The legend is back...

After a long hiatus, the unsurpassed synth legend that is Vangelis is back with a new studio album...

It is said to be released on 23 September, and it is a project inspired by, and dedicated to, ESA's Rosetta probe launched in 2004.

The tracks so far released on the internet show that the music, as many fans expressed on forums, thankfully is not a bombastic symphonic score in the vein of the rather controversial Mythodea.

Whilst Vangelis always excelled in orchestral and quasi-orchestral creations, one has to go back to the '70s and '80s to find real emotional punch and intricate musical ideas in the few albums he released in this vein... The more recent output, with the exception of the score for 1492 Conquest of Paradise and El Greco (the studio album, not the soundtrack), was marked by hugely overblown arrangements where the emotional impact and the musical inventiveness has suffered at the expense of wall-to-wall orchestrations.

The teaser tracks (so far a few short excerpts on Youtube) show that this is not a return to the vintage Albedo 0.39 and such space music albums from Vangelis. It sounds like a through-and-through contemporary affair, and the orchestral passages sound more like the epic and passionate sounds of El Greco.

Rosetta's Waltz also shows that, again unlike Mythodea, we shall be treated to incomparably more melodic content and passionate driving arrangements reminiscent of the Vangelis albums of yesteryear.

Let's see how the full album hangs together - alas, we have to wait a couple of months until then...