Al Stewart
Orange

Transitional Album: a definition often used, mostly to indicate mediocre releases by a particular artist that often precede their transition from glory days to decline, but transition first and foremost means change, experimentation, innovation. The transitional album is a product not yet completely successful and defined but still important and proactive, "Orange" by Al Stewart is a perfect example. Two years after the wonderful "Zero She Flies", which with its traditional folk represented, from a strictly technical and musical viewpoint, a step backward, the Glasgow singer-songwriter presents something more complex and arranged, finally developing a prototype very close to what will be the definitive style of his best years.

Among the numerous high-profile musicians involved in the making of "Orange," particularly stand out the renowned session man Tim Renwick on guitar and Rick Wakeman on piano, fundamental in more than one instance. The most evident flaw of this beautiful album is undoubtedly personality: unlike its predecessors, "Orange" lacks a common stylistic trait, an organic overall vision. The songs are all beautiful, some even wonderful if taken individually, but brilliant and introspective episodes alternate in a disunited amalgam. Prevailing is a refined and mature folk-blues rock, typical of episodes like the bittersweet poetic nature of "I'm Falling" and the intense ride of "Night Of The 4th Of May", which evolve and modernize the musical discourse undertaken with "Love Chronicles". In this, the use of the organ as an arrangement proves decisive; especially when, combined with Rick Wakeman's piano, it contributes to the perfect success of masterpieces like "The News From Spain", a song of epic breath and a vivid, tragic emotional impact in its grave and cadenced advance, and the more composed ballad "Songs Out Of Clay", an ancient and twilight melody that instead brings back the atmospheres of "Zero She Flies".

With these premises, "Orange" would be the logical evolution of ZSF, which the instrumental "Once An Orange, Always An Orange" recalls in an even more explicit way, but the livelier episodes, though pleasant and well-presented, somewhat alter this alchemy. The amusing "Amsterdam", a homage to the libertarian culture of the Dutch city with Wakeman prominently on piano, is an excellent amusement, while the ironic "You Don't Even Know Me" raises more perplexity, a good piece with the small flaw of sounding very Dylan and little Stewart; evidence of this influence is also presented in a not-so-memorable cover of the more famous American colleague, "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Met)", to which Al Stewart's voice lends a more elegant touch but less charm, accentuated also by the absence of the original harmonica, an unreleased track would have been much more suitable for the context.

The final judgment of three stars might be a bit tight for an album that, with songs like "The News From Spain" and "Songs Out Of Clay", reaches very high peaks but, weighing pros and cons, carefully comparing it to the rest of Al Stewart's production is, in my opinion, the most correct evaluation. In the artistic path of Our Own, it plays a role entirely analogous to that of "Honky Chateau" for Elton John, another recording release from 1972, an important but not fundamental album, which barely hints at the definitive and now imminent leap in quality, destined to materialize in just over a year with "Past, Present And Future."