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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful World indeed! Haunting and suspenseful!, December 21, 2003
His "So Flows The Current" gets my nod as his best album that he has ever put out in his career, rivalling "Indigo" in that category. Upon listening to his music over my lifetime, I now have to admit that while I do feel nostalgic for his more electronic-oriented works from the 1980s, I seamingly have been finding myself enjoying his more medievel works that he did in the 1990s than his earlier works, not that they have tired out. Not at all, his eighties albums have lost none of their power but his 1990s albums and his two latest have shown artistic creativity in the New Age field that is unparallelled and his newest album "Beautiful World" continues to demonstrate one of the greatest examples of New Age artists who take a new turn out of their trademark territory into a new territory with a new sound and different arrangements from anything trademark. "Beautiful World" relies less on rhythm and more on atmospherics. Some simply yearning for something in the style of "Between Two Worlds" or "El Dorado" may find themselves thrown off a bit but for those who are willing to hear something really creative, deep and exotic, "Beautiful World" offers many rewarding listens. I still feel somethign new with every listen. Most of this album relies more on dark ambient atmospherics and the result is in my opinion, his most suspenseful release since "Indigo" from 12 years before. The album cover perfectly fits the mood of the music on this album. I really love the titles of the tracks too. What's also unique is how the songs kind of are like three songs broken up into seven separate tracks. "Facing The Sun" into "Magnificent River", "Chance" merging into "Beautiful World" and "Night Beocmes Her", and finally "Approaching Summit" merging into "An Evening Sky". THis album has a lot of originality to it. The track with the strongest rhythm are the opening track "Facing The Sun" but don't let the title fool you. The song is very dark, suspenseful with haunting exotic beats and dark ambient atmospherics and strange electronic sounds that almost evoke images of glowing dragonflies flying overhead against increasingly stormy skies and the song becoming a highly intense and haunting track that definately has plenty of the trademark sonud that longtime fans are familiar with. Those who feel that this is nothing like his electrnoic work may get their share of treats with this track. The song then merges right into it's companion track "Magnificent River". MR starts with haunting echoing pianos with strong atmospherics and then becomes a very exotic song with exotic rhythm and sharp sounding guitars to create a truly groundbreaking song in his field. The rest of this album fits more into the echoing piano sounds that have conprised his post-Indigo era works. In some ways, this album is like a combination of the eerie suspense of "Indigo" and the ancient misty sounds of "Metaphor" but in some ways, "Beautiful World" is totally different altogether from those two albums. My favorite songs are "Chance" and the title track. "Chance" may lull some to sleep but in some ways, this song has a rather haunting and relatively energetic dark crescendo that makes this song really blissful without being sleep-inducing. Quite the opposite. The echoes of "Chance" echo away into the passion of the title track to this album. The title track begins with passionate and melancholy medieval ambience and some jazzy sounds before it becomes a dramatic theme with high energy rhythm. The song reaches a high climax with a very intense mood with strong electronic keyboards and a very climactic tone. This song definately ranks amongst the classics like the title track to his last album as well as "Coba", "Sacrifice", "87 Dreams", and "Synergy" as his best songs. Really deep stuff I tell you. I was in total bliss listening to this song. "Night Becomes Her" is a very sad but beautiful song with obscure sounding guitars and a very jazzy downbeat vibe to it. Definately not for parties but absolutely beautiful, it is. I love the title to the song too. The last two songs are the spookiest tracks on this album. "Approaching Summit" gives me chills listening to it with it's eerie yet blissful dark melody and the light but exotic beats in the background. While the song ocasionally gets a bit repetitive at times, the suspense keeps the song from being boring during it's eleven minute length. As I listen to this song, I can imagine myself during the evening at dusk flying over misty forest approaching a snowcapped mountain summit with dark storm clouds gathering overhead. Now how about that for imaginative music. The song merges inot the seventh and final track on this CD. "An Evening Sky" brings this album to a close with the sound of chirping crickets or something in that vein and then a very scary and eerie melody comes in with eloquent guitars against a dark and medievel backdrop to give the song a feeling of driving up the mountainside in accumulating mist in the middle of the night. While it may not quite reach the heights of O'Hearn's artistic magnum-opuses "So Flows Teh Current" and "Indigo", "Beautiful World" nonetheless continues the unbroken streak of life-altering, adventurous albums that he has been making since 1985 and his next album will very likely break new ground just like this one did. This album does not dissapoint the slightest. I could not do this album justice with this review and I highly recommend that you buy this album today.
Patrick O'Hearn is one of the greatest New Age artists that the Earth has been blessed with and has few who rival him.
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~ Patrick O'Hearn
~ Patrick O'Hearn
~ Patrick O'Hearn
~ Patrick O'Hearn
~ David Helpling
by Patrick O'Hearn 
