STEVE HARLEY & COCKNEY REBEL : TIMELESS FLIGHT

1. Red Is A Mean, Mean Colour
2. White, White Dove
3. Understand
4. All Men Are Hungry
5. Black Or White
6. Everything Changes
7. Nothing Is Sacred
8. Don't Go, Don't Cry
   Bonus Tracks :
9. Throw Your Soul Down Here
10. Mad Mad Moonlight

Label : BGO Records

Release Date : February 1976

Length : 50:10

Review (AllMusic) : Steve Harley followed up the ambitious fusion of pop and artsy glam rock he perfected on The Best Years of Our Lives with this even more ambitious and artsy outing. Unfortunately, Timeless Flight neglects the strong pop hooks that made The Best Years of Our Lives so appealing. Much of Timeless Flight finds Harley getting bogged down in deliberately impenetrable wordplay ("Black or White (And Step on It)") and songs that, despite slick arrangements, are rather hookless vehicles for the verbose lyrics ("Don't Go, Don't Cry"). As a result, the album has a self-consciously obscure feel that is rather off-putting. However, a few highlights shine through for the patient listener: "Red Is a Mean, Mean Colour" benefits from a hypnotic melody that combines fluid electric piano lines and woozy vocal harmonies to create a compelling ebb-and-flow effect, and "Understand" is a lovely ballad that weaves a lush soundscape from a judicious combination of delicate piano lines, Spanish guitar, and lilting background vocals. That said, the appeal of these occasional gems isn't enough to make the album consistently engaging, and Timeless Flight can only be recommended to Steve Harley completists as a result.

Review (Wikipedia) : Timeless Flight is the fourth studio album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, released in 1976. It was produced by Steve Harley. After the success of the band's 1975 album The Best Years of Our Lives, which spawned the UK number-one single "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)", the band soon returned to the studio to record their next album Timeless Flight. Harley had started writing material for the album during The Best Years of Our Lives tour, with some of the tracks being inspired by events and places the band went to on the tour. The band recorded the album at Trident Studios, Abbey Road Studios and Scorpio Sound Studio during the summer of 1975. The entire album was remixed, mastered and cut at Abbey Road Studios. On the album, guitarist Jim Cregan used various guitars, including a Martin D18, 1956 Fender Telecaster, Gibson SG Standard and an Ovation acoustic with a built-in pick-up. The album was created in a more relaxed environment in comparison with The Best Years of Our Lives, which had been recorded quickly under considerable pressure. For the liner notes of the 2003 BGO CD release of Timeless Flight, Harley recalled: "It was a sweltering summer. It was incredibly hot. The songs, many of them being semi acoustic or laid back, I think stemmed as much from that as anything else. It made me a little lethargic." In November 1975, the lead single, "Black or White", preceded the album. Despite the previous album's success earlier in the year, "Black or White" failed to reach the UK Top 50, which in turn gave the UK's music press the chance to predict Harley's commercial eclipse. It did, however, reach #2 on the BMRB's UK Breakers Chart, which would have been equal to #52 on the main Singles Chart. Speaking to Record Mirror in February 1976, Harley commented: "I knew it was either going to be massive - top three - or a complete stiff. It turned out to be a stiff." Timeless Flight was released in early February 1976 and would peak at #18 on the UK Albums Chart and remained in the charts for six weeks. According to Record Mirror, the album received 40,000 advance orders in America, despite the band's lack of a hit single or album there. During mid-February, the album's second single, "White, White Dove", was released, but also failed to reach the UK Top 50, peaking at #6 on the BMRB's UK Breakers Chart. Following the album's release, the band embarked on a British and European tour. The band hired Jo Partridge to play rhythm guitar on the tour. After their concert at Wembley in April 1976, the band then toured America. In his interview with Record Mirror, Harley commented on the album: "It took about three months altogether and so much hard work went into it that as far as I'm concerned, it has to be the best I've done so far." Years after its release, Harley revealed that Timeless Flight was his personal favourite album from his own career. In an exclusive 2004 interview for the unofficial fan site Harley Fanzone, he said: "Well, years ago I would have said "Timeless Flight" because it got the worst reviews. It's my precious boy, my favourite child. It was such a change for me and the critics weren't ready. It's like I heard Mick Jagger say about one of the Stones albums, it was his favourite because it was nobody else's! I never realised it was the favorite album of so many people. "Nothing is Sacred" is on there and when I started to play that live I sensed it was something they really wanted to hear. Now it's a real blinder and it meant a lot to a lot of people to hear it. And "Red is a Mean Mean Colour" is a really personal song for me. There's a lot of personal stuff in there. "All Men Are Hungry" is another I like to sing. It's a song people can relate to." In 2003, Harley commented in the liner notes of the BGO release: "There were magic moments on Timeless Flight that I'd never experienced before. It wasn't the most commercial album ever following up the very commercial Best Years of Our Lives. I understand that. But there you are. We're not machines, are we?" Speaking to The Leader in November 2016, Harley spoke of the album again: "I call it the naughty child that became a favourite. It was slightly experimental and I'm playing five tracks from it on this tour, two of which I'd never played live before. I was only 25 in 1976 and I just did what I wanted to do at that age and we thought it was going to be a monster hit and even though it wasn't, I'm still very proud of that album."