Some records belong to their era; others remain untouched by the passage of time.
’s ‘Year of the Cat’ occupies a curious space between the two, bearing all the hallmarks of ’70s soft rock without ever sounding entirely beholden to its dated conventions. A consummate achievement in craftsmanship even by today’s standards, it unfolds with the unhurried assurance of an artist who has finally mastered his language.
The Scottish singer-songwriter was hardly an overnight sensation. By the time he teamed up with Alan Parsons on ‘Modern Times’, he had already spent years finding his feet in London’s folk circuit. Their partnership ultimately brought his vision into sharper focus, setting the stage for his seventh LP in 1976. ‘Year of the Cat’ reached No. 5 on the American albums chart and even produced a Top 10 single in its namesake, but those commercial accolades tell only a fraction of the story.
The project’s title track has since enjoyed a far greater afterlife than the soil from which it sprang, much of which has been obscured by its most recognisable creation.
What makes these nine songs particularly remarkable is the sleight of hand with which Stewart oscillates between major and minor chords to reshape the emotional complexion of his narratives without making a spectacle of them. Those fluctuations slip into place without ever breaking the spell and at precisely the moment his melodies threaten to become too agreeable, revealing poignancies that their sunlit beginnings scarcely foreshadow.
‘Sand in Your Shoes’ offers a particularly satisfying demonstration. What begins as a breezy folk-pop excursion gradually develops a more complicated vocabulary, with the third verse introducing a darker passage that recasts the scenery. That way, the ensuing accordion flourish feels all the more rewarding for having been withheld until just the right juncture. That same interplay between light and shade gives ‘Flying Sorcery’ its deceptively familiar buoyancy. The guitar flicks dancing alongside Stewart’s voice on the approach to the chorus already deliver the fulfilment of a song at its peak, but it’s the chord cycle beneath the harmonica right after that gives this one an even deeper visceral pull. There is no conspicuous division between pleasure and melancholy here, each present in balanced measure.
That equilibrium extends to the album’s core architecture, such that even the distinction between verse and chorus becomes difficult to pin down. Stewart seems almost indifferent to where the high points fall, with passing phrases as complete as refrains and bridges inventive enough to sustain entire compositions. ‘If It Doesn’t Come Naturally, Leave It’ takes that measured disregard a step further by stirring up a burst of momentum without disturbing the album’s poise. George Ford’s supple bass carries this piece through a succession of high points until ascent and summit become indistinguishable.
Perhaps the most astonishing quality of ‘Year of the Cat’ is how naturally its instrumentation serves the songwriting. Underpinning that finesse is the orchestral mastery of Andrew Powell, lending each gesture a prominence that belies its fleeting appearance.
That attention to detail shines through in Peter White’s Spanish guitar playing throughout ‘On the Border’, imbuing the song with a distinct geographical character as it slips deftly into the hypnotic rhythm that takes hold after its foreboding introduction. The quieter corners of the record are governed by that same discipline. ‘Midas Shadow’ unfurls with a narcotic tranquillity, its restless internal movement keeping the reverie from lapsing into stasis while yielding subtle textural details upon closer acquaintance.
Stewart’s delivery is just as delicate, carrying George Harrison’s vocal inflections alongside (his former flatmate) Paul Simon’s featherlight touch even when his lyrics venture into considerably weightier territory.
His penchant for history and distant lives finds a compelling subject in ‘Lord Grenville’, which recounts the doomed voyage of an Elizabethan naval commander against a sweep of soaring strings that gather urgency as his fate closes in. ‘Flying Sorcery’ similarly draws inspiration from pioneering aviator Amy Johnson, transmuting the motifs of flight into a meditation on longing and distance. In both, Stewart leaves enough unsaid for the music to carry those stories beyond their origins.
In the final stretch, the album reveals the full breadth of its emotional range.
‘Broadway Hotel’ trades much of the accumulated warmth for theatricality through a delicately articulated violin passage that traces the contours of unspoken yearning. The gathering tide rises towards an operatic climax, giving the tracklist its most impassioned release. ‘One Stage Before’ follows with a more inward devastation, its buried turbulence subdued by the resignation in Stewart’s voice as he sings, “But where or when we met like this last time I just don’t know / It’s like a chord that rings and never dies”.
Both feel connected by an invisible thread of remembrance, with ‘One Stage Before’ transfiguring the lingering ache of ‘Broadway Hotel’ into a meditation on recurrence.
The album reaches its natural culmination in the title track, a closing statement so complete that its crowning distinction in the record’s legacy appears preordained. Its opening lines conjure a world steeped in golden-age Hollywood nostalgia before dissolving the boundaries between fantasy and reality, where a chance romance loosens the grip of time. That imagery recalls the disorienting landscapes of Paul Bowles’ ‘The Sheltering Sky’, exchanging the novel’s gathering dread for an intoxicating sense of possibility. There’s something wonderfully elusive about this terrain in that it evokes a mirage both vividly inhabited and tantalisingly beyond reach. Its six-and-a-half minutes slip by almost unnoticed through a succession of shimmering piano figures and smouldering saxophone cadences, bringing the album’s fascination with transience to a rapturous conclusion.
That enchantment is apparent at first glance, right from the beguiling illustration on the cover that beckons towards the same half-remembered nowhere as the music it holds. The pastel-hued intrigue of its feline conceits and scattered curiosities establishes from the outset that ‘Year of the Cat’ remains a daydream anyone can wander into, however rich its ambitions. Beneath it all lies a wealth of restless invention, with even the slightest turns of phrase leaving outsized impressions.
Half a century later, Al Stewart’s magnum opus deserves to be celebrated as far more than the ornate backdrop to a classic single.