Chasing Violets
Jaded Hearts
AOR Records
2013
Not long – maybe only a year, after their previous effort, “Outside Heaven” which I found a bit so and so, the French sisters that Frédéric Slama, tried to pass as the best thing since sliced bread, return with another album. Again, It’s basically – Slama, writing and producing along with Tommy Denander (Alice Cooper, Paul Stanley), Paul Sabu (Kidd Glove), Göran Edman (Yngwie Malmsteen), Mikael Erlandsson (Last Autumn’s Dream), Bob Harris (Axe), members of Alien, Hardline & Lionville, Christian Tolle (David Reece) among many others... so a lot of guest musicians contributing.
The production is clean, but “rather thin”. The Sisters are not bad singers and they seem to be gaining in confidence, with one of them, (dunno really which one) actually being able to really go for some pretty impressive belting quite effortlessly and semi convincingly. On the other hand, they have this “accent” that is far from “sexy” French. It tends to be, cute at first, but after a bit, it grows to be annoying, it’s actually a bit of an accent along with the tendency to wrongly intonate the odd word.
“The Main Attraction” is a decent opener, quite wimpy with pompous keys and a nice interplay between the sisters. It has some super cliché – lyrics – how many times have you heard a rhyme that contains lies – alibis?! Well – feel free to add one!
“Web of Lies” is slightly more energetic and sounds like a rejected song for Robin Beck, but there’s some male vocal here, while it’s not bad, it’s quite repetitive...
“A Shot in the Dark” is a more introspective tune, that’s melodic, again with some male vocals but it’s not quite as impressive.
“Silent Victory” treads some more hi-tech poppy 80s sounding waters – sounding a bit like some of Sandra’s material really... but not as catchy. Slama is no Credu after all J Not even close...
“Deception in Heaven” is not a bad song, actually, but damn it if it ain’t a primary example of the sisters intonating the words – in the most weird way “De-ce-ption in He-vea-n” always, stressing the first syllable? Seriously? Get them to have orthophony lessons…
“Jade Hearts”… I suppose, it gives the title to the album and it is not a half bad song, quite epic and heroic sounding AOR/hard rock. I have to say that it took me a few time to understand that one of the sisters sings “just like lions – chased by the “hunter”” – since all I could hear was – ‘un-te’r. So I was like WTF?! Ah, whatever.
“Secrets in the Shadows” has a pleasant chorus, but is another formulaic – by the numbers Slamaic AOR number, with badly intonated vocals.
“Hollow Triumph” deviates a bit as we get some really closely tracked together vocals’ dueting, one male singer and one of the sisters and then the other sister also intertwining over those vocals that at times un-couple and sing different lines too, before they return to singing in unison! Quite an impressive and interesting piece at last!
“Exile in Sadness” is partly grammatically incorrect. I am guessing it should have been either used in a verb form (exiled), or have an “An” included in the title. It’s a mild pompy escapade, that’s not too bad... think 10th rate Romeo’s Daughter, with a far worse singer. There you go.
“The Scarlet Nymph” is a melodramatic piece that in theory has nice melodies, but practically, seems to have some flaw, I guess there seems to be an involuntary vibrato, while the sisters sing or it sounds a bit that way because of some effect? I’m not too sure... It’s weird that it was left that way in the “final” finished product... however.
“Halo of Light” is a bit better – as there’s a bit more freedom in the delivery – there’s a momentarily problem in the “again and again” phrase, with that “bad vibrato” but other than that, it’s a good enough song with a nice melody and mood. Quite uplifting. One of the better songs on the album.
Finally, “I Owe It to Myself” is another energetic number that’s quite rocking. Amazingly enough, here the sisters are far less accented and everything is better… I guess… the rockier the songs are the better they get! Hehe!
Well, the Violets – have not really progressed much since last year offering pretty much an album that’s pretty much a carbon copy of last year’s one with a different cover and different songs, that however sound pretty much similar. No progress and Slama is Slama. Pretty standard fare, not really first class material, he might have amassed a load of great session players but he’s not a great composer himself. He does have the occasional good idea, but when he tries to do an album or two every year… oh, well, the results speak for themselves…
The production is clean, but “rather thin”. The Sisters are not bad singers and they seem to be gaining in confidence, with one of them, (dunno really which one) actually being able to really go for some pretty impressive belting quite effortlessly and semi convincingly. On the other hand, they have this “accent” that is far from “sexy” French. It tends to be, cute at first, but after a bit, it grows to be annoying, it’s actually a bit of an accent along with the tendency to wrongly intonate the odd word.
“The Main Attraction” is a decent opener, quite wimpy with pompous keys and a nice interplay between the sisters. It has some super cliché – lyrics – how many times have you heard a rhyme that contains lies – alibis?! Well – feel free to add one!
“Web of Lies” is slightly more energetic and sounds like a rejected song for Robin Beck, but there’s some male vocal here, while it’s not bad, it’s quite repetitive...
“A Shot in the Dark” is a more introspective tune, that’s melodic, again with some male vocals but it’s not quite as impressive.
“Silent Victory” treads some more hi-tech poppy 80s sounding waters – sounding a bit like some of Sandra’s material really... but not as catchy. Slama is no Credu after all J Not even close...
“Deception in Heaven” is not a bad song, actually, but damn it if it ain’t a primary example of the sisters intonating the words – in the most weird way “De-ce-ption in He-vea-n” always, stressing the first syllable? Seriously? Get them to have orthophony lessons…
“Jade Hearts”… I suppose, it gives the title to the album and it is not a half bad song, quite epic and heroic sounding AOR/hard rock. I have to say that it took me a few time to understand that one of the sisters sings “just like lions – chased by the “hunter”” – since all I could hear was – ‘un-te’r. So I was like WTF?! Ah, whatever.
“Secrets in the Shadows” has a pleasant chorus, but is another formulaic – by the numbers Slamaic AOR number, with badly intonated vocals.
“Hollow Triumph” deviates a bit as we get some really closely tracked together vocals’ dueting, one male singer and one of the sisters and then the other sister also intertwining over those vocals that at times un-couple and sing different lines too, before they return to singing in unison! Quite an impressive and interesting piece at last!
“Exile in Sadness” is partly grammatically incorrect. I am guessing it should have been either used in a verb form (exiled), or have an “An” included in the title. It’s a mild pompy escapade, that’s not too bad... think 10th rate Romeo’s Daughter, with a far worse singer. There you go.
“The Scarlet Nymph” is a melodramatic piece that in theory has nice melodies, but practically, seems to have some flaw, I guess there seems to be an involuntary vibrato, while the sisters sing or it sounds a bit that way because of some effect? I’m not too sure... It’s weird that it was left that way in the “final” finished product... however.
“Halo of Light” is a bit better – as there’s a bit more freedom in the delivery – there’s a momentarily problem in the “again and again” phrase, with that “bad vibrato” but other than that, it’s a good enough song with a nice melody and mood. Quite uplifting. One of the better songs on the album.
Finally, “I Owe It to Myself” is another energetic number that’s quite rocking. Amazingly enough, here the sisters are far less accented and everything is better… I guess… the rockier the songs are the better they get! Hehe!
Well, the Violets – have not really progressed much since last year offering pretty much an album that’s pretty much a carbon copy of last year’s one with a different cover and different songs, that however sound pretty much similar. No progress and Slama is Slama. Pretty standard fare, not really first class material, he might have amassed a load of great session players but he’s not a great composer himself. He does have the occasional good idea, but when he tries to do an album or two every year… oh, well, the results speak for themselves…