Recorded in the early months of 1976 at Abbey Road Studios (with some sessions and mixing taking place at Davlen Studios in Los Angeles), Year Of The Cat was Stewart's seventh album and the second album he worked on with acclaimed producer Alan Parsons. The record was an album of tremendous musical ingenuity and creativity, and a triumph both in terms of Al Stewart's songwriting and the stunning and sophisticated production of Alan Parsons. Featuring classics like 'On the Border', 'Lord Grenville', 'Midas Shadow', 'If it Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It', 'One Stage Before' and the classic title track. Year Of The Cat was a huge commercial and critical success upon its release, reaching the US Billboard Top Five and was a European hit that eventually went platinum in the US in March 1977. The single "Year of the Cat" was also a Top Ten hit in the US and a Top 40 hit single in the UK, establishing Al Stewart as a major artist. "Year Of The Cat" is and remains a wonderful, perfect pop album. Nothing more and nothing less. Of course, the title song is in a class of its own, but in contrast to many other records that only contain one or two classics, the other songs are also great class. Melancholic, exciting, humorous or simply beautiful, these are probably fitting attributes to this ingenious folk rock album. An example? How about "One stage before"? Brilliant song, period! Or "On The Border", "Lord Grenville"? Great. By the way, Alan Parsons has also proven his production genius here by giving Stewart's compositions a precise, but by no means cool sound and by incorporating a few nice, but discreetly distributed gimmicks here and there (e.g. the intro of "Year of the Cat" or the telephone voice effect in "One Stage before") without watering down the songs.