[Melissa06@aol.com]

Here's a good review of Capricornia in The Buffalo News today.  They were 
given 4 stars which means excellent.  I've also included a link if anyone 
wants to go directly to the site.


Melissa


To everything, there is a season. If rock was still a force for social 
change, this one would be Midnight Oil's. 

"Capricornia," the band's 11th studio effort, has all the markings of a 
classic. Rich, multitimbral guitar work, long a hallmark of the Australian 
band's sound, envelops each of the album's 12 tracks. Vocalist Peter Garrett 
blends a punk ethos with pop craftsmanship, as ever. And the band's harmony 
work remains among the finest in rock. 

What makes Midnight Oil so special today is its ability to infuse abundant 
passion with a political and social agenda. That's right, an agenda. Midnight 
Oil is mad as hell and not about to take any more: The forests are vanishing; 
the global village is really a global slum; leaders still hop into bed with 
their rich big-business buddies to the detriment of the have-nots. 

On "Capricornia," Midnight Oil's first since 1998's vastly underrated 
"Redneck Wonderland," Garrett and company mock those who would question the 
veracity of the concept of global warming on "Too Much Sunshine" as the music 
imagines the Byrds playing CBGB's in the late '70s. "Say Your Prayers" offers 
a call to arms to the common man, as Garret intones, "I've got a cure for 
compassion fatigue/spend a week with the Timorese/running scared from the 
military." "Luritja Way" touches on more in the way of guitar textures within 
one song than many guitar bands cover in an entire career. 

Remember a time when rock helped to focus the spotlight on U.S.-sponsored 
injustices in Latin America, or the plight of those living under apartheid, 
or the sufferings of the mothers of the disappeared? Midnight Oil does, 
thankfully. This is music that matters. 

- Jeff Miers


 <A HREF="http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20020308/1046812.asp">Buffalo 
News - Discs</A>