THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH

In terms of absolute rating on PA, this album is Mike's best one. Rather strange.

In terms of my rating, it is not. It is of course much better than works like "Earth Moving" or "Heaven's Open", but by no means does it match his great debut trilogy. But that's only my opinion.

There are indeed some wonderful musical moments like "Let There Be Light" which can cope with his best work or Ascension. On the other end, there are lots of ambient and ethnic music, tranquil and soft passages which are the ones you can get from this offering like "Supernova" or "Magellan". "Oceania" being my favourite one.

The problem starts with "Prayer for the Earth". Indeed a native chant which is quite dull and repetitive and if one makes abstraction of the excellent "Lament For Atlantis", there are not too many great parts to remember till the end of this album.

A personal comment about this album : I was listening it in my car and my wife told me "I didn't know that you liked such type of music". At this point of time ("Hibernaculum"), I told her : "Neither do I. These monastery likes "vocals" have never been appealing to me. Being Oldfield or anybody else's ones.

And even if another of his "Tubular" investigations are rather satisfactory, I can't really say that we are closing the gap between a good album and a masterpiece one. It is indeed obvious that Mike is trying to reproduce his true masterpieces. Just listen to "Crystal Clear" and compare it to the genuine "Tubular Bells" to be convinced. Still, three stars for this good work.