Customer Reviews

Tales of Mystery & Imagination

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Forget about the pop songs that Alan Parsons made later in the 80's, this is a completely different approach to music. I'm not even a diehard Alan Parsons fan but this is truly a masterpiece of effort and inventiveness.

Parsons decided to take the works of Edgar Allen Poe and put them to music, and I don't think it could have been done better. Poe has always been one of my favorite writers, allowing me to sift through a human mind on its decline through the many layers of madness. Heavy use of synthesizers creates a fantasy world full of the moods and emotions Poe used in his writing.

Dream Within A Dream is an instrumental, nearly classical piece, with an introductory reading by Orson Wells, a slow heavy beat of drums and bass joined by keyboards reminiscent of a harpsichord and choir type vocal accompaniment. The synthesized riffs are vaguely similar to the Priest's theme from The Exorcist, an apt association of dread for this moody piece.

Dream Within A Dream blends smoothly into The Raven, probably the most popular piece on this album. It is masterpiece of Poe's famous poem set to music, with the vocals eerily sang using a vocoder, and the choir accompaniment in the background. The synthesizer brings out more horn sounds, and the music, while still eerie, has a more triumphant and powerful sound to it than Dream.

The Tell Tale Heart starts out with a scream of derangement, and brings the album into its rock genre with a faster, pounding beat and more guitar than keyboard. The vocals are purposefully stressed into a pitch that expertly portrays the lunacy of the murderer's descent into madness as the old man's beating heart refuses to stop its tormenting clamor, and incorporates some of the actual lines from Poe's unforgettable tale of unleashed insanity. The bass line in this song does indeed sound like a rapidly pulsing heart, louder and louder as sanity is cast aside.

The Cask of Amontillado slows the pace back down, in a gentle melody reminiscent of The Beatles "She's Leaving Home", with similar tune and pitch, but more powerful in its chorale moments. I really felt that Parsons did a tremendous job on this tune not only with the music but with the lyrics, telling (as close as three verses possibly can) the summation of this tale of murder. Of particular note are the echoes of the voice of Fortunato behind Montresor's in the chorus, overlapping each other as the exchange of words between the two within that dank cellar would have, yet eerily gentle rather than desperately pleading.

"What are these chains that are binding my arm?" (Fortunato)
"Part of you dies each passing day." (Montresor)
"Say it's a game and I'll come to no harm." (Fortunato)
"You'll feel your life slipping away." (Montresor)
"Spare me my life only name your reward." (Fortunato)
"Part of you dies each brick I lay." (Montresor)
"Bring back some light in the name of the Lord." (Fortunato)
"You'll feel your mind slipping away." (Montresor)

With classical strings sawing off notes as a ticking clock would pass the seconds of agonizing time, powerful horn sounds, and the gentle, deadly lyrics, I think this song is really one of the masterpieces of the album though it never got the recognition some of the other songs did.

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether is the obvious choice on the album for radio play, a tiny bit obvious that it was intended to be the breakout song for the album, though I believe The Raven actually became more popular. An excellent choice for the theme, the very nature of the story itself brings the beat of the music back up into the more rock orientated aspects of rhythmic drums and lots of guitar riffs, and deep voices chanting "Just what you need to make you feel better" in the background. While it doesn't delve into the actual story behind the music as much as some of the other pieces, the music does portray a certain maniacal glee within it, and manages to fit in quite nicely with the eerier and more lyrically elaborate compositions; and adds some fun by bringing in the sounds of applause and overlaying riffs from both The Raven and Dream Within A Dream at the end of the song.

The Fall of the House of Usher is the major masterpiece of this musical representation of Poe, just as the book is one of the more famous examples of his literary genius. Usher is comprised of five separate movements; and is a beautiful, classical composition of mood and mystery, death and decay, body and spirit, insufferable gloom, and the storms that raze the walls of body and mansion.
The first movement, a seven minute piece called Prelude starts with another oration by Orson Wells, and is soft and almost flirtatious in places, forceful and climaxing in others, incorporating a feeling of anticipation or longing within the notes; and ending aptly with the sounds of a powerful thunderstorm and driving rain.

The second movement is a two and a half minute piece called Arrival, and picks up with the sounds of the storm, and speeds into a climax of synthesizer and drums, falling softly off into a languid beat and morose guitars before the synthesizer builds back up to its peak once again.

The third movement is called Intermezzo, and is only one minute in length, not much more than eerie sounds of a cathedral type organ, that plays its self out into the fourth movement called Pavane.

In Pavane we hear more bell-like synthesizer and guitar, again reminiscent of the Priest's song in Exorcist, but underlain with a throatier, progressive foundation from synthesizer and bass, until about three minutes into the melody it picks up with the addition of drums and a building crescendo of escalating volume and tension. I believe this is the movement that Parson's actually used a glockenspiel in, though with his ability to make synthesizers sound like whatever he wanted them to, its hard for me to tell if it's the real thing or not.

The last movement of The Fall of the House of Usher is a mercifully short (51 second) instrumental scream of anguish, building kettle drums and an escalating noise from the synthesizer along with what sounds like feedback shrieks. The does, however, symbolize the ending of Poe's work; where, "There was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher."

The last song on the album is a great disappointment to me. To One In Paradise is a real poem by Edgar Allen Poe, a stunningly beautiful poem of anguish and lost love. Instead of incorporating Poe's work into the actual structure of this melody as he did with The Raven and The Tell Tale Heart, he used sappy and uninspiring lyrics about "believing in your dreams". Pah! The music is very "Pop" orientated and softly saccharin, and only at the very end of the tune did Parsons add an oration from the real poem; "And all my days are trances, and all my nightly dreams, are where thy gray eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams, in what ethereal dances, by what eternal streams.", but the narrator can barely be heard above the syrupy sighs of the chorus and the gentle riffs of the music. I just don't believe that a touchy-feelie, good-mood, gentle and happy song like this belongs to any of Poe's work whatsoever. The mood should have been as dark and anguished as the poem itself.

There you have it. Altogether one of the most original musical works of art to this day, it manages to cross the time barrier of evolving rock and electronica, and still hold its own in the top ranks with its eclectic creativity. Pick up a copy, get some headphones, and enjoy yourself.

I'll never forget the first work by Edgar Allan Poe I ever read: it was "The Tell-Tale Heart," and Poe's short story about a madman who kills and dismembers an old man by whose "evil eye" he feels haunted soon outgrew the high school class assignment it had originally been for me; and the narrator's nightmares began to haunt me, too. (Yes, I was an impressionable 16-year-old, but Poe really *was* the master of horror for all ages.) Alan Parsons's rendition of the story on the third track of "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" does full justice to its sense of lunacy masquerading as clairvoyance, and the urgency of the narrator's acts, driven by the sound of the old man's beating heart, hidden below the floor boards of his room, and symbolized here by the steady bass and drum beat underlying the entire track - except for the deceptively serene bridge ("And he won't be found at all, not a trace to mark his fall nor a stain upon the wall"), after which it returns with all the greater force, accentuated by the grating sound of an electric guitar which, along with the bassline and drums, causes some to describe this song as more of a traditional rock song than the other parts of this album.

The album starts with an instrumental based on the poem "Dream Within a Dream," and the brief Poe quote from 1846's "Marginalia" (where "Dream Within a Dream" was also published), spoken by Orson Welles and added only on 1987's remastered CD. In many ways, this quote sets the theme for the entire album, and for Poe's work in general: "There is ... a class of fancies of exquisite delicacy which are not thoughts ... These fancies arise in the soul, alas how rarely ... at those weird points of time, where the confines of the waking world blend with the world of dreams. ... I captured this fancy, where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream." (I owned and loved the vinyl version of this album long before the CD was released; but for the life of me I cannot understand why this quote was not included from the start - unlike others I don't find it an intrusion but an enrichment.) And like the quote, the entire track weaves around the listener's thoughts and thus, leads us into the rest of the album, at the end introducing the drum-enforced bassline which also dominates the next two tracks on what used to be the vinyl original's first side.

Thus, "Dream Within a Dream" blends seamlessly into the interpretation of Poe's classic "The Raven" - the epitome of a story about a nightly visitor from hell, come to torment the narrator and to leave Nevermore. (Parsons maintains the poem's gloomy mood, although he makes little to no references to its more explanatory parts.) And like the "The Raven" and "The Tell-Tale Heart," the album's fourth track deals with a soul damned forever, setting to music the tale of "The Cask of Amontillado," that bait used by its narrator Montresor to lure and immure alive in his palace's labyrinthic vaults one pointedly named Fortunado. The song's heavily textured vocals layer Fortunado's pleas for help with Montresor's gloating, while gentle keyboard and string tunes contrast his horrifying act. Horns, guitars and a choir emphasize the story's somber end.

The tales then move on to the chillingly hilarious account of the madhouse reigned by the inmates themselves (insufficiently "soothed" by the prior system and now partying wildly) and the "System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether," administered on their former guards.

The orchestral suite "Fall of the House of Usher," the centerpiece of the vinyl album's second side, puts to music Poe's ghastly tale of an ancient mansion causing the ruin of its owners. Here again, Orson Welles lends his voice to Poe's words, written in 1831, eight years before the tale itself but foretelling it with its references to "[s]hadows of shadows passing," "colour becom[ing] pallor, man becom[ing] carcase, home becom[ing] catacomb, and the dead [who] are but for a moment motionless." (Again, I fail to understand why this was not included on the vinyl version of the CD.) The suite's individual movements mirror the breadth of emotions contained in Poe's tale, with (alternatively and conjunctively) wailing strings, sinuous guitars, and thundering, hard-driving drums and bassline.

And as in anyone of Poe's tales, there simply cannot be an upbeat ending - the album's last track is a melancholy interpretation of the ode "To One in Paradise," mourning the death of the speaker's love.

"Tales of Mystery and Imagination" is a quintessential concept album; the auspicious debut of that "anonymous outfit that never play[ed] gigs," as Parsons wrote in the liner notes of the remastered CD; a "project" whose name was initially not intended to be the name of the band but rather their product, the album itself. In addition to close contributor and keyboardist Eric Woolfson, Alan Parsons recruited a talented group of individuals: conductor Andrew Powell, who later produced Kate Bush's first albums, scored Richard Donner's Ladyhawke and worked with artists as diverse as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Leo Sayer, Chris de Burgh, Kansas and the Philharmonia Orchestra; guitarist Ian Bairnson (now known for his cooperations with George Martin, Mick Fleetwood and again, Kate Bush); actor Leonard Whiting (Romeo the 1968 Zeffirelli film), Elton John's bassist David Paton, 10CC drummer and Bairnson ex-co-Pilot Stuart Tosh, Tina Turner sidekick-to-be John Miles, and Terry Sylvester, Graham Nash's replacement in the Hollies.

If you didn't know this is Parsons's and his "Project"'s first album, you certainly wouldn't be able to tell this from the record's tight, first-rate production and musicianship. I am not the world's greatest fan of electronic music ' but this album has so much more to offer than synthesizers and vocoders. It has been one of my all-time favorites ever since its 1975 release, and I still listen to it with great regularity.

Also recommended:
Essential Alan Parsons Project
Edgar Allan Poe : Poetry and Tales (Library of America)

Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the first "project" by Alan Parsons, the most adventurous, one of the best, and at the time intended to be the only. With a strong Edgar Allan Poe concept (taking even its title from Poe), Tales leads you through a first "side" of loosely connected songs and a second of longer form quasi-orchestral material. The album as a whole is strong and bears up well under repeated listening. It isn't as cohesive as later APP efforts but that isn't necessarily a fault.

As an owner of the original album, I was happy to see it remastered and re-released on CD (many years ago) but I didn't think that the remixing and inserted material were an improvement. The Orson Welles narrative was fine but the other changes weren't particularly to my liking, and they still aren't. Nevertheless, this album remains a progressive rock landmark, and its boldness and enduring success merit a top rating.

My favorite has always been the spooky, ethereal "The Raven," which captures perfectly the metaphysical foreboding of one of Poe's best-known poems.

1976's "Tales Of Mystery & Imagination," a concept album based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, is the album that started it all for the great studio group known as The Alan Parsons Project, and it arguably remains their best work (even Alan Parsons himself names it as his personal favorite Project album). "Tales" is a spellbinding prog-rock classic, filled to the brim with outstanding drama, moods, sounds & atmospheres, as well as tremendous musicianship, singing, songwriting, & production. Who'd expect anything less from a group led by the man who engineered the Pink Floyd classic, "Dark Side Of The Moon"?The opening instrumental, "A Dream Within A Dream," is an astonishing slice of dramatic progressive rock that instantly grabs you, and it sets up the rest of the album perfectly. "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" (featuring wonderfully insane vocals by Arthur Brown), "The Cask Of Amontillado," & the Project's first hit, "(The System Of) Doctor Tarr & Professor Fether," are all Project classics. Then comes the album's centerpiece, the sprawling, adventurous instrumental take on "The Fall Of The House Of Usher," complete with orchestra & sound effects. It's simply a mindblower. Finally, the album concludes with "To One In Paradise," a truly gorgeous song that leaves you breathless. This CD version of "Tales" is the 1987 remix version, in which Alan Parsons added some extra keyboard & guitar parts, as well as a pair of marvelous narration pieces by Orson Welles, in order to strengthen the album for it's 1987 CD release (not too unlike what George Lucas did to his "Star Wars" movies for their 1997 re-release). Although I have tremendous affection for the original mix of the album (only released on the Mobile Fidelity Gold CD version of "Tales"---good luck trying to find one), this 1987 remixed version has been done with a lot of great care, and Alan Parsons has definitely kept the beauty & integrity of the original album intact.The Alan Parsons Project have released so many terrific albums over the years: "I Robot," "Pyramid," "Eve," "The Turn Of A Friendly Card," "Eye In The Sky," just to name a few. They're ALL worth adding to your CD collection. But if I had to pick the Project's masterpiece, I'd have to go with this one. "Tales Of Mystery & Imagination" is a truly groundbreaking prog-rock classic. :-)

The Alan Parsons Project created an album around the works of Edgar Allan Poe. One of my favorite bands combined with one of my favorite authors. How could I do less than love this album absolutely?

The album starts out with the disembodied voice of Orson Welles, speaking the words of Poe at the beginning of the instrumental track "A Dream Within a Dream." "The Raven" begins with a mesmerizing bass beat and Alan Parsons' EMI vocoder vocals. Listen to this song through headphones, and you will completely lose yourself in the musical world APP has created. Leonard Whiting sings lead, with old favorite Eric Woolfson on backup, and a chorale accompaniment that will give you the chills.

"The Tell-Tale Heart", in my opinion, is the low point of the album. That may in part be due to Arthur Brown's vocals, which I just don't like as much as some of APP's other singers. However, this still perfectly captures the suspense and paranoia of the Poe story. "The Cask of Amontillado," hauntingly sung by John Miles, Terry Sylvester and Woolfson, is easily my favorite track on the album. The overlapping vocals of Fortunato and his tormentor evoke the terror of the clammy crypts, made even worse by the soothing refrains ("You'll feel your life slipping away").

"(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" is a fun, rowdy tribute to one of Poe's lesser-known comic tales, sung by John Miles and Jack Harris. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a five-part instrumental epic that starts out with more narration from Orson Welles. The final track, "To One in Paradise", is a sensitive and lovely song, reminiscent of some of Alice Cooper's quieter moods. Terry Sylvester sings lead, backed up by Woolfson and Parsons.

The liner notes are exquisitely detailed, giving a chronology of Poe's life and works, along with an interesting essay by Parsons about the re-release and remastering of the album. This is a rich and meaningful album, as well as a loving tribute to the master of horror. Listen to it on a dark and stormy night!

In the words of Alan Parsons himself on the liner notes, "We never expected the Alan Parsons Project to become the name of an act. The phrase was designed to describe the identity of the album you are now holding." Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the first and, in my opinion, still the best work of the Project. Every song is inspired by a specific work of Edgar Alan Poe. The first half consists of great rock songs with catchy licks, top-notch musicianship and very high production values.

The second half is dominated by the orchestral piece "The Fall of the House of Usher". I have no idea why the liner notes don't credit Claude Debussy on this piece. Much of the orchestral parts in Parsons' Usher, including Prelude are adapted from parts of a 2-act opera of Debussy (also called the Fall of the House of Usher) which was unfinished at the time of his (Debussy's) death. The manuscript was partially reconstituted separately by two composers in 1976 just before the Project put out this album. For the Parsons score of Usher, Andrew Powell wrote new sections, as well as added sound effects and electronic instrumentation, which adds to the atmosphere, tension and overall power of the piece.

For those who are interested, Amazon lists, but does not have in stock, a CD with a version of the Debussy opera. It is coupled with The Mask of the Red Death (listed by Amazon as "Fantastic Tale") by Andre Caplet which is a piece for harp and orchestra inspired by Poe's tale of the same name and which is an amazing, spooky piece that sends shivers up my spine every time I listen to it.

As with many reviewers I also own the original vinyl copy of Tales from its first release and listed to it steadily over the years until this CD came out. However, perhaps I am in the minority in that I prefer this latter CD with the extra guitar solos, the Welles narration and overall cleaner sound. In any event this is one of the best (progressive) rock albums ever released and would likely make it on my "Desert Island Disks" list.

The 1987 CD re-release in no way diminished this work as a classic, but the changes made to the original were a mixed bag. Orson Welles' incredible voice (Why was it left off the original?!) would improve practically anything, but the new guitar solos by Ian Bairnson were unnecessary and somewhat distracting, with the synth additions by Parsons and Eric Woolfson making only a minor difference. All the tracks shine, but a special mention should be made of Andrew Powell's beautiful instrumentals for "Fall of the House of Usher", especially the Pavane. Incidentally, anyone who especially values this as a "theme" album should also check out Woolfson's amazing "Freudiana", which even more "mystery and imagination" than this did. It's an import, and somewhat pricey, but well worth it.

Ok. This is tricky, since this review pops up under both the 1975 "Gold CD" edition AND under the 1987 reissued edition, so I'll talk about both here.

I got to hear the Original '75 version of this album as my first exposure to this material. That was, in my opinion, one of the revolutionary discs of the 20th Century. True, other groups had done orchestral works, and "concept" albums, notably The Beatles and Pink Floyd, both of whom who Parsons engineered for, among many others. But this disc was of special interest to me personally. Being a fan of Poe, this album was a revelation, and clearly launched Alan's Project to several fantastic albums over the next several years. Would there have been an "I, Robot" or "Pyramid" had this disc not preceeded them? The original 1975 album is a brilliant interpretation of some of Poe's most famous works. It's orchestral, it's moody, it's very much an evocative piece.

The '87 reworking of the album has added nothing of note and actually is more distracting, especially if you are familiar with the first version. Inserted are guitar licks that make more noise on the tracks but don't add more meaning or give more substance. And a brief narration by Orson Welles is included, which is interesting, but for me evokes Vincent Price's work on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, so that isn't a positive!

I guess there was money to be made in this tweaked reissue, but for me the original is worth seeking out and getting. Not the newer version.

So take note: I give FIVE stars to the 1975 version; but only Three to the '87 remake.

The Alan Parsons Project's TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION is one of the best horror-themed rock albums ever produced. Every track is based on a work by that master of the morbid, Edgar Allan Poe, and the band--actually only two musician-songwriters, Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, backed up by some outstanding session musicians--does a fantastic job of weaving Poe's eerie narrative and lurid atmosphere into a macabre musical tapestry.

Some of Poe's best works are interpreted here, not the least of which are "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Fall of the House of Usher." The more widely-known piece on the album is probably "The Raven," having been granted a lot of radio play when it debuted in the 1970s, and "The Tell-Tale Heart" stylistically stands as the album's most traditional rock-and-roll song. But from an aesthetic standpoint, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is undoubtedly the best track. The entire song lasts for more than 16 minutes, contains no lyrics (other than a newly added voiceover at the beginning), and is divided into different movements in much the same way as a classical symphony. Like the Poe story that inspired it, it runs the gamut of human emotion, starting off with a serene yet melancholy classical passage, then seamlessly moving through jazzy new-age and rock segues towards an intense symphonic crescendo. When listening to the song from start to finish, it is impossible to NOT feel that sense of inexorable deterioration and downfall that is inherent to the Poe work, and it is altogether quite artistically satisfying.

TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION was originally released in 1976 and was, to the dismay of some fans, re-released a few years later with different jacket illustrations. Though the remixed and remastered CD version reviewed here uses the original jacket art for the cover and liner illustrations, there are other aspects of the disc that will nonetheless upset fans who are "purists." For example, musical passages such as guitar riffs or background synths have been blatantly superimposed onto some of the tracks, and many of the tracks are now tied together with narrative voice-overs recorded by the late Orson Welles (yes, THAT Orson Welles). However, one must bear in mind that these alterations have been executed by none other than Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson themselves, and they claim to have done everything possible to ensure that the music contains the same spirit that endeared it to fans when it was originally released in 1976.

Still, musically speaking, the album has undergone a noticeable facelift. Of course, if this CD represents your first exposure to the music, the changes probably won't matter to you in the least. But if you're someone who has loved the album since its original debut, you'll just have to give this version a listen and decide for yourself if the changes either deface or enhance. To most fans, though, the album will most certainly remain a classic.

This CD is highly recommended to fans of horror, those who love the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and anybody who fondly remembers the concept rock of the 1970s.

Alan Parsons had already spent his time producing and engineering, like the Beatles' Abbey Road, Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (yes, which gets overlooked compared to his engineering on:), Dark Side of the Moon, Paul McCartney, The Hollies, Pilot, etc. It would only be natural that he wanted to explore his own musical ideas, and team up with Eric Woolfson, with a host of vocalists and musicians. Tales of Mystery and Imagination is a collection of songs based on various poems from Edgar Allen Poe. What's really interesting in the total lack of synthesizers (although synthesizers would appear with full force starting with I Robot), yet still retaining that '70s hi-tech feel. "A Dream Within a Dream" is the opening cut, an instrumental which is a wonderful piece that no doubt defines the Project's instrumental sound. "The Raven" is the first vocal cut. Here a vocoder is used (which I understand was a custom-made vocoder made by EMI). Andrew Powell includes his orchestra and choir (the orchestra and choir sounds exactly like that on Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother, although Powell didn't conduct the orchestra on that album) in that song. "Tell-Tale Heart" is an unusual cut, the only Alan Parsons Project cut to feature the vocals of Arthur Brown, as in The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (who gave us the 1968 hit "Fire") and the overlooked prog rock band Kingdom Come (not the '80s U.S. band). "The Cask of Amontillado" is a ballad, which defines the softer side of the Alan Parsons Project. "(The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" was the hit on the album, but I never actually heard this song on the FM dial. It's a more rocking number. Andrew Powell's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is of course, a largely orchestral piece, but with one part featuring John Leach playing his cimbalom (Hungarian dulcimer) and kantele (Finnish zither). "To One in Paradise" is another ballad, it's interesting to note Eric Woolfson provides backing vocals. Meaning that while Turn of a Friendly Card is the first Project album where Woolfson sings lead (like on "Time"), he did a little backup vocals previous, like "What Goes Up..." on Pyramid, and of course "To One in Paradise", as mentioned.

In 1987, when this album finally saw the light of day on CD (on Mercury), Alan Parsons decided to give it an '80s facelift, with digital treatment, big '80s drum sounds, and Orson Welles providing some narration. At least it wasn't plastered with Yamaha DX-7s and other similar digital synthesizers of the time. The LP reissue features a booklet that gives background to the musicians involved. I liked the one regarding Arthur Brown: "Whatever happened to the Crazy World of Arthur Brown? Did he get 'Fired?'" (get it? As in his hit "Fire").

As for the original LP (20th Century Records in the US, and in the UK on Charisma), it features the same cover, but without the mummy on the front, and that stripe in the middle, rather than near the bottom. Here you get the chance to hear it the way it's supposed to be, without the '80s digital treatment.

It's a nice album, but I thought I Robot was even better.