Long Road Out Of Eden [Digipak] - Eagles (The) > Reviews > Eagles - still soaring or now endagered?

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Some great tracks
Disadvantages:	Be a '49er  -  pan gold from the sludge

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This is a review of the newly released double album 'Long Road Out Of Eden'. The packaging I got this in at HMV says that this is a Special Edition.

The Eagles are an American group originally formed in California, USA in the 1970's. They have had a number of previous hit singles and albums, with the album 'Hotel California' being perhaps their best known work, with an eponymous single as well as 'Desperado', 'The Long Run' and 'Takin' It Easy' amongst other.

The Eagles took what they said was a 14 year vacation (from each other, as well) and have toured since they reformed in the 1990's.

It is 28 years since their last studio album and now one has been released (actually two this is a double album).

(On a side note, why is the album cover all sepia tones of brown like some 1973 throwback? And why on earth is it only a cardboard sleeve, no jewel case to protect it? There is no good reason I can see, it will just crumple and age very soon….ahh! Is that it? In a few short years, it will look as old as everything else you have by The Eagles in your collection - perhaps that is the genius behind it!)

The guys are now in their 60's - shorter hair, respectable clothes and a bit of middle aged spread - but they are still making music - be it all slowly - they spent 6 years in the studio to produce this.

The album in the end runs to 21 tracks over about 90 minutes and it is a definite curate's egg - good in parts.

***Disk 1 opens with this track:***

- No More Walks In The Wood -

This has minimal accompaniment and is almost acapella harmony singing. If that sounds like a promising opening, as the opening track on a studio album from a group that fans have waited nearly 30 years for, then I am sorry to tell you, it ain't that good.

Lyrically challenged - "this is the aftermath/of afternoons/in the clover field" - Oh please - it is at least mercifully short at 2 minutes.

To be honest, after the shock, it at first put me in mind of the big-haired and tight-trousered Bee Gees in their 1980's 'Ha - Ha - Ah-ha-a-a' period: Then, even worse, I realised it wasn't actually the Bee Gees I was in mind of - it was that very funny Kenny Everett take off of the Bee Gees - only this track is not funny.

From me? 2/10 and a crying shame they put this on as the first track. Ah-ha-ha-aa

- How Long -

Suddenly the tempo is up and its time to 'put on yer dancin' shoes' or something. This track does put you in mind of people in jeans and pointed collar shirts and cowboys boots and hats strutting their stuff, unfortunately the people concerned are from Rotherham and the place is not a barn in the Napa Valley, it is the Rotherham Leisure Centre and it is 'Keep Fit the Line Dancing Way' with Cowboy Norman. All right, I am being a little cruel, but this is nothing special.

My rating? 4/10

- Busy Being Fabulous -

"You were just too busy bein' fabulous/Too busy to think about us"

This is Country, complete with the steel guitar sound. It is a recognisable Eagles sound, although it would be regarded as a filler, rather than a killer track. This is one of the tracks which I think could have been left off without anyone caring that much.

(On a small side note here, whatever I think of this track, this is the one that stuck with me and I was - irritatingly - humming it long after finishing listening to the music. This must have a hook like nobodies business. You have been warned).

Rating? 4/10

- What Do I Do With My Heart -

Weepy, smoochy would-be power ballad with totally predictable minor key changes and appalling lyrics "I can hold back my tears/And try to be strong/While our love is falling apart/I know what I'll say/As you walk away/But what do I do with my heart".

This one is pure Karaoke. I can imagine it being covered by 'cabaret' acts in small clubs and on cross channel ferries - usually, in an effort to charm a half-drunk passenger into bed. No, I didn't like it much

3/10

- Guilty Of The Crime -

10cc-ish track with a waspish guitar, a honky-tonk piano and some Billy Joel lyrics thrown into the pot. This is sort of 'Rockin' all over the World' and is the first track on this album that you can imagine as a stadium pleaser - in fact, I think they could have opened the album with this. It's not bad, but it's not great and it's not very original.

5/10

- I Don't Want To Hear Any More -

No. that's not my opinion - that is the title of track 6. This could be Nina Simone. Sharp steel guitar and odd falsetto vocals, ends up a little whiney. Actually, with this song in my ears, my minds eye was playing a show reel of Whitney Houston in soft focus, sepia tinted with the lyric "It's not the first time I've has the sense that something's wrong/But I'm old enough to know that things don't always work out the way they should/I know you're trying hard to break it gently to me now". You see what I mean? She is there with a white headscarf fluttering from the wind machine - maybe they should have saved time and just sold her the song?

4/10

- Waiting In The Weeds -

Musically pinpoint sharp with excellent harmonies, this song builds from the beginning. Classic Eagles fare and brilliantly executed, this is the first song on this album that I felt really deserved to be there. Shame I had to wait until track 7 to get there. Bit of poetry finally creeps into the lyric, too "It's comin' on the end of August/Another summer's promise almost gone/And though I heard some wise man say that every dog will have his day/He never mentioned that these dog days get so long"

My advice - put this track on first to reassure yourself you have made the correct decision in buying this album.

8/10

- No More Cloudy Days -

Another great track - tightly written, nice harmonies and lyrics that will bring a smile, also classic Eagles material and very 1970's somehow - the lyric has the feel of the Carpenters "Baby, I would never make you cry/I would never make you blue/I would never turn away/I would never be untrue/I know a place where we can go where true love always stays/There's no more stormy nights - no more cloudy days". Well performed, a solid number. More jazzy than ProgRock, I can imagine this being performed by Everything But The Girl - the hard, brassy saxophone solo means that this is not Country, for all the schmaltz, and not too pop, either.

So good - we have two tracks which I think were worth waiting for so far, maybe 2 1/2!

8/10

- Fast Company -

The tone and feel changes completely as this rock/pop number begins. Actually, this is more like the artist formerly and possibly currently called Prince than the 70's super-group usual sound. I hope Tom Jones does not cover it, but you can imagine he might. "Fast company/Fast company/Goin' no-where/You're goin' no-where fast" with a guitar riff so sharp you could cut yourself on it. Young and funky sound, I liked it - Phew, three tracks worth having - it's looking up!

7/10

- Do Something -

Another sharp change of pace and town into the melodic and Eagles-sounding 'Do Something' with a Hawaiian guitar in the back ground, more typical harmonies and the standard build to the chorus. This could have been a track from the 1970's, it sounds like the group did then, although that does not mean it is dated - period, maybe? It even has the 'pick up this road we are travellin' and 'no-where left to go' journey references. But it's not bad, as an album track.

6/10

- You are not alone -

A funny little track that I assume was maybe included because there was space for it at the end of the disk and they thought "We could write a good song here, or else we could just put this one in, which is inoffensive, but not very good" - and then they did.

5/10

***This is the end of the first disk.***

On balance, you could think that much of disk 1 was previously recorded but unreleased material from the 1970's although it isn't. In fact, if you were being cruel, you could suggest it was material they has not thought good enough to release, but it really is new and its not that bad - it just takes a long time to get going.

Disk two is different, far more up to date and even topical. Just as they poked fun at the booze and especially the drug abuse of the 1970's in earlier studio material, so this album references current issues, particularly the Gulf War. Disk two opens with the double-album title song

- Long Road Out Of Eden -

This 10-minute long title track is another blast by American musical aristocracy against the Iraq policy of George W Bush and the current administration - and against the war in particular. It is the liberal Democratic musicians and actors who seem to have made most of the noise about this and the Eagles are just the latest. The title of the next track (I Dreamed There Was No War) tells you were you are at.

Every musical trick in the book is here - the sax solo, the tolling bells, even the wind effects. After all the trickery, however, the song proper opens up and it is a more raw-edged gravel voiced offering than anything from the (somewhat) lightweight first disk.

No irony was intended, I am sure, by a band which toured for years with a massive entourage of vehicles and equipment that they seem to be having a go at American oil men living a lie and listening to music in their big old SUV's - hello? It is a bit whiney and it does go on a bit, but this is the track that takes the place here of 'Hotel California' on the eponymous album, although I not think that this is a classic which will be referenced in the same way in 30 years time.

This really is ProgRock again - the instrumental section in the middle could be Pink Floyd. When the vocal returns, however, the bite is really put on "Weaving down the American highway/Through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk/Bloated with entitlement; Loaded on propaganda/And now we're driving dazed and drunk" Ow - that must sting in Washington D.C. There is a powerful couplet later "But all the knoweledge in the world/Is of no use to fools".

It has to rate 8/10

- I Dreamed There Was No War -

Instrumental - sounds like The Shadows without Cliff. Sorry, filler not killer again. See it in a stadium - everyone will be holding up cigarette lighters here - ugh.

Reasonable guitar playing only gives it 3/10

- Somebody -

Billy Joel-alike sings Leonard Cohen-ish lyric to a pop tune. Same old same old.

Happy poppy, not totally c****y. Sounds like Robert Palmer from 1991. 4/10

- Frail Grasp On The Big Picture -

Old style Eagles - harmonies, musical breaks, guitar solos, not bad, not memorable - except for some fun lyrics, which I can't see playing well in Peoria - "And we play to Our Lord/Who we know is American/He reigns from on high/He speaks to us through middlemen/And he shepherds his flock/We sing out and we praise his name/He supports us in war/He presides over football games". That should cause some comment from the conservative Christian American right!

6/10

- Last Good Time In Town -

More Robert Plant territory. Staying in is, it seems, the new going out. "Lately I've been staying at home/Working the crosswords/Turn off the phone"

Pop/Rock with more guitar than it really needs again.

5/10

- I Love To Watch A Woman Dance -

Irish folk inspired ballad. Another somewhat slushy smooch. A totally over-the-top mandolin to add a tremble and the necessary vibrato. Think 'Once, twice, three times a lady' but not as catchy. Odd, unnecessary falsettos again.

3/10

- Business As Usual -

Rocky whinge about big business and its interconnectedness to the White House and life inside the Beltway (the Beltway is to Washington D.C. as the M25 is to London). Lyric "Monuments to arrogance/Reach for the sky/Our better natures buried in the rubble/We've got the prettiest White House/That money can buy/Sitting up there in that 'Beltway Bubble'/And when 'El Jefe' talks about our freedom/This is what he really means/Business as usual"

I'm sure you get the picture. All of this being the case, why did the band decide to sell this album in the USA exclusively through Wal-Mart? Somewhat cynical maybe, but does this smell of double standard to anyone?

Actually, not a bad song. Despite the apparent hypocrisy, I'll give it 7/10

- Center Of The Universe -

Unremarkable but sweet love song. Why you would want to tell your love that they were not at the centre of the universe, I don't know. A corny lyric, lazy work 'way to roam' rhymed with 'find your way home' - that must have taken all of three minutes to write. Another unnecessary guitar solo. More of the same, really

5/10

- It's Your World Now-

A surprising Mexican-inspired piece that sounds like you could dance a slow Cha-cha-cha to it, with the brassy horn sound of Mariachi music. I rather liked it.

8/10

- Hole In The World (UK bonus track) -

What? "There's a hole in the world tonight/There's a cloud of fear and sorrow/There's a hole in the world tonight/Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow". Drum machine, synth, not at all sure what is going on here. Maybe in the US you got a free donut with the album and they had to give us something here in the UK, so we got this track instead: Frankly, damned if I know, but here it is.

3/10.

***In conclusion***

The Eagles are still on the road - there are countless references here to the highway, to driving, to being on or off the road, to the journey…In that respect, nothing has changed, The album cover shows the band trudging over an endless route, no destination in sight, and maybe 6 years in the studio felt like that. Actually, listening to the album sometimes feels like that.

I think this could have been edited down to one excellent album - the killer tracks without the filler tracks. There is some great stuff here (classic? - well maybe) but it is buried in a soft rock fall of soft musical numbers and soft rock.

If you kept the best 10 tracks and lost the rest, this would be stunning - buy it anyway and forgive them their sins.

**Price**

My copy cost £8.95 at HMV. For this, I got the aforementioned cardboard sleeve, two disks and a little booklet with the lyrics to most of the songs and some information about composers etc.