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Vangelis - Heaven and Hell CD (album) cover

HEAVEN AND HELL

Vangelis

 

Prog Related

3.90 | 265 ratings

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Warthur
Prog Reviewer
1 stars Though presented as an album-long suite (a cynic might suggest as an attempt to cash in on Mike Oldfield's success), the different segments of Heaven and Hell really demand to be indexed as individual tracks, because it really isn't a cohesive and continuous suite so much as a selection of songs arranged to mimic one.

I guess it's an important album in Vangelis' career - not least because it contains his first collaboration with Jon Anderson in the form of So Long Ago, So Clear. But it's let down by the fact that so many of the synths come across sounding just plain dated to modern ears, and by the sloppy songwriting - the sleigh bell section on the first side is a fairly transparent rip-off of Michael Oldfield's use of them in his albums, and the bits where Vangelis tries to kick it Keith Emerson style just sound monotonous and repetitive. Furthermore, the operatic vocals are completely tastelessly applied.

Frankly, it's not to my taste, and I suspect there'll be many listeners out there who listen to it and, like me, end up baffled as to what all the fuss is about. This slapdash composition is a real blot on Vangelis' discography, and the brazen attempts (whether they were chosen by Vangelis or imposed on him by the record company) to rip off Mike Oldfield's style are particularly galling. One star.

Warthur | 1/5 |

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