Apart

Peter Milton Walsh suddenly started recording at a much quicker pace in the ‘90s. 1997’s Apart was the third album of the decade for the “band” (who are essentially Walsh and his latest group of collaborators) and their fourth overall. 1995’s A Life Full of Farewells had been a masterful concept album about the cycle of life. Apart plays slightly less conceptually. Nothing will ever completely dispel Walsh’s fatalistic worldview but he does know how to sweeten the surroundings. Apart is filled with beautifully orchestrated gems. “No Hurry,” “Breakdown In Vera Cruz” and “To Live For,” for starters, are bathed in delightful textures of flugelhorn, strings and deep pianos that convey an incredible depth of feeling. Brief, less-than-a-minute interludes (“Doll Hospital,” “Your Ambulance Rides,” “Place of Bones”) offset the seven-minute epics (the spaced-out “Cheerleader,” the elegiac “Everything Is Given to Be Taken Away”) and the spoken-word intimacy of “Welcome to Walsh World,” where Walsh plays around with being the Australian Leonard Cohen.