Man On The Rocks by Mike Oldfield

And now the old master has done a pure rock-pop record.

Even though the compositions slowly gets alot better and better (taken as songs) I still have a hard time comprehend this being an Oldfield creation. Even harder so since a guy, Luke Spiller, sings every tune - no female at all.

The product sounds as something between a Queen, McCartney, U2 and Scorpions album, with some glimpses of Zeppelin, and everyone else.

OK, most classic Oldfield ingredients can still be traced, and it's really nice to hear they're not dead. Nevertheless I can't as usual give his (or their) instrumentations my fullest admiration. That would be easy in a longer piece of Oldfield, especially his super-inventive hour of AMAROK.

Man On The Rocks works on a more collective ground of arena rock (seldom my highest interest). Maybe it's simply because Mike focus so well on guitar playing this time... that I just miss some tubular bells and rythmic extravagance.

Hard to find something ground-breaking here. Even climbs close to the edge to boredom... Anyway the music's too powerful and beautiful to fall - stands tall.




as my Summer Album 14 : 68


most Soulful song: DREAMING IN THE WIND

most Mysterious song: CASTAWAY

most Amusing song: SAILING

most Beautiful song: FOLLOWING THE ANGELS (down)

most Strong song: MAN ON THE ROCKS

most Sexy song: NUCLEAR

most Grounded song: IRENE




Overall Album

7 compositions

3 instrumentations

6 feeling

3 lyrics

4 synchronization + variation

5 concept (titles, cover)

3 historical importance

= 31


I now give 1-7 for each cathegory
where 3 is good and total possible 7 x 7 = 49 never exist(?)




wWw