The Sicilian Defence (album)

The Sicilian Defence
Studio album by the Alan Parsons Project
Released	23 March 2014 (2014-03-23)
Recorded	1979
Genre	Progressive rock classical electronic
Length	39:52
Label	Arista
Producer	Alan Parsons Eric Woolfson
The Alan Parsons Project chronology
Gaudi (1987) The Sicilian Defence (2014)

The Sicilian Defence is the eleventh and final studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 2014. It was named after the Sicilian Defence, a famous chess opening. Having been released 24 years after the split of the band, it has so far only been available as part of the eleven-CD box set The Complete Albums Collection (which omits the original mix of Tales of Mystery and Imagination and all bonus tracks from previous expanded reissues). In December 2023, it was made available for download purchase and on streaming sites.^[1][2]

Originally recorded in 1979, it was never actually intended for release, but was sent to the band's label, Arista, as a sort of "chess move" as they did not feel they were given adequate time to make a new album while Eric Woolfson negotiated their contract, but were under obligation to deliver one anyway. As such, this album consists of incomplete sketches that were never fleshed out into proper songs, and whose titles describe the Classical Variation of the chess opening in descriptive notation^[a]. "P-QB4" was the first track to be released from the album, when a shortened version of it entitled "Elsie's Theme" was included on the 2008 remastered edition of Eve. It is thus the only track to be given a formal title unrelated to a chess move.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).