head Sir Edward Lewis in the early '70s and built to their specifications, but completed while they were on hiatus and never used by the band until Long Distance Voyager (the preceding album, Octave, having been recorded in California to accommodate Mike Pinder), before it was destroyed in the wake of Decca's sale to Polygram. In that connection, it was their best sounding album to date, and in just about every way is a happier listening experience than Octave was, much as it appears to have been a happier recording experience. While they may steal a page or two from the Electric Light Orchestra's recent playbook, the Moodies are careful to play their game: dreamy, intelligent songs at once sophisticated and simple. Many of these songs rank with the band's best: "The Voice" is a sweeping and majestic call to adventure, while the closing trio from Ray Thomas ("Painted Smile," "Reflective Smile," and "Veteran Cosmic Rocker") forms a skillfully wrought, if sometimes scathing, self-portrait. In between are winning numbers from John Lodge ("Talking Out of Turn," the pink-hued "Nervous") and Graeme Edge ("22,000 Days"), who tries his hand successfully in some philosophizing worthy of ex-member Mike Pinder. Apart from the opening track, Justin Hayward furnishes a pair of romantic ballads, the languid "In My World" (which benefits greatly from a beautiful chorus heavily featuring Ray Thomas' voice), which distantly recalls his Seventh Sojourn classic "New Horizons," and the more pop-oriented, beat-driven romantic ballad "Meanwhile." In typical Moodies fashion, these songs provide different perspectives of the same shared lives and observations. "Gemini Dream," which was a big hit in the U.S., does sound dated in today's post-Xanadu landscape, but never does the band lose the courage of their convictions. Although the title and the cover art reference the then-recent Voyager space probe, only half of the songs have a "voyager" connection if you apply it to touring on the road; apologetic love songs consume the other half. Still, not everything has to be a concept album, especially when the songs go down this smooth. This album should make anybody's short list of Moodies goodies. And, yes, that's Patrick Moraz who makes his debut here in place of original member Mike Pinder.© Dave Connolly & Bruce Eder /TiVo

Christmas on Mars might be the Flaming Lips' bona fide sci-fi epic, but Embryonic is the musical equivalent of the final scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey: transformative chaos that results in a new start. From The Soft Bulletin onward, the Lips seemed focused on tidying the loose ends of their earlier work, almost to the point of constraining themselves. Their wilder side is unleashed on Embryonic's 18 tracks, and the band sounds more off-the-cuff than it has in years -- some tracks are barely longer than snippets, others are rangy epics, and it all holds together so organically that listeners might wonder just how much these songs were edited. Musically, Embryonic is the least polite the Flaming Lips have been in nearly two decades, mixing in-the-red drums, blobby, dubby bass, squelchy wah-wah guitars, and sparkling keyboards into a swirl of sounds that are strangely liquid and abrasive at the same time. Occasionally, the band uses noise in an almost ugly way, as on "Convinced of the Hex," which scrapes eardrums with static and distortion before falling into a loose but driving Krautrock groove that adds to the song's tribal pull (complete with growling and wailing in the background). The Miles Davis-inspired "Aquarius Sabotage" opens fuzz bass and keyboards so chaotic, it isn't just free jazz, it's free-for-all jazz, while "Your Bats" is as soulful as it is noisy, piling roomy drums atop more delicate hand percussion, strings, and brass. The Lips balance these confrontational tracks with calmer moments like the vocodered loveliness of "The Impulse " and "Gemini Syringes," an expansive respite that features "additional spoken announcements" by mathematician Thorsten Wormann. Embryonic might not be a literal concept album, but it often plays like one. An astrology motif runs through the ultra-spacy "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" and the tumbling instrumental "Scorpio Sword," another track that suggests that the album's ultimate concept may be that chaos is a profound agent of change. It's also the Flaming Lips' most emotionally raw album, despite -- or perhaps because of -- its free-flowing nature. Wayne Coyne often sounds like he's singing from another dimension, musing on humankind's frailty with the wonder of an alien or a newborn on "If" and "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine." This is also some of the band's most bittersweet work; on the beautiful "Powerless," Coyne sings "no one is ever really powerless," but the music dwells on the weighty implications of that thought rather than its potential freedom. Even the playful "I Can Be a Frog," which features Karen O as a one-woman noisemaker, is minor-key. Then again, little about Embryonic is clear-cut or straightforward -- these noisy, pensive, sometimes meandering songs take awhile to decipher and often feel like they're still in the process of becoming. These very qualities, however, make these songs some of the Flaming Lips most haunting and intriguing music in some time.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Kiana Ledé's vivid second album is much more complex than what its title puts forth. The same goes for "Grudges" itself, featuring a stirring performance from the singer in which she's overburdened by fallout from a relationship that has left her full of pain and remorse, and unable to move forward. Over darker atmospheres on the following "Deserve," Ledé turns up the heat on her ex, and on the soul-rooted "Irresponsible," she truly unloads while keeping her cool. Even the slow jams are multi-dimensional, veering from the sexually explicit "Promise Me" to the vulnerable "Jealous," a plea for exclusivity. After the album hits its lowest emotional point with "Same Type" ("Let's start with my dad, mean no disrespect/Then to my ex, he made a mess"), the mood lifts for a closing trio of songs bathed in a warm glow. A spectrum of emotion -- from grief and weariness to hopefulness and anticipation -- can be sensed in the notes Ledé holds in the chorus of the penultimate "Closure." Grudges ultimately sounds like a hard-fought triumph.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

The Mars Volta's 2003 debut was a dense, experimental run-on sentence of science fiction and musical exploration. But though it ultimately rewarded patience with stretches of unbuckled rock & roll genius, De-Loused in the Comatorium was also a maze-like and obtuse migraine dealer that made people frustrated and crazy. For 2005's Frances the Mute, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala worked principally with their touring band, but "joining the band for selected moments" are strings, horns, electronic programming, pals Flea and John Frusciante, and the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico. There are no song breaks, making the track listing more of an outline. But Mute's printed lyrics are a helpful guide, a map of Mars that's meant to both direct and fascinate. "She was a mink handjob in sarcophagus heels"; "Don't be afraid when all the worms come crawlin out of your head"; "they were scaling through an ice pick of abscess reckoning and when Miranda sang everyone turned away...." -- perhaps the only match for the cerebral weirdness and eventual beauty of Mars Volta's lyrics is their music itself. The roar of Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala's post-hardcore past is fully locked away, replaced by an equally powerful flair for expressive percussion, intricate vocal harmonies, and extended solos for electric guitar (as on the initial part of "Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus"). Sure, there are moments on Mute that reach the grandiose heights of heavy music -- "L'Via l'Viaquez"'s ear-splitting changes will blow back your hair. But the same song is sung half in Spanish, half in English, and its flashes of heaviness fall between stretches of Afro-Cuban rhythm. Other portions of Frances the Mute are murky and distant, like field recordings from the ocean floor, while still others shift drastically between brittle acoustics and a stuttering, guitar-led volatility that threatens to crack open the earth. Its constant shifts mean the record is claustrophobic and even dizzying; it demands perseverance. But it's great when a blast of a trumpet cuts through a gloomy moment, and Bixler-Zavala's vocals are a thread to reality. For example, while his lyrics for "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" and "Widow" are mysterious poems, he sings them with a fervor that's immediately identifiable. That passion is evident throughout Frances the Mute; it's the organic fever that was buried on Comatorium.© Johnny Loftus /TiVo

Romantic progressive pop with layered piano and synthesizer atop outrageously pretentious lyrics about love and war. Those who can get past lines like "A post-war eunuch/A lover that is lame" will find some relaxed, smoky melodies here, especially the closer "Summers of My Life." "Fly into This Night" was a minor FM hit that lands a hefty keyboard punch courtesy of his brother, Joe Vannelli. Instrumentally, this is perhaps Vannelli's best effort. The lyrics are quite amusing, though that might not have been his intention.© Peter Kurtz /TiVo