ISLANDS

The Wind Chimes it´s another fantastic instrumental that makes the album worth itself. I think that Mike Oldfield anticipated a little the Amarok style with this piece of music, and it can be listened in some voices samplers, the use of the percussions and in the variety of the song, with a lot of changes and different short sections. Also some etnic sounds that he learned while making "The Killing Fields" soundtrack were used here, and this is also very related with some parts of Amarok...

But I think that the vocal songs in this album are good too! While in "Discovery" he failed in trying to make a most vocal album, because some songs were not very good, on "Islands" he reached a great level in the short songs, thing that made the album very ejoyable from beginning to the end. The best for me are Islands (great Bonnie Tyler´s interpretation), Flying Start (a great nostalgic song with a kind of Mediterranean feeling, singed very properly by Kevin Ayers...) and Magic Touch (wonderful song, the best vocal song of the album!). But the others aren´t bad too, with some things very original like the egipcian feeling of The Time Has Come...

Maybe the fail of the album is the amount of vocals tracks... Like in "Discovery", I miss more instrumental sections, the best of this man... The Wind Chimes is great, but although the short vocal tracks are good, I miss more instrumental songs.

Conclusion: another underrated Oldfield´s album with some really unforgettable moments and a must for Oldfield´s fans, and for 80´s pop lovers too! Maybe is not essential, but it worths a good listening...

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