Roxy Music Flesh + Blood CD

Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry (vocals, keyboards); Phil Manzanera, Neil Hubbard (guitar); Andy Mackay (saxophone); Paul Carrack (keyboards); Alan Spenner, Neil Jason, Gary Tibbs (bass); Allan Schwartzberg, Andy Newmark, Simon Phillips (drums).
Digitally remastered by Bob Ludwig (Gateway Studio, Portland, Maine).
Personnel: Bryan Ferry (vocals, guitar, strings, piano, keyboards, synthesizer); Neil Hubbard, Phil Manzanera (guitar); Paul Carrack (strings, piano, organ, keyboards); Andy Mackay (saxophone); Simon Phillips, Allan Schwartzberg (drums, percussion); Allen Schwarzberg, Andy Newmark (drums); Martin Ditchum (percussion).
Audio Mixer: Bob Clearmountain.
Audio Remasterer: Robert C. Ludwig.
Recording information: Basing Street; Gallery Studio.
Photographer: Neil Kirk.
An even slicker record than Manifesto, Flesh + Blood precariously balances between alluringly seductive, sophisticated soul-pop and cloying, radio-ready disco-pop. At its best, the album is effortlessly suave and charming -- "Over You" is one of their greatest singles, and "Oh Yeah" is nearly as persuasive -- but much of the record is devoted to ill-formed, stylish lounge-pop. In particular, the reliance on reworked covers of "In the Midnight Hour" and "Eight Miles High" is distressing, not only because it signals a lack of imagination, but also because it suggests that Flesh + Blood is simply a lesser solo effort from Bryan Ferry. And even the handful of undeniably strong moments can't erase the feeling that Roxy Music were beginning to run out of ideas. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
An even slicker record than Manifesto, Flesh + Blood precariously balances between sophisticated soul-pop and radio-ready disco-pop. At its best, the album is effortlessly suave and charming -- "Over You" is one of their greatest singles, and "Oh Yeah" is nearly as persuasive -- although the reliance on reworked covers of "In the Midnight Hour" and "Eight Miles High" signals a lack of imagination. Still, there is a handful of undeniably strong and alluringly seductive moments. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
What's remarkable about Roxy Music's final three albums is how each one builds on its predecessor. FLESH & BLOOD was the middle of this triptych (which ended with AVALON, the group's peak achievement). Where its predecessor, MANIFESTO, still had ties to the band's pre-hiatus first era, FLESH & BLOOD heads ever further into the lush romanticism that singer Bryan Ferry was to explore fully as a solo artist in the '80s. Where an earlier Roxy Music may have embraced an element of camp in a cover of "In The Midnight Hour, here Ferry nods to the camp factor only fleetingly.
Reduced to a trio of Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, and saxophonist Andy MacKay, Roxy Music brought in a range of session players as needed. This, in effect, freed the band to follow the songs wherever they needed to go, which was straight into gorgeously produced romantic landscapes. The song's rich melodies cast Ferry as a matinee-idol leading man, a role he adapted to so successfully that songs like "My Only Love" sound like part of his own solo career.