Thread Of Time: The Best Of The Music Of Enya

Taliesin Orchestra

Compendia Music Group, 2002

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliesin_Orchestra

REVIEW BY: Duke Egbert

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 03/26/2002

Boy, there are just some times when you wonder what in the hell people were thinking.

I can just hear the idea guys on this one. "Hey, let's take some of the most soporific air-pudding music around and make it even MORE soporific! We'll have people falling into comas as they listen! What a great freakin' idea!"

To be fair, Taliesin Orchestra is occasionally interesting. (I have another of their discs around the Office O' Doom somewhere, and they do a damned fine cover of Peter Gabriel's "Secret World".) For those who don't know, they're just what they sound like; a studio symphony orchestra who does covers of popular music. Kind of Muzak™ for the more musically inclined, but occasionally pleasant. In the case of my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250 Thread Of Time, though, it's two mediocre things that synergize into something unspeakable.

I admit it; I'm not a huge Enya fan. About the only time I dig out my couple of Enya CDs is as pre-ritual music in my Wiccan religious practice, and even then I'm likely to prefer my meditative and spiritual state of mind be induced by old Alan Parsons CDs or something. Enya is just too damn ethereal for me; I prefer my music either have grit or grandeur, and Enya rarely achieves either.

Now, take this aural Prozac and let a studio orchestra at it. It doubles the snore factor, cloaks it in even more homogenized prettiness, and slips it into your drink like a horny frat guy with the same tendency towards unconsciousness. I won't say that I immediately dozed off, but I will say that I've heard more exciting music shopping at K-Mart. I've been more excited and uplifted by Barbra Streisand, and I'll chew off my own leg rather than be forced to listen to the Human Nose. This is, in a word, boring. Boring, boring, boring. It's not even badly done, really, though the production is flat at best, muddy at worst, but it commits the cardinal musical sin; it's dull.

There's only so many ways I can say this, so let me sum up and move on to something with a pulse: Thread Of Time bad. Thread Of Time dull as an Al Gore campaign rally. Avoid Thread Of Time unless you have chronic insomnia. Excuse me, I need to go turn this off and put on some SR-71 or something.

Rating: D

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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© 2002 Duke Egbert and The Daily Vault. All rights reserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without written permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of Compendia Music Group, and is used for informational purposes only.