Apocalypse

John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 20, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00000273F
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,624 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Apocalypse

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This album, a musical tour de force, defies categorization., September 8, 1999

By 

N. E. Terry (Tustin, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Apocalypse (Audio CD)

This work is one of my favorites and has remained so for more than 2 decades. In 1974, I went to see Mahavishnu Orchestra play in a small theatre in the round. The opening band was to have been "Poco", but they had equipment problems (luckily), and, as a consequence, Mahavishnu Orchestra came out early and played for more than 3 hours. It was absolutely sensational--one could say a real spiritual experience.

They played their new "Apocalypse" album in its entirety. John McLaughlin, who wrote the music, and the superb violinist, Jean-Luc Ponty, were extraordinary, as they are on the album. Drummer Narada Michael Walden was equally thrilling. The band's amazing bass player, Ralphe Armstrong, was only 18 years old at the time of the recording, and his playing was also dazzling. Gayle Moran plays keyboards and sings on "Smile of the Beyond", a delightful piece of music. The band was accompanied by a string quartet which managed to capture the power of the orchestral arrangement of the album, adding to the electrifying performance.

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the London Symphony Orchestra on this album. George Martin, producer of the Beatles' albums, produced the album. The combination of these unsurpassed geniuses adds even greater dynamism to this tremendous work.

Listening to the album provides a deep and rich musical experience that may take the listener some time to acquire, but it is completely worth spending the time. The album leads off with "The Power of Love," a subtle yet powerful acoustic guitar piece, followed by the thrilling "Vision is a Naked Sword," a tour de force, truly momentous in its dynamism, reaching a crescendo as powerful as any in Stravinsky's music.

One cannot categorize the album as "fusion" or "classical" or "jazz" or "rock," and certainly not "new age". In that way it is like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." The compositions are powerful, and the playing is wonderful, but the music defies categorization, even moreso than the earlier revolutionary Mahavishnu albums. Enjoy this timeless album.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Grand Flawed and Brave Experiment by Johnny Mac, December 22, 2004

By 

P. McKenna "theowlwatches" (Atlanta GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Apocalypse (Audio CD)

Ever the restless experimenter, John McLaughlin decided to soldier on after the acrimonious breakup of the first Mahavishnu Orchestra. He had an even grander musical vision in mind. First he put together a larger version of the band, and not being content to stop there, bought in the heavy artillery, known as the London Symphony Orchestra, tapped one Michael Gibbs to do the orchestral arrangements, enlisted the services of a young up and coming conductor in Michael Tilson Thomas, who had a taste for the adventurous and unconventional. And to cap it off, Johnny Mac enlisted the services of Beatles producer George Martin to capture this grand experiment on tape.

Did the bold experiment work? For the most part, it did.

We begin with "Power of Love", where the orchestra plays a quiet and somber understated theme as Jean Luc Ponty spins forth a haunting melody on his electric violin and McLaughlin adds poignant acoutsic guitar. But this is just a prelude to something very unsettling.

That unsettling something being "Vision Is A Naked Sword". Beginning with a rumbling gong, both the band and the Symphony unleash an ominous "Wrath of God" reworking of the main theme of "Dance of The Maya" and in doing so, nearly scaring the crap out of you, with Johnny Mac peeking out with his trademark scary dissonant arpeggios. From there things get even more jarring and intense, as J Mac and Ponty trade off phrases, Narada Michael Walden interjects and the band plays a fine game of volleying riffs back and forth before things draw to a terrifying orchestral close. WOW!!!!

Next up, "Smile Of The Beyond" is a attempt to lighten the mood after having the fear of God put in you. As the strings come in, Gayle Moran (the future Mrs. Chick Corea) does the wailing diva thing, howling at the moon with some rather preposterous pseudo-cosmic lyrics over a fairly saccharine string arrangement, then the band kicks in with the guys singing the song's signature line over a fairly active fusion groove, but somehow, this one just doesn't quite add up or succeed at what it attempted.


"Wings of Karma" is a nice orchestral interlude leading to a sort of gospel-inflected fusion groove, paving the way for "Hymn to Him", a multi-part epic that has more than the minimum USDA daily requirements of instrumental fireworks, that reaches a fiery climax as Johnny Mac and the band trade riffs with the whole London Symphony, quite fun to listen to actually and then it winds down to a beautiful, serene ending.

This is not what one would call easy listening by any stretch.

The overall recording quality is spacious and crisp, thanks to George Martin's finely tuned ears and ace Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick manning the faders. The recording of this album was a pretty complicated affair according to the participants, having to stay in synch by way of a closed circuit TV system in the studio.

Quibbles? I have some.

First, Johnny Mac's guitar is uncharacteristically low in the mix and doesn't come across with quite the fullness that it normally did on previous recordings. In fact, it sounds downright thin and overly metallic in a lot of places, almost hurting the ears sometimes.

Second, Gayle Moran. Her keyboard work here is adequate but not really anything outstanding or special in any manner. And yes, she can sing, but that wailing diva howling at the moon thing is more of a distraction than an asset, it sticks out like really bad Broadway/pseudo-operatic schlock, truth be told. Those dippy pseudo-cosmic lyrics weren't much of a help either.

The new band overall kicked butt, especially Ralphe Armstrong and Narada Michael Walden, even if he does overplay a little now and then. I heard that MO Mark II were actually great on stage with just the 3 strings and 2 horns. It had to be a monumental challenge to capture the essence of the dense orchestral sections and be able to convey it with a much smaller (relatively speaking) ensemble.

John McLaughlin could certainly not be faulted for being exploratory and wildly ambitious, and he is in fact to be commended, even when it didn't always fly. At least he learned from the mistakes.

In spite of the flaws, this is a disc definitely worth having, just to see how orchestral and electric textures can work together, and how one such as Johnny Mac always followed his musical heart wherever it took him, not having the least bit of concern for commerciality.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime Mastery, March 18, 2003

By 

Clark Battle (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Apocalypse (Audio CD)

If there were ever an album that needed a remastering to SACD or even to DVD 96/48 its this one. It deserves every last point on each of its five stars, save one. The recording quality is not that good. Theres a lot of hiss and the editing is sloppy in places (like some of the cuts between the band and the orchestra). Other than that, it is of my top 5 favorite albums out of a collection of close to 1000. It is definitely of the most deeply spiritual recordings ever made (up there with Kohntarkosz by Magma, and A Love Supreme by Coltrane).