The lilting singing, the shimmering timbre, the byzantine melodies, and the intimate yet grand visions...they're all here. While most aging singers struggle with range and tonality, Stewart seems to have slipped through "time passages" and come out at this end brand new.A Beach harks back to classic Stewart songwriting: theatrical yet rootsy with stunningly tasteful arrangements that evoke the darkly human and romantically mysterious world of The Year Of Cat. And it's no less ambitious.Al is a model to follow to all his contemporaries.