Indian Summer (1981)
Indian Summer is an interesting record, in which it is predominantly a Live album, but it also features five bonus songs from the 24 Carrot sessions. The fact that these tracks didn’t make 24 Carrot and got shoehorned into the beginning of this Live record is kind of weird, but the most important thing is that we got the songs in the end. Life would be much more sucky without them.
The first of the five tracks is “Here In Angola”, which is undeniably one of Al Stewart’s finest songs ever written. It really scratches every last itch in my brain. Starting with driving acoustic strumming and kicking in with drums, this track has unreal harmonizing, great picking accents and playful piano walk downs. “Springsteen Holiday-esque” like saxophone solos are greatly welcomed on this song. It is a fantastic combination of pace, musicianship and innovation.
“Pandora” follows next and is a bit more electric. It is filled with shuffly drums and high-hats accents and some funky bass lines. It has those trademark Al Stewart synth and guitar pieces that he’s lately been known for. Innovation and unconventionalism is where Al Stewart thrives, and this is exemplified by his usage of the flute on this number too. How do you combine an electric rocker and the flute together in the same song? I don’t know, but ask Al.
The title track “Indian Summer” has a guitar riff that sounds like it was ripped right off of Vulture Culture by The Alan Parsons Project. This is definitely a softer pop rock song, but does not drop in quality. The flute (or piccolo) accompaniment on this track is enchanting and overall just a wonderful piece of music. “Delia’s Gone” starts to wrap up the newer songs. Al’s storytelling in his lyrics are as strong as ever. The song has a soft and pretty piano line that is accompanied by these warming strings. Once again, the flute makes an appearance and compliments the lush orchestration of this track so well.
Finally, “Princess Olivia” kicks ass. It takes those stereotypical wedding chords, synths them up and throws them into this thumping, kicking pop rock number. This is an insanely fun song that is tough to get out of your head. It’s a gem with amazing backing harmonies and an Elton John-like rock piano outro that is red hot.
Then we get the Live show. I won’t go into too much detail about this as there have been many live shows included in the deluxe albums I have previously reviewed, but I will summarize. The 24 Carrot songs done live are incredible. “Running Man” and “Merlin’s Time” are amazing on all ends of the spectrum. The Al Stewart “live show frequent flyers” like “SoHo”, “On The Border”, “Valentina Way”, and “If It Doesn’t Come Naturally, Leave It” are as good as they always are.
Things get interesting with the live “Roads to Moscow” which has never sounded so big and grand. The live rendition is deeply moving. The other interesting inclusion is the 13-Minute long “Nostradamus”. Not yet performed live on an official live album up to this point, and they really hit a home run with it. The instrumental break is mind blowing with how much they squeeze into it.
Lastly, the two biggest standouts on the live portion of the record are Al’s two big singles, “Time Passages” and “Year of the Cat”. Both of them have never been performed as good as they were on Indian Summer. Al is in top tier form and so is his backing band “Shot in the Dark”. This. Record. Cannot. Be. Skipped.
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Highlight Songs:
Here In Angola
Princess Olivia
Year of the Cat (Live)
Time Passages (Live)
Nostradamus (Live)
Roads to Moscow (Live)
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Own it, Stream it, Forget about it?
Own it. Own it. Own it. Own it. Own it. Own it. It is so good.
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Overall Rating:
5 Stars
