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)
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