TOBY
Group: Members
Posts: 1562
Joined: May 2002 |
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Posted: Mar. 03 2014, 17:37 |
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This forum seems incredibly quiet these days. A new Oldfield album is out today and not much chat here about it. I presume everyone is now on the Facebook page.
Anyway I got MOTR today and have listened to it twice. Its a mixed bag for me I think so far. I would start off by saying it sounds pretty much exactly as I thought it would with very little surprises. A very slickly produced and well performed collection of AOR. If it didn't have Mike's name attached to it I can't really say I'd pay it much attention to be honest but putting it in the context of his other song based albums, Earth Moving and Heaven's Open seem the obvious choices, it doesn't quite seem to have the melodic charm of either, for me anyway. I wouldn't say any of the guitar solos are up there with Mike's best, although they're still perfectly decent. He is clearly trying to stretch his guitar sound a bit which is good. It sounds much more raw and alive then pretty much anything I've heard from him since Guitars.
Lyrically its all much more emotional and darker than anything we've heard from him in the past which is definitely in its favour. Luke Spiller is certainly a powerful if slightly generic sounding rock singer capable of earnestly delivering the words.
Its all certainly not bad but just not particularly inventive or memorable either. It'll be interesting to see just how successful it is. Probably very considering how middle of the road it is and how much Universal are pushing it.
Hopefully some of it will grow on me. It seems like it could a be a slow burner. Dreaming in the Wind is definitely the highlight so far.
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