Great album.

Review Score: (8/10)
Moody, atmospheric, spare, experimental. Quite remote from the lush, confident, romantic urban pop of latter-day OMD.

Still has the vocal passion and melodic charm of the OMD we know and love. It is evident that Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys were very young during the production of this album, as it possesses a certain innocent air to it, and a simplicity of production that is actually quite refreshing, what with the rampant overproduction and sometimes asphixiating overlayering that so many post-1990 albums suffer from.

I really like this album. It has a blend of classics (Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc) with some ethereal instrumental odyssies and one or two gems that were utterly unknown to me before I bought the album--I am thinking of She's Leaving in particular. Even the one or two childish, carnivalesque songs have moments of beauty.

The synthetic, spare, choral sound that trademarks this album is what you might hear if cathedrals themselves could alight in elegy. OMD's inimitable aural purity and reverence for the cool, sublime spaces of the gothic French cathedral are perhaps most evident on this, their artistic breakthrough.

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