The Alan Parsons Project
Ammonia Avenue

A ray of hope, they say. Maybe…

“Well, keep it up, guys. ”The Sun creates light plays on the pipes' coatings there in Sunderland. “But can’t you smell the grease in the plant?”. They don’t, they don’t smell it. Memories are all we share, all we were, all we have left. “Engineer, a leak. This pipeline is damaged.” A glistening light. Black gold. “Oh, Christ… What now?” Don't answer me, don't pierce the silence, don't make me win.  “Shit, the journalists. ” The flashes. Glistening lights. “Shoot, shoot, come on… There they are with their heads in the ground, like ostriches!”. And those who initially came to mock, stayed behind and prayed.    “Go away, please, we have nothing to say to you!”.No ray of hope. “Holy Christ!... ”. All black. Grease. “What’s this terrible smell?” Let me go home, I had a bad night, leave me alone.   “Over there, the tank is leaking!!” Transparent liquid, one atom of nitrogen and three of hydrogen. I can see in your eyes you don’t believe me. Just another glistening light. The nights, too short to sleep or fall deeply into, seem so far away, now.   Ammonia.

In the blinding chemical orange envelope, where all this mixes in a cauldron of sensations, the black disc rests its grooves. Arista grooves of nineteen eighty-four. Grooves for the eighth time of the Project. Ammonia Avenue, the road to a world where the environment is sentenced and not its perpetrators. Alan Parsons and his trusty Eric Woolfson talk about all this, with the class that distinguishes all their work. Maybe the stars were right. I had a premonition: my turn will come tonight.  It will be my turn tonight.  The opening is among the best, “Prime Time” is a wonderful song for the highway, Ian Bairnson’s big guitar, Woolfson’s warm voice, Stuart Elliott’s decisive drums. Waiting until the sun sets, shadows advance into the night: living in a fantasy, in and out of dreams, nothing is as it seems. “Let Me Go Home,” Lenny Zakatek pleads: too many shadows in his day. Good rocking song, not a masterpiece, but really sharp in its riffs.  “One Good Reason” starts, Woolfson’s beautiful voice again for the most light-hearted track of the LP. I keep making the same mistake. I’m just playing a simple game, give me one good reason why I should listen to you.  Great bass line by David Paton, another pillar of the Project. But everyone knows, the ballad is the house specialty, so “Since The Last Goodbye” melts the heart like butter in the Sun, magical Chris Rainbow’s voice (“Remember all the leaves that were falling as we walked, hand in hand, in the rain. Remember voices, distant, calling: they were whispers in the dark, I can still hear them.").  “Don’t Answer Me” is the hit, joyful guitar strums and the LP’s star Eric Woolfson asking in a jubilation of sax (the great Mel Collins) and eighties’ beats to be left alone. If you believe in the power of magic,  it’s all a fantasy. You know, if you need to believe in someone, you’re just pretending it’s me.  

Maybe it’s not really my night, after all. Because people are always the same, they never change. And the game has been pushed further: no more safety net. Walking on a tightrope. And indeed “Dancing On A High Wire” opens the second side, for another historic voice of the project, Colin Blunstone: very Parsons-like track, witha slow pace marked by the guitar: strong and polished. It will be gone forever, maybe without regrets.  If we move on together, maybe there will be nothing at all. But what are you doing, not answering? You don't believe, right? “You Don’t Believe”. My eyes see what you see, I say what you think. But you don’t believe me, I can see it in your eyes. Still talking is Lenny Zakatek for a great track: essential rhythm section, solid Bairnson builds and perfect timing. The pipeline is leaking now, it’s too late. The flow of oil is this instrumental of great charm, the breach the rhythm of the drums, the sax the viscous fluid. “Pipeline”, gentlemen. You got what you wanted. And now put those damn cameras away.

While in the darkness we watch the Sun rise, really no light? Really no trace of life in this water we see stagnating in foreign eyes? “And who are we to mock, to critique what they do?” The piano marks a thousand thoughts, Eric Woolfson’s warm voice, her again, describes restlessly what his view reflects. Chaos. Intersecting melodic lines. Opening. “When you can't listen to poetry and you can't understand the reason, why should there still be hope?  A man will grow tired, his soul will dull”. Black oil. “He will live his life in vain”. Or could an avenue of ammonia save him? “Since the last goodbye, we took the wrong path. ” Yet those who came to mock found themselves praying. “Despite all the doubts, someone of them knew and, stone by stone, they built it, high”. A ray of hope. “Until the Sun managed to break through the clouds. . . ” A glistening light. Get your heads out of the sand, damn it. Don’t you see it?

“Ammonia Avenue”.