Indeed, even if this third installment tries to recapture the enigmatic and aerial mood of the first one, doesn't quite get close to the level of refinement and organic craftmanship that every Jarre's album had until "Metamorphoses".Analog-Umph wrote: (As an aside, even JMJ himself admitted much later on after release, that Oxy 7-13, also needed more fine tuning, before it was released.)
The minimalist attitude here seems to be the consequence of a rushed production more than an aware stylistic choice.
As some listeners have already pointed out, most of the tracks sounds like reshaped versions of "Electronica" out-takes ("Oxygene 14" could be the discarded draft of "The time machine", Oxygene 16 the first idea for the collaboration with Edgar Froese, "Oxygene 19" has been confirmed to be the first sketch for "Stardust" and Oxygene 20 probably was the early blueprint for the track with Hans Zimmer).
Nevertheless, if listened on repeat as a single track of 39:54 minutes, the album slowly gains a subtle, unspeakable appeal that directly nods to the virtually neverending suites of "Equinoxe" and "Chronologie", even without really deepening or adding anything new or original to the previous 2 Oxygene chapters (and I agree that Oxy 7-13, far superior to this new album, needed more tuning, specially on the drumming side as Jarre admitted in an interview of that era).
That basically explains why I gave a 7/10 on my own review on the webzine Ondarock.it
