Search - Mike Oldfield :: Heaven's Open (Mlps)

The worst of Mike's album (and I mean it)

Adrian | Ljubljana, Slovenia, Europe | 01/14/2000

(2 out of 5 stars)

"You'll probably find me reviewing a lot of Mike's albums lately, as I am his big fan from the days when I was a teenager (now, I am 30).As first it has to be said that this album was one of the last Mike's albums he made for Virgin label and this phase of his music history is filled with CDs like this one (from "Earth moving" on). So, even before I've bought it I knew it will not be one of his best, but what can you expect if it was made just for the sake of it? And it really isn't. Fortunately, it has a similar structure like his albums from 80's (one side with a long instrumental track, here "Music from the balcony" and, the other side of short pieces with vocals) and maybe this is the reason why I gave it 2 stars instead of just one. This was also the first record where Mike sings in person, which is really annoying, compared to all his beautiful songs like "Moonlight shadow", "Family man", "Crime of passion" or "Islands", which were all sung by other female- and male-singers with much better voice (remember Maggie Reilly, Bonnie Taylor, Anita Hegerland and a lot of others). The vocal side doesn't really have any strong points, with an exception of title track, which is rather good, although sung by Mike. The instrumental track, "Music from the balcony" is much better, but if you are familiar with his other long pieces like "Taurus II", "Crises" or "Platinum" on the albums with the same structure, you eventually will suffer from lack of impression. In my opinion, this is Mike's worst record, and I could tell this for sure, because I own all of his CDs and compilations (there is some 30 of them) and "Heaven's open" is still rarely in my CD-player. If you're just about to "explore" Mike's music, you should start with some of his other albums, but this one certainly isn't the one."

Outstanding

Adrian | 11/03/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mike has truly excelled himself with this brilliant album. The title track is one of the most uplifting and well written songs i have ever heard. Other stand out tracks include, Make Make, and Music From The Balcony. An exceptional piece of work. Well done Mike."