In the mid-'60s, the Left Banke's heart-rending songwriting and orchestral instrumentation helped define the Baroque pop movement happening in certain circles of rock at that time. Key songwriter/keyboardist Michael Brown was a driving force behind some of the group's success, but he could also be hard to work with. He quit halfway through the recording of the band's sophomore album, The Left Banke Too, and when they regrouped in 1978 to work on material for a new Left Banke album, Brown departed after the first day. This left remaining members Steve Martin, George Cameron, and Tim Finn to assemble the new record without Brown's specific songwriting powers. The world was a different place in 1978 than when the Left Banke first formed just 13 years earlier. The naïve and sad-hearted Baroque pop the band pioneered in the mid-'60s had fallen out of favor for sensitive, sophisticated balladry and FM radio-geared hard rock, and both trends underscore their third album, Strangers on a Train. The gentle piano ballad "Lorraine" brings in chamber pop strings to back an aching melody and beautifully restrained vocal performances. "And One Day" is similar if more animated, adding a McCartney influence into the original Left Banke sound. An interesting postscript to Strangers on a Train comes with the six bonus tracks included on the 2022 reissue. These songs began as instrumentals recorded by Michael Brown that he asked Martin to track vocals for around 2001, when there had been a resurgence of interest in the Left Banke's back catalog. Perhaps intentionally, these six tracks capture the essence of the band's earliest creative spark, with melancholic piano-led Brown compositions perfectly complemented by Martin's vocals. Those vocals are the full focus of the mysterious and beautiful "Airborne," the mournful "High Flyer," and minimal ballad "Meet Me in the Moonlight." The stark differences between these demo-like recordings and the disparate patchwork of ideas tied together from the 1978 sessions emphasize how much Brown added to the band's delicate chemistry. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi

1		Strangers on a Train
2		Heartbreaker
3		Lorraine
4		Yesterday's Love
5		Hold on Tight
6		And One Day
7		You Say
8		I Can Fly
9		Only My Opinion
10		Queen of Paradise
11		Airborne
12		I Don't Know [2002 Version]
13		Until the End
14		Buddy Steve (Long Lost Friend)
15		Meet Me in the Moonlight
16		High Flyer