Mike Oldfield: "Amarok"

There are some very intreresting ideas scattered throughout the 60 minute duration of "Amarok". Unfortunately by the time you have a chance to appreciate them Oldfield has moved on to something else. They may pop up later in the work, but by then you've been bomabarded with so many other ideas (some good, some not so good) that you've practically forgotten them.

Even so, it is an entertaining album, filled with trademark "Oldfield-isms". A bit too long (at least 15 minutes could have been easilly sacrificed) and since there's only one track, once you're in it, you're in for the long haul. But it could have been no other way, because the bits and pieces that make up the album fly by much too fast to have been given individual tracks for each one.

"Amarok" is better than the two or three albums he put out previously, I'll say that much for it. And it's probably one of the last records he did before the tag of "new age" began to be used in describing his work. Recommended only for the tried-and-true Mike Oldfield fan...and the patient ones, at that.