starfish
Group: Members
Posts: 93
Joined: June 2009 |
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Posted: Feb. 05 2013, 18:43 |
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I'm not a great fan of Oldfield's 'dance music' stuff - for me Tres Lunacy and Lame + Shonky are by far my least favourite of his entire canon. I bought this as a completist, but I wasn't looking forward to it.
I have to say, I was surprised to find I actually liked this. Although to my ears it seems a bit passé (everything about this release screams late nineties to me, down to the Cher-effect vocals on To France), it's actually quite fun.
There's a playfulness about this project, a glint in the eye and a sly wink - that just wasn't present in his previous efforts at dance music, which to my ears were all dreary and soulless. Dancing is supposed to be fun, and it looks as though Mike has finally learnt this!
The Ommadawn remix is absolutely brilliant, as is North Star, both capturing the mood of the original pieces perfectly. We've had so many different versions and covers of Moonlight Shadow and To France now that most people are treating these new versions with some disdain, and that's perfectly understandable. I think the new singer's quite good, if only her natural voice wasn't being drowned in vocoders and pitch-manipulation. Let's just say that they are passable and move on.
The one new track, Never Too Far, is a bit wishy-washy for me and doesn't really go anywhere; Tarja's vocals are quite far back in the mix (almost Enya-style). This isn't a problem for me because I find her accent extremely offputting anyway - Nightwish's cover of 'Over the Hills and Far Away' is unintentionally hilarious as a result - or should I call it "Orfa the heelss und far away", because that's how she sings it!
So yeah, it's no substitute for new material, but it's a decent enough stopgap. I'd probably give it a seven out of ten.
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