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| Sarah Brightman: Symphony... | |
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Daniel 07:05 pm UTC 03/25/08 |
| 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 other tracks, it is one of the simplest and breeziest melodies here. Pure musical theater, but it works well and offers Brightman's voice more space in its middle and upper ranges, and shelters it from the orchestra. A shimmering piano, a few spring-like trills that send one line into the next, and a refrain with big cymbals and the metallic power chords on the guitars that head straight into the choir. There is more motion in this track from the singer than anything else on this set -- she actually sounds like she means it. But there is one surprise: a cover of "Sanvean" written by Lisa Gerrard and Andrew Claxton from Gerrard's 1995 Mirror Pool album. Brightman is firmly in her territory here despite any misgivings by Gerrard's fans. She allows these words (the English title amounts to "I Am Your Shadow") to haunt her, imbuing them with a classical discipline in her delivery that showcases the otherworldly and sorrowful melody in the piece, which would be right at home in the third movement of Henryk Mikolaj Górecki's "Symphony No. 3." And if there were any radio programmers with brains, they'd choose either the classically-tinged and passionate P. Cordel/LaBionda/Brightman number, "Storia d'Amore," or the relatively straight-ahead melancholy anthem of a pop/rock number "Let It Rain" (not the Delaney Bramlett tune) with its Roy Bittan, E Street Band piano fills as a single. The latter may be more standard radio fare (though it's not) but the former would grab the attention of anyone who heard it and knock him out of his seat for a few minutes. About that Jim Steinman Meat Loaf comparison: the album's nine-plus-minute closer, "Running," is a virtual multi-part suite disguised as a single tune. There is an operatic intro that becomes fist-in-the-air, uplifting, rock & roll bombast in the first half -- it even includes electric guitar solo, enormous drums, and a choir hammering home the refrain with Brightman before it moves back toward opera, then silence, and more orchestral and vocal drama. It would have been great with Steinman producing this one. His lyrics would have been far better, too, and no one is better at sheer production excess for its own sake. This set will do well among those who are Brightman's faithful; as far as winning over many new converts, that's a million-dollar question. It's stronger than Harem, not as adventurous as Luna, yet more charming and self-indulgent than both. --Thom Jurek, All Music Guide | |
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