Artist: Oldfield, Mike
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 1984
Runtime: 41:21
Rating: 4/5
After the previous album (Crises – RockLine review HERE) gave Mike Oldfield two big hits (“Moonlight Shadow” and “Shadow on the Wall”), he tried to go back to the same well and kept following the path he’d set with his earlier albums. In other words, there are more and more ear-friendly melodies, while the running times of the more ambitious tracks keep shrinking.
For his new project, the man built himself a studio at an altitude of 2,000 meters, overlooking Lake Geneva. You can definitely hear in the material itself that he recharged his batteries, because the songs are really loaded with positivity and an optimistic outlook on the world. This time Oldfield wanted the smallest lineup possible, since he didn’t want to overdress the songs and instead wanted to show the essence of his music. So he called in just two vocalists (Maggie Reilly and Barry Palmer) and the by now legendary drummer Simon Phillips.
In the first half of the album, the maestro serves up seven lovable pop bouncers, and it’s hard to pick a favorite. You could say that around this time Mike was slowly starting to drift away from longer pieces, but with his exceptional feel for melody he still managed to craft some really neat little pop tunes. One of them is “To France”, a little song with a Celtic motif that tells the story of the Scottish queen Mary. “To France” also became the unofficial anthem of the Hungarian national team during the additional qualifiers for the 1998 World Cup in France (especially the chorus, “Never going to get to France”). “To France” became one of Mike’s biggest hits, and to this day it gets stuck in plenty of people’s heads and causes no end of trouble by refusing to leave. Of course, the main star of this track is Maggie Reilly, who also delivers all the other highlights among the album’s vocal moments. Singer Barry Palmer, who shares the vocal duties with Reilly, was also a great pick and proves that Oldfield’s choice wasn’t just the result of some shady business transactions.
“The Lake” is a track Mike dedicated to his home at the time by the Swiss lake. It’s marked by lightning-fast shifts from delicate, ethereal parts to fast, cheerful melodies, with Mike’s singing guitar especially shining. Once again it’s a typical, well-constructed Oldfield track, full of unpredictable twists and different moods.
Although Oldfield, with his multilayered instrumental personality, where he practically handles the whole sonic picture himself, is undoubtedly always the star of his albums, this time Maggie Reilly was caught in the spotlight right next to him. This was the last time she made a substantial contribution to Mike Oldfield’s music, since he didn’t use her as much later on. If I could imagine the voice of the sirens who tried to lure Odysseus, I’d picture the tempting vocals of this Scottish singer, who can’t leave you indifferent and can turn a perfectly ordinary melody into a divine experience.
Discovery is another solid entry in Oldfield’s catalog, though it plays it a bit too safe compositionally, and that’s almost certainly down to Virgin steering him in that direction. Of course, his pop songs deserve all the praise too, especially considering the contribution of Maggie Reilly’s sweet voice, but the love for these songs fades faster than it does for the more elaborate ones. Still, it’s an excellent record, packed with true Oldfield ingredients – dreamy guitars, gentle keyboards, melodic and ambient moments, excellent vocals and more. Don’t let the somewhat greater accessibility of the material bother you, because this is still one of the better pop albums in music history, period.
Lineup
Mike Oldfield – electric, acoustic, bass guitar, mandolin, synthesizers
Maggie Reilly and Barry Palmer – vocals
Simon Phillips – drums
Production
Mike Oldfield and Simon Phillips
Track list
1. To France
2. Poison Arrows
3. Crystal Gazing
4. Tricks Of The Light
5. Discovery
6. Talk About Your Life
7. Saved By A Bell
8. The Lake
