After the disappointment of
Fate for Breakfast,
Art Garfunkel returned to old friends for his fifth solo album, co-producing with
Roy Halee, who had worked with
Simon & Garfunkel and on
Garfunkel's debut album,
Angel Clare, and singing several songs written by
Jimmy Webb, who had written nearly all the songs on
Garfunkel's third album,
Watermark. But though
Scissors Cut came closer to the sound of a good
Garfunkel album, material remained a problem. "A Heart in New York," the LP's sole American chart single, was second-rate, as were many of the other compositions,
Garfunkel scored a surprise number one hit in Great Britain with the
Mike Batt-written and produced "Bright Eyes," the theme from the movie Watership Down, but that wasn't enough to make the album on the whole a success,
Garfunkel then re-teamed with
Paul Simon for a world concert tour, and it was five years before he was back in record stores with the seasonal release
The Animals' Christmas and nearly seven years before his next regular solo album, Lefty. ~ William Ruhlmann