Midnight Oil —
Earth and Sun and Moon
album review

ALBUM REVIEW

Earth and Sun and Moon opens with a chilling bass line and shimmering synths to create a feeling of intrigue. The song is "Feeding Frenzy," and to the introductory riffs are added guitars, drums, and fat-sounding vocals to make it a quintessentially great Midnight Oil song. Lyrically, we immediately get a dose of the Oils' trenchant observational wisdom, this time about the folly of basing our lives on sensory pleasure: "Ah, sweet sensation, the oldest temptation ... Truth and fiction must collide someday." The next song, "My Country" (which was a hit single), continues in much the same vein, adding a nice piano touch. "Renaissance Man" has a driving tempo with an excellent psychedelic effect applied in just the right amount. The title track to "Earth and Sun and Moon" uses a slightly different guitar sound than normal and a thickly chorused hook to elevate the song above its plodding bass and drum lines. The remaining songs all benefit from similar change-ups in tempo, instrumentation, and production effects to keep the material sounding familiar and fresh at the same time. We even get a rare acoustic-guitar treat from the Oils on the modern-folk-rock tune "In the Valley." Earth and Sun and Moon was the follow-up to Midnight Oil's highly successful album Blue Sky Mining. The three-year break between the two albums seems to have done the band good—the songwriting is strong and the playing feels comfortable and assured. The album did not do as well as the band's previous two LP's at charting singles and garnering FM radio airplay, but lay the blame for that at the doorstep of changing times and the cluelessness of radio programming directors. Earth and Sun and Moon is as good as any album Midnight Oil ever did.