Enya: A Day Without Rain : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If Enya were a Pokemon, she'd be Jigglypuff, the little pink monster who renders her opponents powerless by singing them to sleep. This isn't a bad thing: We all need some rest. But after the course of several albums, each like the one before, the Irish multi-instrumentalist-singer-composer's skill at ephemeral sonic watercolors has grown wearisome, like a relative who tells the same stories every holiday. You'd think after taking stock of her career via '97's best-of collection, and hearing her Celtic-New Age hybrid diluted and overpopularized via Titanic, she'd try something different, like trip-hop or trance or chamber music. Instead, her first album of new material in five years retraces less than thirty-five minutes of familiar steps. Swaying, swirling songs such as "Only Time" could have appeared on any one of her albums, as the airy arrangements haven't changed a single plink or plunk. Even Pokemon: The First Movie and Pokemon: The Movie 2000 had slightly different plots. (RS 855)

BARRY WALTERS