"Taurus II" is a long, almost entirely instrumental intro, with the kind of riffs Oldfield could come up with in his early days, unfortunately marred by some effects and a very 80s production, in a bad way - and even a horrible quasi-disco passage. Most of the ingredients of his first albums are still there, but it doesn't work anymore, as if something was missing, a breath, a youthful melancholy... Maggie Reilly's vocals bring a bit of their magic to the whole, and we realise how much, despite their intrinsic beauty, the hits "Moonlight Shadow" and "To France" owe to her warm and moving voice. "Family Man", where she sings, is a good pop song. Nothing exceptional, but effective. "Orabidoo" is a rather melancholic piece that reminds me of some aspects of Giorgio Moroder's "Einzelganger" album - the vocoder helps a lot with that. The same very electronic and melancholic feeling carries "Mount Teidi". In the end, "Five Miles Out" is just a nice album, with some short moments of grace. It's far, far, too far from the genius expressed in "The Tubullar Bells", "Hergest Ridge" and "Ommadawn" - but maybe this genius was too heavy to bear.
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