PRIVATE COLLECTION

Jon & Vangelis

Prog Related

3.16 | 109 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

octopus-4
Special Collaborator
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams

A strange album: half is quite poor, half is about to be a masterpiece. The A side contains five mellow and somewhat trivial songs with few or no interesting parts.

Let's skip "Italian Song", first of all. Just another failed attempt to follow-up to So Long Ago So Clear.

"And When The Night Comes" is an electronic melodic song deeply stuck in the 80s. Quite good even if nothing special.

"Deborah" is another track to skip quickly before your CD reader is covered by honey and sugar.

"Polonaise" is not much better. As usual I don't take much care of Jon's lyrics. They were the years of Solidarnosc, but apart of the first sentence about "sense of freedom" I don't know what is it about. From a musical point of view is another trivial melodic.

Things go a little better with "He Is Sailing". A song more in line with Short Stories, with a bit of rhythm and some effort put in the composing by Vangelis. Please somebody tell me what "Kokasaye Tay Toka" means.... I'm joking, I don't really care about knowing it.

But...surprise...

The B-side contains an over 20 minutes epic whose initial part has something of Mr Cairo in the structure. A repetitive round of chords on which Jon makes a good work. The lyrics are the usual hymn: "Divine Nature, Super Nature .... Peace will come, peace will come...." Regardless this, one third of the song is gone when the instrumental part arrives. We are at the level of Blade Runner. It's pure Vangelis at his best. When Jon restarts singing it's a totally different song. "Sweet music and your secret heart...." It's a slow symphonic piece until after a spacey and a classical section the piano reprises the main theme. It's just a short reminder. Jon sings again and brings the track to the symphonic coda.

Was it all of this kind it would have deserved 4 stars, but it's only half of the album so I have to decrease the rating to 2. The A side is unfortunately too poor, also for a fan like me, but the B side deserves to be listened to.

octopus-4 | 2/5 | 2011-1-24

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Share this JON & VANGELIS review

Social review comments () BETA

Review related links

Send comments to octopus-4
Report this review (#385636)
Buy JON & VANGELIS music online with PA partners
Show all JON & VANGELIS MP3/Stream
Go to JON & VANGELIS page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
Go to Private Collection page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
Search the Forum for JON & VANGELIS related discussions