text: Helena Mulkerns in Rolling Stone called the album "a rich mood piece of broad proportions" and "a glorious aural mosaic". The title track "sails the listener gently into an ebb-and-flow movement that permeates the album" that contains multi-vocals she described as "distinctive" and "striking". She thought Roma's lyrics were "unornamented but compelling", and that its multi-lingual touches "enrich" the listening experience without becoming too dominating. Kristine McKenna, in the Los Angeles Times, wrote a critical review, describing it as "a portentous pastiche that's drawn comparisons to ecclesiastical choir and Gregorian chant, but in fact sounds like nothing more than unusually windy New Age music" that "makes for bland, bloodless music ideal for elevators; this is a record about sound rather than lyrics, melody, or any of the other things that invest music with emotion and ideas." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau labelled the album a "must to avoid" and said Enya exploits popular music's "old reliable women-are-angels scam" while "humanizing technology, perpetrating banal verse in three languages (I'm guessing about the Gaelic after reading the English and figuring out the Latin), and mentioning Africa, the Orinoco, and other deep dark faraway places".
  In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic Ned Raggett said the record "established her as the unexpected queen of gentle, Celtic-tinged new age music" with a subtlety that produced strong tracks as a result.
  Track listing
  All music by Enya and arranged by Enya and Nicky Ryan; all lyrics by Roma Ryan.
  Personnel
  Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
  Musicians
  Enya – vocals, keyboards, synthesisers
  Davy Spillane – low whistle on "Exile", Uilleann pipes on "Na Laetha Geal M'óige"
  Neil Buckley – clarinet on "On Your Shore"
  Chris Hughes – rototoms on "Storms in Africa" and "River", African hand drums on "Storms in Africa"
  Nicky Ryan - handclaps on "Storms in Africa"
  Production
  Enya – co-producer, arranger, Irish text adaptation
  Nicky Ryan – producer, arranger
  Ross Cullum – mixing (except "Orinoco Flow"), co-producer, recording engineer
  James "Jimbo" Barton – mixing on "Orinoco Flow"
  Pete Schwier – mixing on "Storms in Africa (Part II)"
  Rob Dickins – executive producer
  David Hiscook – cover photography
  Russel Yamy – additional photography
  Laurence Dunmore – design
  Charts
  Weekly charts
  Year-end charts
  Certifications