The Alan Parsons Project
The Turn Of A Friendly Card

After the disappointing performance of the overinflated album "Eye In The Sky", the sound genius Alan Parsons and his partner Eric Woolfson, founders of "the group" The Alan Parsons Project, decided to start a new project, focused on the bleak world of gambling. "The Turn Of a Friendly Card", the product, brings together all the "peculiar" characteristics of the APP, avant-garde sounds mixed with the symphonic music of an orchestra masterfully conducted by Andrew Powell.

Well, the album opens with a burst of trumpets, brass, and other wind instruments (an opening that we will also find in the last album, "Freudiana") that introduces "Maybe A Price To Pay", a song that talks about casino players as metaphors for "servants" and the casino director as an actual "master", "dominator". After the gloomy trumpet fanfare at the beginning, a synthesizer "carpet" comes to life, on which a melodic bass and drum line is introduced, leading to the first verse of the song, where the narrator speaks of how "something is not right in this house today", that "while the master was hiding, the servants decided to play" and how, almost certainly, "there will be a price to pay". The verses of the song are accentuated by wonderful French horns and incredibly synchronized strings. In the instrumental part of the song, there is a slight jazz-flavored theme, just hinted at, before the second part of the song begins, where, to the singer's voice, a tambourine is added.
After such a wonderful song, it would be almost certain that the next one would never equal the previous, right? Wrong! Because "Games People Play", although totally varying in style and genre (a typical APP trait), remains on a very high-quality plane, with dance sounds and a truly "exciting" instrumental part, with a bass and drum line that gradually grows on a carpet composed of various sound effects. Here, with a good electric guitar solo by the good guitarist Ian Bairnson, the song concludes.

With the next song, things vary a bit, and the concept is fleetingly exited: "Time" indeed speaks, with Eric Woolfson's M-A-R-V-E-L-O-U-S voice, about how time flows like a "river" and leaves nothing behind. Let me say, folks, that this song is one of the most beautiful and sweet songs in the group's entire repertoire: strings and French horns blend on a simple, slow, and graceful melodic line, on which the vocal singing stands out. In the second part of the track, Alan Parsons' voice is introduced, singing perfectly intertwined with the theme.
The simple theme that introduces the next song (formed by piano notes that double in the second measure) altogether represents the anguish and terror of the gambler, during the game. His luck is decided by a single face of the die, passing the intro, you enter an aggressive feud between one player and another, who advises him to "go home", because after all "he can't win". This player is obsessed with the game, as he keeps repeating continuously "I don't wanna go home", a typical phrase of the assiduous casino-goers. Another good electric guitar solo, and with a shouted "I don't wanna go home", the song closes.
The instrumental track takes its name from a highly rated casino game, "the gold bug". After the ethereal intro, an electronic melodic line comes to life that is very reminiscent of "Mammagamma" from the previous album. On this, a saxophone theme by Trix Cottle stands out, which literally plays with the electronic theme, completely redefining its limits (another typical APP feature, the good "positioning" of a sax melodic line, something Pink Floyd could learn for sure). On an electronically modified choir, the song closes, hovering again over the ethereal theme of the introduction.
Thus opens the b-side of this album's vinyl, which features a medley titled "The Turn Of A Friendly Card", composed of 4 parts; part 1 presents the main theme, played by an "orgasmic" piano accompanied by a musical carpet of a flute, gradually, this light theme is joined by a drum line and, with it, Woolfson's voice becomes more aggressive, before fading, at the end, continued by a light acoustic guitar theme. Gradually, you begin to hear slot machine noises and a strong, rock-like bass line (similar to that of "The Raven" from the album "Tales Of Mystery And Imagination", and so begins the second part, titled with a gambling dice game "Snake Eyes". A miserable compulsive gambler who seems to have left his soul beside the gaming table prays for the numbers seven and eleven to come out, before telling his companion, "just one more minute, everything's fine, everything's fine". You can almost see him, this guy sweating profusely pushing his eyes a little closer to the table to see the game's results.

A guitar theme with a fresh medieval flavor opens the beautiful instrumental track, "the ace of spades" ("The Ace Of Swords"), captivating and "varied" from a stylistic point of view, since it doesn't seem to belong to a precise genre (like the whole album, after all). Syncopated themes that could easily provide the backdrop for a duel between knights intersect with heart-wrenching, fabulous melodies in a track of truly unparalleled stylistic beauty. This track gathers all the fundamental themes of all the songs on the album, varying them, revolutionizing them to make them unrecognizable.
Thus, the most heartbreaking song of the concept is born, as well as the fourth part of the colossal self-titled track of the album, a resigned reproach to a failed player, who now lives like a vegetable since "he has nothing left to lose": he has no thoughts, and if he does, they are entirely useless, he fought, suffered, screamed, struggled, all this for nothing, to find himself with nothing left to lose, to be a sad figure no one aspires to be.
With the second part of "The Turn Of A Friendly Card" closing on a slight fade of the main theme, the album ends, with strong nuances and an even stronger moral and concept. In the face of critics who still label Parsons as just a "good sound engineer".