Olympia

A great continuation of Bryan Ferry’s brilliant career

The classic rock star Bryan Ferry has given the world a great number of hits and splendid albums, both as part of the band Roxy Music and as a solo artist. His easily recognizable voice and vivid unusual imagery in the lyrics helped him to conquer the hearts of millions of women, and he dated the most beautiful of them in his own time. The girls would often be shot for album covers, both those of the band and Ferry himself, and at certain times it was the attractive or even scandalous cover that defined the album’s success. Bryan Ferry released his last collection of original material, Frantic, eight years ago and then, in 2007 the record Dylanesque was released which offered Ferry’s covers of Bob Dylan’s songs and no new track. Therefore it is easy to imagine how happy the musician’s fans were when they found out about the new album being prepared for release. This October the new long-play Olympia has seen the light of the day and finally offers new compositions and two covers which serve a great continuation of Bryan Ferry’s brilliant career.

Olympia’s ten tracks are listened to at a breath

Besides that Brian Ferry is already sixty-five, and his voice is still charming the new album’s value is also the participation of a constellation of renowned musicians in its creation: former Roxy Music members Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay, the electronic team Groove Armada, David A. Stewart of Eurythmics and others. The album offers ten tracks which are listened to at a breath. The record opens with the first single You Can Dance, definitely one of the highlights reminding of the hit Slave To Love, Bryan Ferry’s calling card. The song’s wonderful magic atmosphere of embraces the listener and is kept throughout the entire album. A sensual composition Alphaville begins with the recording of female voice expressing in Russian the unwillingness to dance whereas the splendid ballad Me Oh My is built on keyboards and charms with the great guitar work and backing vocals. Samples and special effects appear on Shameless making it one of the most unusual songs on the record, while the covers, Tim Buckley’s Song To The Siren and Traffic’s No Face, No Name, No Number once again take us a couple of decades back in the past. The album’s central composition BF Bass (Ode To Olympia) is refined with female backing vocals, a contagious rhythm, Ferry’s vocals reminiscent of David Bowie and splendid guitars. One can listen to the seven minute long ballad Reason Or Rhyme eternally due to its amazing complicated tune, the soft heady guitar and keyboards playing and a mesmerizing voice, and the album’s closer is Tender Is The Night, once again surprising with some space effects but conquering with sincere emotions in singing and soulful keyboard chords.

Love, women, emotions, a bit of introspection and philosophy

There is a beautiful woman on the cover of Olympia again – this time the role is performed by Kate Moss, and the fans will definitely value Brian Ferry’s attempt to preserve his heartbreaker reputation. Yet, though the cover art is quite in line with the musician’s traditions, the album is different from its predecessors to some extent. Perhaps, the main difference lies in the arrangements’ sound richness. Brian Ferry’s voice has been never surrounded by such a variety of sounds, effects and noises as it is on this album. Some tracks have even too much of those but the others they combine very harmoniously with the vocal parts. Nevertheless, in its lyrical content, the album proves to be exactly the way one could expect from the romantic Ferry. Love, women, emotions, a bit of introspection and philosophy – it is all here, just as on his best recordings. And though it is most probable that Olympia will not be able to outshine one of the greatest artist of the last century’s works, this album deserves praise only because Brian Ferry has remained faithful to his ideals and is still capable of strong feelings.