Walls Have Eyes

by Dan LeRoyAlthough it's not as consistently catchy and inventive as his prior outing, the hip-hop/electro-fueled Secret Agent, Walls Have Eyes is probably Bee Gee Robin Gibb's best-loved solo album. Part of the reason may be that it sounds more than a little like the Bee Gees themselves; besides brother Maurice (who also helped out on Secret Agent), the album also features older sibling Barry as co-writer on eight of the ten songs, and as co-lead vocalist on the single "Toys," making it almost indistinguishable from a Bee Gees offering. The production throughout, by old hand Tom Dowd and Maurice Gibb, is straight-up pop/rock (featuring Mr. Mister's Steve Farris on guitar), with a shortage of the danceable grooves that made Secret Agent so refreshing -- and sparked the Gibbs' '70s resurgence, for that matter. But the brothers still made a much better than average songwriting team, and tracks like "You Don't Say Us Anymore" and the melodramatic ballad "Gone With the Wind" are tough to resist. Despite its moves toward mainstream acceptance, however, the album was even less successful commercially than its predecessor, and put an end to Robin Gibb's second stab at a solo career.