release date: Nov. 17, 2014
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Bryan Ferry, Rhett Davies, Johnson Somerset, Todd Terje
label: BMG - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Loop De Li" - 2. "Midnight Train" - 3. "Soldier of Fortune" (4 / 5) - 4. "Driving Me Wild" - 5. "A Special Kind of Guy" (4 / 5) - 7. "Lost" - 10. "Johnny and Mary" (live)
14th solo studio album by Bryan Ferry following his 2012 album The Jazz Age. Now, who would have thought this possible? 69 year-old Ferry has come up with an album that resembles his best solo works of the late 70s and mid-80s, and his most recent album from 2012 was basically 'only' a collection of re-recordings - and before that, he launched Olympia in 2010, which was only a shadow of his heydays with Roxy Music.
From my perspective, his last good album was Dylannesque (2007) and his last really fine solo was As Time Goes By from 1999. This is like Roxy Music revisited but not just old classics disguised as new material. It's vibrant and solid sophisti-pop from one of the genre's best voices, and he does more than just Okay. Most tracks are from his own hand but track #3 Soldier of Fortune is co-written with Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and the end-track Johnny and Mary is Robert Palmer's fine classic, which Ferry handles in his own and personal way without losing touch with the original.
[ allmusic.com, The Guardian 4 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5 stars ]
