Search - Roxy Music :: Avalon (Japanese Mini-Vinyl CD)

A perfect record, but get the remastered version!

Tim Brough | Springfield, PA United States | 09/25/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like the cover to this CD, there is a misty, brooding quality to "Avalon." Like a walk along a dewy beach at the prelight of dawn, everything is serene and melancholy at the same time. So much so, that this is Roxy's perfect moment. There is more pent up sensuality here than in dozens of over belting soul singers, and without upping the vocal gale quotient. In that sense, "Avalon" is quintessentially British. Romantic overtures and silky smooth desire combine in "More Than This," opening the disc and setting the mood. By the time Bryan Ferry is crooning "I'll soon be home" at the end of "True To Life," you wish that you were on this journey with him.Even though Roxy was always an arty band, they were never really a smooth one. There was always a moment on most of their albums that was there to jar you a bit. It seemed that Ferry used his solo records to exorcise his longings (or as some would have it, loungings) and that debonair side to his personality. Later Roxy albums (from "Manifesto" on) seemed to move more into that territory. Ferry brought his exquisite longing to the entirety of "Avalon" ("this space between us, better close it up tonight..."), that it's like he's moving through a long continual slow dance. That being the case, I want to follow him all the way till we stroll into the afterglow of "Tara." I have had a copy of this album in some form or another since it first came out. Quite frankly, it is on my shortlist for desert island listening. HOWEVER: The remastered version brings out many of the subtle highlights the original CD lacked...so move up to it."

Perfection

Tim Brough | 05/19/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm right there with the fan from Ohio, this is an album that you just feel right down into your bones. How many times can you say that you hear an album that never really starts or finishes, just flows from one song into the next in complete harmony? Avalon is that album -- it tells a story from the first song to the last, and it definitely takes you on a journey with it. Every time I listen to it, I just don't want to say goodbye to it, I don't want it to leave, which is just what the last song, Tara, is doing in such a poignant way. Think of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, U2's The Joshua Tree, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, albums that from beginning to end pull you in, and put Avalon in there with it. Definitely a must-have."