TUBULAR BELLS

A close 5 Star album, but Oldfield just misses the target. To think that a 18/19 year old wrote this piece of classically influenced prog by himself is beyond my belief. Oldfield has incredible talent, and used his god given gift as it was meant to be used. How he flies from melodies seamlessly is fantastic! And the melodies themselves are great and memorable. This is a bit of an overlooked album with the younger generation getting into prog. There is fantastic imagery and atmosphere in mid Part 1, and the start of Part 2 specifically. The whole album is great, but Part 1 is maybe a bit better than Part 2 with its abstract wordless speaking. At first listen it almost sounds demonic, but the music is upbeat enough to smuther any assumptions concerning that. Overall, this is a great album with very compelling atmosphere, and countless memorable melodies, played by a countless amount of sounds and noises.