Artist: ShirayasDream
Title: Venus Calls
Genre: Electronica / Gothic / Classical / Alien Pop
Release Date: 26th November 2010
Label: Unsigned
Album Review
SHIRAYASDREAM’s vocalist Anna Aliena met Oliver Höhne on MySpace two years ago. As they had many things in common - close connection to music since childhood, appreciation for bands such as DEINE LAKAIEN and SOPOR AETERNUS amongst others and as well as classical influences such as Brahms, Grieg and Mahler, not to mention appreciation of each other’s work - they decided to embark on the musical path together. The result is what they term as “alien pop”. ‘Venus Calls’ is their third album and Höhne has said that apart from creating new soundscapes he wanted to combine and tie up some lose ends from their previous albums ‘Floating in Space’ (2008) and ‘Magic Carpet Nights’ (2009) whilst Anna Aliena who also writes lyrics wanted to bring their “oriental, extraterrestrial fantasy” more down to Earth - little more “realistic” to reflect on some pitfalls of personal relationships.
The opening track ‘Shiraya’ has a pleading quality and the oriental tinge to the music comes out very well, creating an atmosphere for Aliena’s dramatic mezzo-soprano. Nowadays most German singers when singing in English shed the German accent as much as they can, but that is not the case here at all - furthermore, the accent is pretty strong! It adds to the music’s sense of individuality and quirkiness in a way, and gives it a more “theatrical” effect. ‘Running Girl’ was remarkable by its easiness to lend itself to cinematic, visual evocation, with the programmed drumming complementing the “running” theme wonderfully. ‘On the Other Star’ has a great lyrical narration to it, ‘Jolene’ with its black humour medieval flavour were songs that caught my attention together with ‘The Lady’ with its variation on a story that Aliena wrote about fictional dominatrix, the burlesque angle is given superbly by her vocal. The last ‘Morning Sun’ is a climactic and thrilling finale for the album.
The bone-picking with ‘Venus Calls’ for me is that it’s left wanting in terms of sound; the music could in my opinion up the ante and gain more definition, the programmed sounds sometimes just don’t come out as good as they should, maybe in future when they can afford guest musicians... it just lags behind the quality of Anna’s voice. ‘Lights Go Out’ was probably best in terms of stronger instrumentation though...still ‘real’ strings would have been better. Regardless, this is a great, quirky, dramatic album that generates enough interest and attention. Verdict: quite good!
Tracklist
01. Shiraya
02. Run If You Can
03. Running Girl
04. Tournament
05. On the Other Star
06. False Astronomy
07. The Lady
08. Jolene
09. Destiny
10. Venus Calls
11. Funeral
12. Peace in Heaven
13. Lights Go Out
14. Morning Sun
Line-up
Anna Aliena - vocals, lyrics, melodies
Oliver Höhne - all the electronic instruments, production
Websites
http://www.myspace.com/shirayasdream
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 6
Sound: 5
Total: 5.5 / 10
{jos_sb_discuss:19}
Comments powered by CComment