LEGEND (OST)

This is another soundtrack movie from Tangerine Dream. Jon Anderson and Brian Ferry appear as guest singers: they sing on only one track each: Ferry's song is a very good relaxing rock track with electric guitars, saxes, bass and drums. Anderson's track is much more ethereal, majestic and floating, and it sounds like Tangerine Dream play the music.

The album is obscure, heavy & atmospheric electronic keyboards-oriented with not so many sequenced electronic beat parts. The keyboards are rather floating, but neither linear nor monotonous. It sounds quite magic, supernatural, and often dark too. When I watched the movie, I found the music a bit irrelevant, probably because the movie is too cute and childish for those rather intense & dark songs.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I don't remember if I have seen the movie or not, so even if I did it shouldn't have impressed me too much. But I remember very well the video released by Bryan Ferry. "Is Your Love Strong Enough" can be considered an appendix to the quite good "Boys and Girls" and like that album it features the guitar of David Gilmour in a period when "A Momentary Leapse of Reason" wasn't released yet and I was suffering for having missed the Pink Floyd. A nice pop song very well arranged.

Now the proper soundtrack: looking at the TD track titles it seems that they effectively comment parts of the movie in chronological sequence. Being it a Fantasy movie I think TD music is very appropriate in setting up the right atmosphere. It's probably my impression only, but it's like the compositions have been influenced in some way by Ridley Scott. Rarely TD has been so similar to Vangelis like in the "Opening". It's possible that Scott has asked them for something close to Blade Runner.

"Cottage" is very unusual instead. It has a folky, almost celtic, influence. This is something that I haven't ever heard before in TD. A very good track.

"The Unicorn Theme" is more ethereal, like an unicorn can be expected to be. The first half of the track is a bit too mellow, almost trivial, but in the second half it turns into dark ambient and is reminding of the late 70s things.

"Goblin" is one of the darkest things ever made by TD. A very dark track. I'd like to know if Senmuth knows it as is very close to the dark ambient music of that Russian artist.

The subject of the following track causes it to be still a bit weird. "Fairies" mean bells, but also winds and dark noises. Fairies can be nice but very bad, too. The second half of the track has a strange grotesque rhythm for a while, before going back to the darkness.

"Loved By The Sun" features Jon Anderson and the keyboard background is too similar to "So Long Ago So Clear". I can't believe that Vangelis is not behind the keyboards. It's also the period of Private Collection. However the sleeve notes say that the music is composed by Tangerine Dream and the lyrics by Jon.

After this parenthesis let's go back to the dark side with "Blue Room". This is TD with no doubt. A spacey instrumental very atmospheric. it flows seamlessly into "The Dance". It's a sort of weird waltz. If it wasn't for the darkness I could think to Enya's Caribbean Blue.

After speaking of darkness throughout this review, finally a track whose title says everything: "Darkness". Other than dark it's spacey, more in line with my personal tastes.

The album is closed by "The Kitchen" and the reprise of "The Unicorn" (the mellow part).

It's a good album with no doubts, even considering that's a soundtrack. Non-essential as if we don't consider "Cottage" there are no improvements or new things respect to the already huge production of Froese & co.

3 stars

I already had quite a few other Tangerine Dream albums when I got Legend. My impression is bivalent (is that an English word?). Most of the songs are quite average, though certainly not bad. The two songs with lyrics and vocals are certainly better than most of the stuff, though Loved By The Sun could do with a wee bit less drama in the chorus. Ok, it's Jon Anderson and his voice IS quite good. But Is Your Love Strong Enough with Bryan Ferry behind the microphone is definitely the better song of the two. But then there is the one song which changes not everything, but at least the album rating. In fact, The Unicornis one of my Top 5 instrumental pieces and I'm more than happy for the reprise at the end of the album.

Without The Unicorn Legend would not be worth more than 3 stars, but with a 6 star song I'm willing to give 4.