Monocled Alchemist

LP reviewed in Sounds, 29th May, 1982

ROXY MUSIC ‘Avalon’ (Polydor EGHP50)***1/2 ROXY MUSIC must surely represent the greatest ‘might have been’ episode in the murky catalogue of rock’s squandered riches.

Their first album, a tinny, undisciplined explosion of yet-unharnessed potential produced negligently by a man who would go on to write lyrics for Bucks Fizz: how appropriate, really.

Their follow-up, ‘For Your Pleasure’, was their best try at mixing frontman Bryan Ferry‘s beloved combination of art and sex musics in just the coldest way.

With the departure of commercial saboteur (or so he seemed then) Eno, the brilliant third LP ‘Stranded’ was sheer magnificent stagnation. No fulminate of mercury nova burnouts for England’s finest; Roxy Music has died the most protracted, popular, agonising death in the history of waste.

Roxy Music | Avalon | (Polydor) 1982

Perhaps Bryan Ferry loved Lou Reed more than we know. Like Lou el Ferrari appears to wilfully squander his talent, to lose no opportunity to be ordinary while hinting at genius held in check every once in a style (see his cover of ‘The In Crowd’).

But while the boss continues to play at being some kinda Orson Welles crucified on the corporate altar with fractured B-movie solo projects like ‘The Bride Stripped Bare’, Roxy go on like zombies: we know they stopped being a real group years ago, yet still they have hits. F is for Ferry is for Fake! And ‘Avalon’ is the latest edition of you, yes?

Boasting a cover that looks as if it was stolen from Wishbone Ash (or maybe Bry is going all celtic on us again, as with ‘Carrickfergus’) ‘Avalon’ smells of perfection or restraint.

We begin with the last single, ‘More Than This’, a shimmer of easy hypnosis that is as beautiful as it is lacking in fire. It’s great yet grating after a few plays because one feels that no-one here, not Ferry the vocalist nor Manzanera the inspired guitarist, is stretching themselves in the slightest.

Roxy Music | Avalon | (Polydor) 1982

In the main the rest of ‘Avalon’ is split between limpid balladry and curiously Anglo ethereal discoidism, with typical Ferry heavybreath titles like ‘While My Heart Is Still Beating’ and ‘The Space Between’, though this time out the words lack even the doubtful charm of his usually dense imagery and lush verbosity.

Nobody on either side of the speakers gets excited, save maybe over the chiming guitars of ‘Take A Chance With Me’, the one crawl towards the pumping fury of old Roxy past. But it is only a very distant cousin, seen through a deadening heat haze that saps all power.

The one surprise here is the presence of two instrumental tracks, ‘India’ and ‘Tara’; but evocative as they are, the instrumentation and texture and playing on these short excursions is all too orthodox.

Roxy Music | Avalon | (Polydor) 1982

‘Avalon’ is slick, pleasant, a hit; but not much of a statement after a two year absence. How can Ferry possibly be happy with this, where did all those ideas go?

In Johnny Rogan’s new Roxy biog paperback he mentions that Ferry once planned to have the same girl on every LP sleeve, getting a little older and a little more haggard each time. He should have carried it through, as that at least would have been an honest reflection of the music on record. This time there’s no girl at all.

Roxy Music: the saddest success story ever. (Sandy Robertson)

ROXY MUSIC: ‘Avalon’ (EGHP 5O) SHIMMYING AND shimmering, here comes the final instalment of the trilogy Roxy began with ‘Manifesto’, via ‘Flesh And Blood’, Bryan Fry has petted a simple music which, as he’s said elsewhere, is designed to make ‘something out of nothing’.

Roxy’s new style is as insubstantial as possible. Made like a mirage, ‘Avalon’ hangs in the air like shadows on a summer evening, catching the last of the light. Thin as gossamer, this music is full of it’s own fading. Without definite beginnings or endings, Ferry’s new songs float in and out of nowhere, barely finding time to focus before they dissolve back into the night air.

‘Avalon’ is an evening album, catching things on the wane. Brian Ferry has turned his old desperate romanticism, his passionate desires and his broken hearts, into a mellowed resignation that’s as cool as possible.

Of course, Ferry’s always been cool. This ‘poor country boy’ is one of English music’s coolest and most calculating stylists and, like Bowie, he’s taken style so far that he no longer has to worry about fashion. Ferry has become a law unto himself.

Ferry’s current law is to float in and out of his dreams and write the simplest possible pop songs. Traces of the old themes remain, like Ferry’s self-obsession and his romantic insistence on the power of his passion.

Old themes, but the desperation of, say, ‘The Bride Stripped Bare’ has been replaced with a misty, slightly nostalgic resignation. This Ferry doesn’t ask too much. He’s growing old gracefully, accepting the inevitability of the tide’s turning, taking his little fun, accepting that more than this is nothing.

This fatalism could rapidly become tedious if it wasn’t so perfectly captured in the shifting textures of Rory’s fading backgrounds. Manzanera and Mackay wander delicately in and out of the mix, understating everything while Bryan croons away in search of heaven. ‘Avalon’ catches that moment before Ferry’s current carelessness turns into complacency and his resignation into indifference. And it captures it quite perfectly.

Now The rose will fall from the tree, and Ferry must change or fade completely. More than ‘Avalon’ those is nothing. (Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 29/05/82)

Roxy Music | Avalon | (Polydor) 1982

Avalon (Polydor) AVALON . . . ANCIENT name for that sacred site, once a swamp-isolated island, now called Glastonbury, mystical focus for that nexus of myths and legends enshrouding Britain’s distant past. Most of all, Avalon was the Celtic other-world where the dying King Arthur, hope and saviour of his people, was carried by spectral ferry (Ferry? Did someone say . . .), not to rot but to rest, and await a future age.

In arcane British mythology, then, Avalon represents immense sadness, a sense of loss — or maybe something not so final as that, more a yearning sense of separation. Roxy Music’s title-track ‘Avalon’, on the other hand, makes no reference to history or legend at all. Which could mean either (a) that the start of this review is a total waste of your time, or (b) that Avalon’s bearing on this music works in a vaguer way, such as the inspiration of a certain mood. (Ferry’s album-writing often starts with just a title.)

Certainly the cover-art — classy as ever — plays the Arthurian card quite literally. And the feel of the music inside, well, that too inclines me to conclusion (b).

‘Avalon’ feels like a very unified album, in a way which is ‘satisfying rather than monotonous. Overall, its approach is soft, a little mournful, consistently mellow without blandness. There are no hard-edged numbers; its predecessor LP ‘Flesh And Blood’, by comparison, sounds almost abrasive. And it could make ‘Manifesto’ sound like the first Clash album. I don’t care that ‘Avalon’ isn’t gutsy, or loud, or especially political, or any of the things I might value in other bands; the fact is Roxy have made a record which conveys emotion, intelligently, and it’s nice to listen to. And where ‘Avalon’ works best, it works beautifully well.

Matters commence with the recent 45, ‘More Than This’; not one of your trancendent singles, but an enticing invitation into an album. The style never varies too much after that. Still, there’s a kaleidoscopic cast of backing musicians (guitarist Neil Hubbard, drummer Andy Newmark and bassist Alan Spencer being the most regular).

Roxy Music | Avalon | (Polydor) 1982

And then there’s the crucial Three: Phil Manzanera lacing all with guitar-patterns as delicate as spider-webs, Andy Mackay’s sax, more subdued and integrated, and of course Our Bryan, emoting bravely with nervous grace (and probably, in your mind’s eye, nearly-dancing with endearing awkwardness, facial features ever-straining after a settled expression they’ll never achieve).

The lyrics are few and sparse, but they carry an admirable precision and genuine elegance (in the un-camp, uncheapened sense of that word).

‘Avalon’, the track itself, highlights side one, one of Ferry’s most affecting compositions to date, smoothly followed (for there are no jolts on this record) by an instrumental, ‘India’. The other great Roxy song on this album occurs mid-way on side two, namely, ‘To Turn You On’, which first emerged as B-side to last year’s ‘Jealous Guy’ single. The key-note, here, is something like pathos, but it’s no hollow pose — sure, the poise may be calculated, worked on, but that doesn’t deny the feeling underneath.

What else? The next track ‘True To Life’ perks up proceedings, being rhythmically brisker, and yet it conjures up only the dream of nightlife dancing, instead of re-creating the pulsating reality — a technique in keeping with ‘Avalon’s’ distanced, reflective character.

And finally, a very brief instrumental called ‘Tara’. Tara, long-lost home of the Irish kings, re-refers to the album’s Celtic motif. Or Maybe — Ta-ra — it’s just Bryan’s way of saying goodbye. (After all, it’s a pun I swear he’s pulled once before: check the ending of ‘For Your Pleasure’.)

The record does sign off with a wave — the crashing, watery variety, that is. In Celtic lore, encroaching water symbolised the gulf between man and his dream of completeness. What does it all mean? I haven’t the faintest fucking idea. (NME, 29/05/82)