|
|
 |
| Three years in the making, this breathtaking project teams Brightman with the London Symphony Orchestra. With guests Andrea Bocelli and KISS? Paul Stanley. |
|
|
|
| 1 Gothica |
|
|
| 2 Fleurs du Mal |
|
|
| 3 Symphony |
|
|
| 4 Canto della Terra |
|
|
| 5 Sanvean |
|
|
| 6 I Will Be with You (Where the Lost Ones Go) |
|
|
| 7 Schwere Träume |
|
|
| 8 Sarai Qui |
|
|
| 9 Storia d'Amore |
|
|
| 10 Let It Rain |
|
|
| 11 Attesa |
|
|
| 12 Pasión |
|
|
| 13 Running |
|
|
Album Review
Has it really been five years? Apparently, or at least that's how the dates between "Harem", Sarah Brightman's last pop exotica studio outing, and "Symphony". From the art on the front of and inside its booklet, it looks like it might have been conceived and produced by Jim Steinman -- there's that over-the-top gothic excess look that "Bat out of Hell II" had. Appearances can be deceiving. No Steinman though (too bad, it might have made up for the lack of excess on Meat Loaf's "Bat out of Hell III"). Frank Peterson is once again in the producer's chair; he's been Brightman's right-hand man forever and it sounds like it. He also wrote or co-wrote five of the album's 13 cuts. Despite the big duet presences here with Andrea Bocelli (again) on "Canto Della Terra," tenor Alessandro Safina on "Sarai Qui" (co-written by Diane Warren and Michelangelo LaBionda), vocalist and actor Fernando Lima, and Kiss' Paul Stanley (really), there are a few moments of real inspiration here, but nothing revelatory. That's the problem when you make yourself a genuine pop enigma. The bar is higher, especially when judged against your past accomplishments and those of the young guns you inspired to knock you off the mountain.
"Symphony" is a trademark Sarah Brightman album. It sits dead center on the crossroads of classical crossover, pop, and musical theater with a dash of the unclassifiable tossed in for good measure. It's where she's been forever, and despite all the star power on board, it's more than a safe bet that this is exactly what EMI wanted from her -- something to bring back the masses. It's not unpleasant to listen to; not a bit. The reprise of her first duet appearance with Bocelli is a firm showcase of both voices, and "Sarai Qui" with Safina may be one of the two best things here. While the arrangements threaten at every turn to do in that big range vocal power of Brightman's and come dangerously close at times, the entwining of the pair's voices is as sweet as cane sugar and as dramatic as the pain of forced separation of star-crossed lovers on the big screen. As for "Pasión," Lima's voice, with all of its high tenor acrobatics, is as lilting as her light soprano. It may work in the theater, it may work in the movies, but it doesn't work at all on a recording standing on its own. "I Will Be With You (Where The Lost Ones Go)" with Stanley is a bit of a cheat but it is welcome camp. Brightman originally recorded this song for the "Pokeman" soundtrack with Chris Thompson (formerly of Manfred Mann). Stanley's voice doesn't have the sheer effortless glide that Thompson's does. With acoustic guitars all but drowned in strings, the emotional punch of the original is lost here, but it's got its own kind of pomp and circumstance. Stanley can get his rock on a bit and electric guitars fight the strings for dominance (and almost win). Brightman simply soars, and if her ice queen vocal may not be believable in terms of emotion, it's got enough drama in it to keep the track from falling into the abyss. Bottom line: Stanley sounds like a plant, nothing more. The single version of this cut blows the one here away.
There are some very fine moments here, too, such as Peterson and Carsten Heusmann's cool sound effect and synth loop opener "Gothika," that sets up bombast of heavy metal guitars and London Symphony Orchestra strings on "Fleurs Du Mal" (with no credit going to French poet Charles Baudelaire for the title). Peterson and Brightman wrote the track with three others; it's full of sweeping textural atmospherics where a lone clarinet sweeps in before the woodwinds on the third verse, strings shift, swoop and soar, a choir comes hammering down on the refrain like thunder, sounding like 300 hundred voices all trying to bury the fragile (not really) voice of Brightman's protagonist. The title track begins as one of the most overblown things on the set, but in comparison to the ot
|
|
|
• Biography
|
Other albums by: Sarah Brightman |
|
|
more  |
|
