DIRECT

Among all of his many film soundtracks and New-Age albums, Direct stands out in Vangelis' vast discography. As implied by its title, this is indeed one of the most direct albums he has ever done (and by "direct" here, I do not mean simple or commercial). While still being largely electronic, and still occasionally of a somewhat relaxing nature, this album is more up tempo, melodic and some moments are almost even rocking! For me this makes one of Vangelis' best ever efforts, and definitely his best since Spiral from 1977.

As on most of his albums Vangelis plays most (all?) the instruments himself, but it is not clear which instruments are involved exactly. The drums are clearly not "real", but this time around they seem to at least mimic real drums and they are thus not far away from the drum sound many Rock bands adopted during the 80's. On some tracks, like Metallic Rain for example, there is something that could be an electric guitar, but it might be a synthesizer-generated electric guitar. Regardless, it creates a Rock feel rarely present in Vangelis' music. Several passages are very symphonic and the female choirs as well as the harp sound like the genuine article as opposed to the synthesizer-generated equivalent.

Prog Rock fans who are not normally into New-Age or electronic music (myself included) might like Direct more than most albums by this Greek musical individualist.

Recommended!

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