Customer Reviews

Project Shangri-La

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The new queen of the AOR-format is back. The result is once again a lush and colourful album surrounded by fabulous musicians and guests. Melodic Hard Rock is the key here and accompanied by 70's influences with Erik Norlander's keyboard sounds that are avantgarde to DEEP PUPRLE.

The world of music is already deluged with women singers in Rock and Metal and many of them sound the same and take no risks. While Lana's voice is truly fantastic, I would just like for her to be a little more risky.

With her current opus, Project Shangri-La, Lana Lane is again at the point of continuing on from and perfecting two earlier, wonderful albums. Project Shangri-La continues in the orchestral vein of both Queen Of The Ocean (1999) and Secrets Of Astrology (2000) and yet goes a step further, both musically as well as in lyrical subject matter. The result is an album which certainly counts as the strongest in Lana Lane's career and includes, with 'Before You Go`, one of her best and most exciting songs to date. Project Shangri-La sees Lana Lane and her husband Erik Norlander, who not only played keyboards on the album, but also produced it, eyeing new horizons in more than just the musical sense and extends the Lana Lane family of musicians to several well known artists. In addition are the former Yngwie Malmsteen singer, Mark Boals, whom Lana knows and respects from Erik's collaboration with Mark on his Ring Of Fire album. Boals contributed the song '(Life Is) Only A Dream` and is responsible for an exciting duet in an Italian language version of the classical ballad 'Time To Say Goodbye`. Lana Lane and Erik Norlander are particularly happy to have been able to win their friend and neighbor, drummer Vinnie Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio) as guest musician on the album. As on all previously released albums from Lana Lane's pen, Project Shangri-La particularly benefits from her warm, charismatic voice, which has in the past so often been admired and highly praised by reviewers. The expressive singer's music thrives from an extremely vivacious mixture of orchestral arrangements, emotional rock elements, memorable melodies and atmospheric sound galleries.

Of all Lana Lane's releases, this is the most inconsistent. Lana Lane has of course established herself as one of the leading figures in symphonic rock, or essentially progressive rock with intellectual lyrics and dense keyboard-oriented arrangements. Here, however, she was hampered by having to use two sets of instrumentalists in different countries, with the result that the music seems to lack cohesion. One rather experimental track, an operatic duet sung in Italian, sounds completely out of place. Still, even with all these problems, this album is quite listenable; it's just not her best work. Lana's better releases include the ethereal Secrets of Astrology, the historical and literary Lady Macbeth, and the recent hard rock effort Red Planet Boulevard.

You can tell that by the time Lana Lane released her 2002 album Project Shangri-La, she had found a style that she was comfortable with. The bombastic AOR with symphonic elements that you'll find on Project Shangri-La is pretty much the same as you'll find on 2000's Secrets of Astrology, which wasn't that far removed from 1999's Queen of the Ocean, and so forth. Lane and husband/keyboardist Erik Norlander definitely took the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach with this album.

It may not break any new ground, but Project Shangri-La is still a very solid album. Lane's style of symphonic AOR/melodic rock with soaring vocals is very reminiscent of what Heart was releasing in the late 1980's. This comparison applies to the music as well as Lane's vocals, which bear more than a passing resemblance to Ann Wilson's. The songs on Project Shangri-La are well written, and the instrumental passages serve as a nice counterpoint to Lane's powerful voice. Album highlights include the Beast Within You, Tears of Babylon, Life Is Only a Dream (featuring Mark Boals), and of course the title track.

All told, I'd give this album 3.5 stars. The music and vocals are great as always, but there's nothing that makes this particular album stand out from Lane's other releases.

Again, only 2-3 hilights: title track, "Beast Within You", and perhaps "Tears of Babylon". By this time Lana was doing this professionally for about 10 years but the audience must have been getting a little restive for want of something more, something different. You won't find it here. And it is easy to understand that when a performer is having huge success at least somewhere (in this case, in Japan and Scandinavia) then he/she is reluctant to change the course or try any drastic deviation from the proven formula. Too bad... album is still very strong and overall feel is convincing.

With her current opus, Project Shangri-La, Lana Lane is again at the point of continuing on from and perfecting two earlier, wonderful albums. Project Shangri-La continues in the orchestral vein of both Queen Of The Ocean (1999) and Secrets Of Astrology (2000) and yet goes a step further, both musically as well as in lyrical subject matter. The result is an album which certainly counts as the strongest in Lana Lane's career and includes, with 'Before You Go`, one of her best and most exciting songs to date. Project Shangri-La sees Lana Lane and her husband Erik Norlander, who not only played keyboards on the album, but also produced it, eyeing new horizons in more than just the musical sense and extends the Lana Lane family of musicians to several well known artists. In addition are the former Yngwie Malmsteen singer, Mark Boals, whom Lana knows and respects from Erik's collaboration with Mark on his Ring Of Fire album. Boals contributed the song '(Life Is) Only A Dream` and is responsible for an exciting duet in an Italian language version of the classical ballad 'Time To Say Goodbye`. Lana Lane and Erik Norlander are particularly happy to have been able to win their friend and neighbor, drummer Vinnie Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio) as guest musician on the album. As on all previously released albums from Lana Lane's pen, Project Shangri-La particularly benefits from her warm, charismatic voice, which has in the past so often been admired and highly praised by reviewers. The expressive singer's music thrives from an extremely vivacious mixture of orchestral arrangements, emotional rock elements, memorable melodies and atmospheric sound galleries.

I bought this album in Germany based on the strength of the reviews of previous work (and the fact that none of the previous work was available in the stores I visited).

I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed, not by the quality of the musicianship, which is generally good (and features Vinnie Appice - he of black Sabbath fame), but more by the the lack of any real dynamism or drive in the tracks.

I can only describe the overall feel as if the album were written for a mid-80's audience as the song structures are somewhat uncomplex and the production rather thin. Lana Lane is captured within the genre progressive, however, the description is in my view way off the mark. This is nothing more than poor pop metal.

In summary, what we have here is is musical fast food. Pleasing enough during consumption but instantly forgettable.