Discovery

Discovery is one of Mike Oldfield's stronger 80's releases because, unlike most of his albums, the vocal tracks here are outstanding. Straying away from the oft-borderline corny 80's pop that he often ventured into at the time, Mike here instead focuses on more abstract vocal pieces, with a big influence this time from Indian music. Maggie Reiley performs vocals here on several tracks, and she is great as usual. In something of a contrast, the male vocal pieces here are excellent as well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there are no bad songs on this album. The best ones are To France (great Reiley vocal), Poison Arrows (the most and best Indian-influenced tune), and Tricks of The Light (good vocal piece, and one of Mike's best melodies to boot.) The lone instrumental is the 12-minute closer, The Lake. It is a nice piece, though not, in my opinion, one of his stronger instrumental numbers. This is perhaps the only Mike Oldfield album where the vocal pieces are stronger than the instrumental ones. One must buy this album for that fact alone.