HALO

'Halo' continues the band's move (in the studio, anyway) away from the enormous Berlin School canvases popularised by TANGERINE DREAM and KLAUSE SCHULZE in the 1970s, providing us instead with shorter vignettes, excerpts of sound that really don't progress anywhere. This really is a case of 'less is less': by limiting themselves largely to tracks with lengths under ten minutes, the atmosphere of blissful contemplation never builds. Yes, the tracks segue into each other, but a continuous sound is not the same as continuity of ideas.

So, what is this if it's not what we'd expect? The sounds are more melancholic and therefore less upbeat than either previous material or their more recent live album work. Irrelevant ambient tracks link larger pieces of interest, but the resulting picture is static. This lacks propulsion, it goes nowhere. Even the title track tinkles nicely but without intent, in the manner of a poor JEAN MICHEL JARRE number from the 1980s.

The band would give this direction one more try (Oblivion) and then abandon studio albums altogether, the remainder of their output (up until 2007 at least) reverting to long-form live tracks, and their music became all the better for it.