Customer Reviews

Siempre

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I will keep this review short and sweet. I recently saw these talented guys open for Barbra Streisand in San Jose, CA. They have booming voices, great prescence, potential, etc....however, their producers need to pick new songs and not have them sing songs that have been done a million times over and done better. Also, they have now released 4 cd's since early 2005! Their management needs to take them into the studio, take their time and put out something stellar! They are MORE THAN CAPABLE OF IT! I don't fault the guys for this lackluster release, I fault their management team!

I've read other reviews of people complaining about the length of the CD compared to other artists. IL DIVO are not other artists. The work that goes into their music and their vocalizations and languages and being able to convert certain songs I'm sure takes a lot of time. I'd rather have a top quality album of 40-some minutes rather than a longer album of less than quality music. IL DIVO is candy for the ears and if you have their DVD, they're candy for the eyes(for us ladies). It's all about beautiful music, REAL music. Romance is alive and well, Thank you Sebastien, Carlos, David, Urs, and also Simon for founding IL DIVO. I've not yet had the honor of seeing them in concert, hopefully day I will.

I preface my review of Siempre by stating I'm a huge Il Divo fan and have seen them in concert once. It was an amazing show! I frequently listen to their first two albums, which I really enjoy. However, my least favorite Il Divo songs are the ones where they take a once popular English song and transform it into a version in another language. With that said, I'm somewhat disappointed with Siempre. Of the nine new songs, most of them fit the pattern I mentioned before. This time, they chose songs that I'm either tired of or didn't like the first time around. So here I sit with a new CD I have no desire to listen to again. I'm hoping it will grow on me.

Well, I really like Il Divo for their voices and style, but I have to say that the cookie cutter approach their producers are using is getting rather staid.

If you own any of the previous 3 releases Il Divo has churned out in less than 3 years of existence, then you have already heard this new album!
Same musical approach, same vocal arrangements, and yes...same languishing musical selections.
The only thing that is different of course are the actual songs....all of which are covers made famous by other major artists before them.

My biggest problem with this CD is not the fact that it is only 41 minutes / 10 songs long...though that does seem odd in an age were 12-16 tracks is the norm.
My real issue is in that they covered CARUSO, which is one of my favorite songs and totally butchered it...literally!
Most of the people listening to this CD will not know the lyrics to this song by heart as I do, but they have chopped up the lyrics in a way where the song makes no sense at all anymore. They've cut entire sections out of the song and transposed it down so low that it lost it's dramatic effect...much like Josh Groban did...but at least he sang the WHOLE song...as written.

Oddly there were also a number of linguistic errors with this song and other Italian songs on here. Seems their Italian pronunciation has fallen by the wayside since their initial release. Again, this will not keep the average Il Divo fan from loosing sleep, but it bothered me.

The major saving grace on this CD is of course their voices....Carlos' deep and powerful bari/tenor sound seems to dominate over the other guys and really adds to each song they sing.

I really hope that with the next release, which I imagine to be due in less than a year given the current production record, they will be allowed to take some risks and venture into more artistically challanging directions, perhaps following Bocelli into the Latin standard field, or embrace some mid-tempo groove type songs such as Luther Vandross was known for.

I hope they get a chance to change their approach in the future, but as long as legions of middle aged house wives buy their products in droves, this may be nothing but a idle notion for the time being.

I just received Siempre by IL DIVO to complete my collection. I can't believe it, but this one is beyond great! The four voices and personalities blend better than they did previouisly, David and Carlos have finally joined the band rather than being two soloists working to outdo each other. They now very naturally work to blend their voices with Urs and Sebastien. Urs' voice used to annoy me as it was presumably well trained but had an annoying white tone'd vibrato that made him seem insecure. In this CD, Urs truly has found his place and he has modulated the white tone and vibrato (yes, in the same voice) and now presents a beautiful, clear, tenor to add to the outstanding music. Most dramatically, Sebastien, the step-child from the Pop world, has found his voice. He is now singing in full voice, as well as gentle and quiet, has gained enormously in confidence and is a vital member of the band. Carlos and David are better than ever as leads. All the men have matured and Siempre is an outstanding work of art that meets Simon Cowell's criteria; the band was designed to 'cross-over' Pop and Opera.

The back-up orchestrations are still magnificent and provide the perfect back drop for IL DIVO.

This CD truly is incredible.

Il Divo is playing it safe with this album, but since I love their last two CDs, I am thrilled with this one. Josh Groban is getting a lot of grief for trying something new, so you can't win. Since Il Divo sings mostly in languages other than English, you can have them playing when you are reading, or doing other things that require concentration. Their music also has a way of calming and uplifting your spirits. They have helped to keep me sane while my daughter has been dealing with a life-threatening illness. I play them loud, rotating between the 3 CDs, when things are difficult, and it really helps!!!

I just bought 3 CD's for gifts after hearing Il Divo on several TV shows this week. They sang in English and why would I not expect their CD to be in English also? No one said it would not be in English and not a word on Amazon that it was not in English. The music is beautiful - but I would appreciate being able to understand the lyrics. Very disappointing!

This is a great CD. Their voices blend so beautifully, though at times Carlos tries to sing louder than everyone else, which is ok as his voice is just breathtaking. the only problem i have with it is i wish more songs were in english. Somewhere takes you "out there" - just magnificent

This was Il Divo's best so far. Even my husband enjoys it. Highly recommend it to everyone.

I've always dreamt of the day I would hear "Without You" translated into Spanish.

Nothing is more romantic than the Spanish language, or the other romance languages. In fact, a cursory glance at history reveals the European-Mediterraneans invented romance. They swept into Northern Europe chewing cloves and wearing nothing more than form-fitting silk pants and loose blouses. Regardless of the weather, in their silks they introduced tenderness and compassionate mannerisms into the Teutonic milieu of Northern Europe, a social climate literally indistinguishable in its sexual violence from the Klingon empire.

This requires some explication of Klingon history. It wasn't until the 14th century that the Klingon homeworld Qo'noS was inundated with the technologically advanced Hur'q. The invading Hur'q stole the sacred sword of Kahless the Unforgettable, a messianic Klingon responsible for many norms of the Klingon warrior creed, including many of the brutal love rituals, such as glaring at one's husband/wife with hostility, and also the ritual of at some point drawing blood with a large curved knife with a demon carved on the handle (the Klingon angel). The Klingons eventually repulsed from Qo'noS the Hur'q and reverse-engineered their transportation technology. This enabled a crude, boorish race to move into space, dilluting what had previously been a gentleman's game, something like a mannered round of chess in a Genoese court.

Il Divo: they are in this seaborne Romance model. They are not a pack of pelt wearing Gauls with at least 57% of their bodies covered in battle-hardened scar tissue.

Add this cd to your 'classics' section.