Blue Sky Mining [Import]

The opening track, Blue Sky Mine sets the tone for the album. Catchy, rocky without being overpowering and if you want to hear the message that the song delivers then it's there for you to explore; if you just want to be entertained without using your brain, then it is equally good at doing that too. The fantastic Forgotton Years and King Of The Mountain can boast the same qualities with a catchy beat and unique theme. Stars Of Warburton, Shakers And Movers and One Country tone the pace down a little and are sung with great emotion and style by Peter Garrett, making them very high quality songs. Midnight Oil have always done their ballads with a great slightly echoy haunted sound and Bedlam Bridge, Mountains Of Burma, River Runs Red and Antarctica are as good a Midnight Oil ballad as you will hear.

Blue Sky Mine is Midnight Oil in the second half of their careers and although their older albums are brilliant, the later albums show a new maturity and diversity to their sound. The angry and bitter sounds of their first albums is less evident and has been replaced with a little more subtlety and maturity. Peter Garrett has never lost his Aussie accent and that is possibly one of the most appealing things about this group; they are Australian and proud of the fact. Jim Moginie is quite rightly regarded as one of Aussie's best guitarists and the other musicians are great performers and writers as well, in particular drummer Rob Hurst who contributes to many of the Oil's best songs. Some will argue that Midnight Oil acchieved perfection with Diesel And Dust, but this album (and a few others) run that album pretty close. It certainly has more of a sense of fun and less seriousness than Diesel And Dust, but it never repeated the massive hit single that Diesel did. Don't let that fool you though, if you liked Diesel And Dust then you will like this; no doubt about it.

Albums "Diesel and Dust", "Blue Sky Mining" and "Earth and Sun and Moon" made me who I am.

Thank you guys.