Roxy Music

Avalon found Roxy Music smoothing out their arty, angular edges with lush orchestrations and graceful production backing a superior set of Bryan Ferry originals. This 1982 album would prove to be the band's last studio effort, and, as fate would have it, their most popular release thanks to the singles "More Than This," "Avalon" and "Take A Chance With Me."

Roxy Music's Avalon takes a long time to kick in, but it finally does, and it's a good one.
Bryan Ferry stars as a remarkably expressive keyboard player and singer whose familiar
mannerisms are subsumed in a rich, benevolent self-assurance. And reed man Andy
Mackay shines in a series of cameos (his oboe meditation on Ferry's "Tara" is particularly
lovely). Ten years after its debut, Roxy Music has mellowed: the occasional star... More >

At its juiciest Bryan Ferry's romanticism has always seemed too arch and too sour, not to mention too juicy, which is why this minor triumph sounds mild or even dull at first: after all these years its sweet simplicity is unexpected. We've always known he recorded "These Foolish Things" in the fond hope that someday he'd believe it, and while I never will, I can enjoy his pleasure in the accomplishment. (Grade - A-)