If you've ever heard a Yoko Kanno album before, then you know what a talented composer she is. If you've missed out, then now is your chance to find out. All the Macross series deal with the power of music, and Yoko is the perfect candidate to compose the music for such a series. The Macross Plus OST is truly magnificent. This album contains some of the most powerful songs I have ever heard. The way the instruments blend together with such a beautiful chemistry is beyond my comprehension. With songs like Voices and The Torch Song, this album is one of those special ones that everybody should have in their music collection.

The album starts out with the National Anthem of Macross, which is a nice little march that you would expect to come with such a name. This is followed by the light hearted Up in the Air, which is a great song in its own right, but is overshadowed by After, In the Dark (The Torch Song) which follows it. The Torch Song is the type of song that moves you - I literally feel like flying away when listening to it. The vocals are simply incredible. It goes into my top road songs list - I usually have it on hand when driving anywhere. It is also one heck of a long song coming to 9 minutes and three seconds on the album. Immediatly following The Torch Song is one of the more overlooked songs in the Macross series, The Myung Theme. The Myung Theme has some really excellent piano work at the beginning, and has a very unique and interesting combination of violin and chimes near the middle. It plays rather slowly, but has an uplifting vibe to it. Bees and Honey is up next, and true to its name, it "sounds" like the wacky adventure of a bee flying around getting some honey. The next track that really stands out is Voices. Another one of my favorite songs, Voices contains a single voice singing with some subdued musical accompaniment. A song can't get much slower or much more sad. I've yet to hear a more powerful song of sadness, which manages to retain a feeling of such hope. The album closes out with a very strange song called Santi-U, a different kind of song to put it mildly. The song starts out with a chant for a couple minutes and then goes to static and the flipping of stations - yeah, I mean like radio stations. Then the song changes direction completely, becoming very upbeat for a couple minutes, and then ends with a slow instrumental section. Santi-U is one of the strangest songs I've heard, and in spite of that, or perhaps thanks to its strangeness, it fits the series quite nicely.

While the album is short and has a couple of tracks that aren't really anything special, it is still one of my favorites. Yoko Kanno has failed to disappoint me so far. The Macross Plus OSTs may not be her finest work, but they're still great. Songs like The Torch Song and Voices more than make up for the few average tunes. If you've never heard Kanno before, I'd recommend one of the Escaflowne albums. However, if you have seen the Macross Plus OVA series and liked the music in it, get this CD as soon as you can.