Although it features the beautiful recorder of
Leslie Penny and
the Chieftains' Paddy Maloney playing the uilean pipe,
Ommadawn didn't gain
Mike Oldfield the success he was looking for. The album was released in the same year as the
David Bedford-arranged Orchestral Tubular Bells and nine months after
Oldfield picked up a Grammy award for the original
Tubular Bells album. The most pleasing attribute of
Ommadawn is its incorporation of both African and Irish music in its symphonic rock & roll mainframe. Boosted by a hearty amount of different horns, piano, cello, trumpet, and synthesizer, the album has its moments of rising action, but the whole of
Ommadawn fails to keep its lovely segments around long enough, and there are some rather lengthy instances that include bland runs of unvaried music. Another plus is
Oldfield's use of a choir, giving the album a soft, humanistic feel when contrasted against the keyboards or synthesizer. While it does include flashes of
Mike Oldfield's brilliance, the entire album may seem a little anticlimactic when compared to some of his other releases. ~ Mike DeGagne