Recently Heard: Olias of Sunhillow

[ellyssian]

Jon Anderson - Olias of Sunhillow

I've read really mixed reviews of this: some hail it as a prog rock masterpiece that is - or is one of - Jon Anderson's greatest works, others as aimless spacey ethereal crap that is a godawful mess and they expected better from a guy of Jon's talents.

I'm really not quite sure what to make of the latter camp - I've seen their reviews for other Anderson solo albums, and they rip into them as being too New Agey or too this or that, mostly because, well, they're supposed to be New Agey or this and that. You don't buy Angels Embrace to hear shades of Owner of a Lonely Heart - it happens to be exactly what it sounds like: a New Age mood album. Likewise Deseo - complain it sounds too much like Latin music? Right on target - it is supposed to be exactly that.

Now, I don't feel Olias... is supposed to be aimless or crap, but spacey and ethereal and 70's psychedelic art rock are exactly the reasons why I picked it up. Some detractors felt the cover art promised them something else, and I took one look at it and said, "Ooooo, this will have the same feel as, say some of the soundtrack for Bakshi's Wizard or maybe that outer space Christmas short flick by the folks who did Rock and Rule. Yeah..." Of course, I worried that what I wanted it to be was exactly what the cover and general reviews hinted it was going to be, and *that* was what everyone else wanted. Maybe a hint of early Yes stuff, but not Yes. That's what I was hoping for. Spacey synths, and layered ethereal vocals. Now I was second guessing myself: what if it missed that mark?

Of course, this was exactly what I expected, what it was advertised to be, and what it should be. A spacey, ethereal prog rock masterpiece.

Kind of makes me wonder what exactly those other folks were really expecting? Maybe it needs a warning label: DANGER! CONTAINS SYNTHESIZERS AND HARPS! BEWARE! SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY CONCEPT ALBUM! WARNING! CONTAINS MUSIC!

I'd say I've overplayed this since I first picked it up, but I keep finding more and more in it - and I still haven't tried actually figuring out what, exactly, the story line is getting at.

The only two problems I have with this are: the bit of storyline and lyrics inside might have been readable on a 33 1/3 slab o' vinyl sized album sleeve, but that yellow print is rough on the eyes at compact disc size; and, the most troublesome issue, I haven't figured out whether I should keep this in the 'Ensemble' section (where anything that's not exactly rock or classical - unless the classical is by performer and not composer (Kronos Quartet, Erich Kunzel, and so on) or rock instrumental (Joe Satriani, Jason Becker, and so on). In any case, it would have company no matter what decision is made: in between some Ian Anderson (Divinities: Twelve Dances with God) and a few other later Jon Anderson solo discs (Change We Must, in addition to the two mentioned above) if it goes to 'Ensemble', and between another Ian Anderson (Rupi's Dance) disc and the first Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe disc if I decide upon 'Rock'.