Member:
singring
Date:
1/14/2007
Coming two years after Life Beyond L.A., One Eighty was Ambrosia's most successful and radio friendly album - and almost their last, too.
Founding member and keyboarder Christopher North was back in the fold after only guesting on a couple of tracks of the previous album, but this isn't at all obvious in the song arrangements. The band has upped the soul influence and discarded almost all of their prog leanings here. The only exception is the song “Kamikaze”, a memorable Japanese-tinged prog pop song in the tradition of their first two albums.
Most of the other songs are utterly smooth and hummable soul ballads. “Shape I'm in”, “Livin’ on my own”, “You're the only woman” and “Biggest part of me” benefit from great vocal harmonies augmented by a new background vocalist, the latter two becoming major top twenty hits in the U.S..
As is so often the case, the sound of the hit singles branded the band a sappy pop outfit, which is somewhat unfair considering their earlier work - and even standing alone, the ballads here are much better than their reputation. An AMG review compares the sound to later Doobie Brothers, which isn't far off. Add a little Hall & Oates to the mixture and you get the idea.
The rockers have become few on this album, but they're there. “Ready”, “No Big Deal” and especially the full-on AOR number “Rock'n a hard place” are powerful enough to satisfy lovers of the genre, even tough they suffer slightly from an overly smooth production.
While this is probably the Ambrosia album least likely to appeal to a majority of prog fans, it stands head and shoulders above most of the lesser pop and AOR that came out of the late seventies and eighties. Ambrosia's weakest release, but good enough for an enjoyable, quiet evening - especially a romantic one.
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