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Review:
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Ravishing Ani Lozanova is quite a lady, a Bulgarian
pop star and fitness guru who has represented her country
at Eurovision and even appeared on the front cover of the
Bulgarian Playboy. Then in 2009 she met world famous metal
singer Ian Parry (Infinity Overture, Elegy, Consortium,
Crystal Tears, etc. etc.) and this signalled a whole new
departure into the world of metal. Ian has simultaneously
produced this album and the new all star Consortium V release
featuring Ani on backing vocals. If Cher made a symphonic
melodic metal album with Arjen Lucassen, Tuomas Holopainen,
and Tobias Sammet then this is what is would probably sound
like, mighty, melodic, anthemic, catchy, groovy, hard rocking
and sexy with a touch of prog. The first thing that strikes
you the first time you give this album a spin is the musicianship
and the sheer quality of the songs, many of them taken from
Ian's Consortium and solo albums, so often these sort of
projects suffer from formulaic songwriting and going through
the motions performances, but certainly not here, on songs
like 'What You Is What You Reap' the lads really rip it
up. Added to that her slogan is “no singer is greater than
the song”, something many singers today should listen to
as they mercilessly murder some poor guy's composition with
over singing, like Christina Aguilera's performance of the
'Star-Spangled Banner' at the Super Bowl, where she sang
anything but the actual tune, and not even the right words!
In contrast Ani has a deep rich sensuous voice that perfectly
compliments the music with a soaring range and plenty of
controlled power. Favourites come thick and fast, the awesome
opener 'Miracle Is All We Need' with Kalin Zhechev really
rippling those ivories, the stomping anthem 'Angels', the
dramatic power metal 'Ark of the Covenant' (live video on
Female Voices blog), the strutting steamy 'Cannot Fall Asleep',
the funky 'Cry Over', their incredible symphonic metal version
of Michael Jackson's 'Give In To Me' that's more Nightwish
than Neverland, the melodious elegant 'Slip Away', etc.
etc. etc. All the attention so far this year has been on
the front runners like Within Temptation, Krypteria and
Leaves Eyes, but given the right push this could sneak up
on the rails and give them quite a fright. Her website is
http://www.anilozanova.com/about.php
, a miraculous 9 out of 10.
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