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Those familiar with Enya will be aware that on many songs in the past Gaelic, Latin and Spanish have been used and even though they are not your first language, that detracts not one bit from the enjoyment. Taking that one step further Nicky and Roma Ryan have created a whole imaginary language that they call Loxian and "Less Than A Pearl" is the first of three songs to be sung in this way. Its almost as if they want to reinforce the idea of the vocals being as important for the way they are presented to the listener as to what they actually say.

The title track follows and with it comes my first minor gripe. As if to go from one extreme to the other, from the new age and almost surreal territory of the opening song, lyrically speaking, here the lyrics are decidedly lack lustre and almost soppy in their sentiment. Instead of the hauntingly beautiful and obscure mesh of vocals that most of the other tracks offer up here we revert to teenage poetry and sickly sweet sentiment. Musically the music does all that is required of it but considering the high standards this and previous albums have set and considering that this is the track that titles the album then I find this a bit lacking. Maybe I need to not think too much about the words, after all my opening statements say as much, but this is a bit distracting. Much better and of a similar nature is "Its In The Rain", cellos drive the song on amid the typical swirl of keyboards and backing vocals and whilst it's typical of a lot of Enya's work has that breathy and ghostly quality that the very name promises. There is a sparseness and folk sensibility that Enya has not produced since the singers days as part of Clannad..

"If I Could Be Where You Are", is a much cleaner song, the instrumental backing is at its barest and the vocals are a simple single high register affair showing that away from all of the multi track affects Enya proves that she is clearly a vocalist if no small talent. Less is defiantly more and here the stripping away of the clever studio tricks leaves us with one of the most glorious and emotive tracks of the album. "The River Sings" has a tribal rhythm built mainly from repetitive backing voices and simple drum beats and immediately evokes an Amazonian village in celebration. And again shouts of Karl Jenkins "Adiemus" work and explains why the doors into the classical music world have recently been opened to Enya's work. The contemporary classical element to the work is looming larger than it

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