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Rating: An artist's class is perceived through many details, and among them is undoubtedly the ability to reinvent oneself with style, maintaining high quality levels and a certain, indispensable consistency: in some musical fields, change and experimentation are viewed as an eyesore, the cliché elevated to a state of art; even in the singer-songwriter realm, just think of how some people reacted to Bob Dylan's so-called electric turn, or the shock provoked by Leonard Cohen with his "Death Of A Lady's Man." For his part, Al Stewart has always been an artist capable of reinventing himself: his first three albums show remarkable stylistic differences among them, showcasing an artist still searching for his ideal dimension, yet so talented and capable of expressing himself at high levels in all the patterns he experimented with. After the orchestral magnificence of "Bedsitter Images" and the introspective singer-songwriter folk-blues of "Love Chronicles," it's up to "Zero She Flies": it's 1970, practically the dawn of hard rock, but Al Stewart doesn't care, he follows his own path and goes back in time, producing an album of pure folk almost entirely acoustic.
If "Love Chronicles" was an album set exclusively in urban settings, "Zero She Flies," with the sole exception of "Electric Los Angeles Sunset," returns the listener to rustic atmospheres. Musically sparser and dryer than its predecessor, it does not inherit its introverted and pessimistic mood; it is certainly a reflective album but more dynamic than the second chapter, in which it proves to be more successful, and certainly more effective given the absence of missteps like "Love Chronicles" that I've already discussed. "Zero She Flies" has on its side the charm of simplicity, a natural refinement, and a distinctive feature: in its barely forty-minute duration, it gives ample space to instrumentals ("Burbling", "Room Of Roots") and brief semi-instrumentals ("A Small Fruit Song", "Black Hill", "Anna") that further accentuate the meditative atmosphere with which the album is infused, besides showcasing in the most immediate and evident way Al Stewart's great prowess as a folk musician.
"Zero She Flies" offers great exploits in all its "properly said" songs: the splendid melody with a vaguely Dylan-esuqe edge of "Gethsemane, Again", reflections, and images with a religious backdrop that would deserve a separate review, the stealthy and smoky stride of "My Enemies Have Sweet Voices", poetry by Pete Morgan transformed into a classic folk song, masterfully accompanied by bass and harmonica. The "electric turn" of "Love Chronicles" is not forgotten; it continues with the refined title track "Zero She Flies" which reworks the sounds of the previous album into a more visionary dimension, creating a fascinating poem filled with images and metaphors, and "Electric Los Angeles Sunset", which departs from the rest of the album by bringing the listener back to the chaotic metropolis like "In Brooklyn," but emphasizing violence, pollution, and the decadent nightlife: another perfect musical snapshot that constitutes a great surplus, adding that touch of incisive vitality that helps to make the album more varied and also more alive, while still fitting perfectly. "Zero She Flies" also contains Al Stewart's first historically themed song, the first of a long series, "Manuscript", a melancholic ballad accompanied by organ and orchestration, which recalls the events leading up to the outbreak of World War I like an old and faded black and white photo, from a distant and blurred perspective, a childhood memory.
Like the two previous albums, "Zero She Flies" can also be considered a work of transition and experimentation, adding another brick to the construction of a precise, personal, recognizable, and defined sound for Al Stewart, but, just like "Bedsitter Images," it remains a stunning record; texts of high poetic and literary value and simple, inspired melodies; the eclecticism, energy, and more contemporary sound that Stewart would develop in later years rests on these traditional and solid foundations, and that also makes "Zero She Flies" a mandatory and essential passage for all those who wish to approach the music of this great artist.
Tracklist and Lyrics
05 Electric Los Angeles Sunset (03:48)
Shots split the night, a bullet lodged in his brain
He must have died instantly, he felt no pain
A crowd quickly gathered to the feast of the gun
Waiting for the ambulance and cops to come
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Sirens wail in the concrete
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Headlight lit the faces by the tabernacle door
Gazing at the bloodstains on the damp sidewalk
As the crowd turned to go, a man was heard to say
"He must have had it comin' to him anyway"
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Blood wagon rolls through the dragnet
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
Cadillacs roll through the smoggy perfume
The buildings are choking on oxygen fumes
Evangelists praying in rented rooms, in the afternoon
Which way do the signposts read
African eyes in the sunrise
The gates of the city are rusted over and mouldering
The violence of the evening decays into the night
While shadows press like moths against the neon light
Movie queues diffuse into the Cinerama haze
While libertines read pornozines in street cafes
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
The madman swings in the pulpit
Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm
Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh
06 Manuscript (04:43)
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights down low
Silently sifting through papers sealed with a crown
Admiral Lord Fisher is writing to Churchill, calling for more Dreadnoughts
The houses in Hackney are all falling down
And my grandmother sits on the beach in the days before the war
Young girl writing her diary, while time seems to pause
Watching the waves as they come one by one to die on the shore
Kissing the feet of England
Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late, yet there's nothing to touch
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much
And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Smiling a secret smile as she goes to the door
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
And the sun sets gently on England
Ah the day we decided to drive down to Worthing, it rained and rained
Giving us only a minute to stand by the sea
And crunching my way through the shingles, it seemed there was nothing changed
Though the jetty was maybe more scarred that I'd known it to be
And Mandi and I stood and stared at the overcast sky
Where ten years ago we had stood, my Grandfather and I
And the waves still rushed in as they had the year that he died
And it seemed that my lifetime was shrunken and lost in the tide
As it rose and fell on the side of England
Prince Louis Battenberg is burning the Admiralty lights
08 Anna (01:47)
Anna, turns out the light
Sits down alone
The echo of his foot on the stair
Turning to stone
No, he didn't take very much
Just your flesh from the bone
It's gonna be hard for a while
Trying to get by
On your own
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By CLINT
Al Stewart remains, in my opinion, a tremendously underrated artist as all his songs throughout his production have always proven to be very enjoyable and relaxing.
Even after forty years, the album still feels fresh and played with that masterful blend of technical skill combined with some slight roughness or imperfection that I so love in records from that era.
