Label: Melodic Rock Records 2014
Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Melodic Rock Records’ love affair with Spanish band continues, and now it’s time for Xtasy. What next, ”Afterglow”? ”The Morning After”? Anyway, Xtasy is a female-fronted melodic rock band with a sound comparable to Vixen, Lee Aaron, Femme Fatale and the likes.
At their very best, Xtasy are very good, but unfortunately for there are a few rather unimpressive moments too. The two first tracks are easily the highlights of the album, and wisely the band has made a video for one of them, the excellent ”Stronger”. The title track is another good one. I also like the very Vixen-like ”All For One”, the ballad ”It Is You” and ”Burning Around”, which has a rather catchy chorus. Some of the others are OK too, but then there are those weaker moments…
”Million Miles” is an otherwise decent song, but somehow the chorus is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. With its’ title, ”Scream” should be a powerful song, but it could just as well be called ”Raise Your Voice Politely”. The background chant of ”shout!” during the chorus has no power whatsoever, I can picture the ”choir” standing around the microphone half-asleep holding coffee mugs and having sips between the ”shouts”! The closing ballad ”Bye Bye” suffers of vocalist Silvia’s rather muffled articulation.
”How Much Love” is one of my favourite Vixen songs. Xtasy’s version of it might be technically ok, but somehow they manage to suck the life out of it. The original has a definite groove or flow that’s missing from this version, and vocalist Silvia’s singing lacks the passion that Janet Gardner has in her vocals. Almost cost an ”R” for the band…
The biggest problem of the album is that Silvia’s vocals do not make me believe in the lyrics she’s singing. It could be the fact that she’s not singing in her native language, and maybe a vocal-oriented producer could help her out to make the most out of her talent. In many of the songs, the vocal melodies are fairly monotonous, so maybe she’s just bored singing them…
www.xtasyband.com
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