Al Stewart
Sparks of Ancient Light

Almost six years later, "Sparks Of Ancient Light" from 2008 remains the last album recorded by Al Stewart. As far as I know, it might even be his last one ever, although there hasn’t been any official announcement of retirement from the Glasgow singer-songwriter. If this were indeed the case, this wonderful artist would end his career exactly as he began it, with a style unique to himself, with class, humility, and dedication, and with the innate ability to communicate and express his artistic vocation—those qualities of empathy and taste that make a difference—and above all, with one of the brightest masterpieces of his long career. I don’t know if "Sparks Of Ancient Light" is really Al Stewart’s farewell, but if so, it would truly be the best way to close a journey that began in the distant 1967 and is so full of charm and wonders.

Every album released by Al Stewart, even the most mediocre, is more than just a music album; it’s a fragment of culture, in the broadest sense of the word. Maneuvering between history, society, literature, poetry, personal reflections, and much more, AS has always managed to be a witness to the world around him, a storyteller who conveys emotions, without passing judgments, without prophesying, avoiding any ideological cliché. In a world of comforting labels, pre-packaged characters, marketing, and audience targets to satisfy, people like him, free spirits who shun easy rebellion, are treasures to preserve, and obviously their works too, especially those like "Sparks Of Ancient Light". But what is it that makes this album so special? The colors, the variety, and care of those slightly vintage sounds and melodies? Certainly, the brilliant meter, the depth, and the wit of the lyrics that could easily be published in a poetic work? That too, undoubtedly, but in essence, "Sparks Of Ancient Light" is special because it is nothing more and nothing less than Al Stewart distilled into one album.

In this sixteenth chapter of his discography, there are no noteworthy innovations; he simply resumes the thread from the previous "A Beach Full Of Shells", expanding the horizons from Albion shores to a more worldwide perspective. That’s enough to give life to Al Stewart's definitive album. The solemn, deliberately pompous, and redundant stride of "Lord Salisbury", behind a beautiful melody, behind the decadent glories of Victorian England, hides a deeper message, a biting critique of political conservatism capable of preserving only itself, anchored in the glories of a now faded era, unable to communicate with the world, interpret new situations, or provide adequate answers to new challenges. A text of universal value, an elegant and effective satire that many of today’s Lord Salisburys, lacking the depth of the original, would not even be able to comprehend. From Victorian England to 1950s America, the situation remains more or less unchanged: "(A Child's View Of) The Eisenhower Years", with scenarios of modest bourgeois grandeur, perfectly immortalized by "Happy Days" in Uncle Ike’s America, a model society with all its stereotypes and prejudices, that underlying naiveté, the firm and unshakeable certainty of living in a model society, in the empire of good where everything is filtered and sweetened, "Your father knows what's best, no one can upstage him, he thinks he's so well dressed, finds new things to outrage him, Elvis on the