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Key Orchestra: Born Again

Imagine Crystal Method or Enigma, but with Sarah Brightman on vocals.  The basis of Key Orchestra's music is a synth-pop electronic groove punctuated with so-so keyboards and good guitar licks, and in some songs, very good operatic female vocals that may be the strongest element of the album. There are some good piano lines, and the song structures are almost progressive or jazzy - but there's so much of that new-agey programmed synthetic percussion that some listeners may be turned off before appreciating the strengths of this music.

A touching story:  Key Orchestra was spawned 2004, when old friends and musicians from the Moscow Conservatory reunited in the USA after 15 years - and the reunification of these musicians explains the album's title, Born Again.  So is it an American or a Russian band?  Yes.

The music is jazzy in parts ("Nostalgia"), operatic in places ("Carmen"), church-choral ("Forward to the Past"), and there's an occasional oriental vibe paradoxically, in a song called "Morning In Manhattan".

Closing track "Carmen" is one of the strongest pieces.  Yes, that's George Bizet's mysterious cigarette factory worker, from the famous opera. The operatic vocals are very well done, some of the (faux) orchestral phrases are accurate, but the whole thing is played over that synth-pop loop with occasional guitar licks etc., turning poor old Carmen into a multiple-personality creature that is one part deep classical, and one part the polar opposite – the product of a box of programmed electronica. It's an odd contrast that just might work for you.

 

Track Listing:
1. Born Again
2. Bouquet of Fantasies
3. The Immigrants
4. Forward to the Past
5. Olympic Spirit
6. Nostalgie
7. Jump
8. Dream Valley
9. Morning in Manhattan
10.French Song
11.Carmen (remix)

Added: September 11th 2006
Reviewer: Duncan Glenday
Score:
Related Link: Key Orchestra's Web Site
Hits: 2565
Language: english

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Key Orchestra: Born Again
Posted by on 2006-09-11 21:08:14
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