Reviewed by Lins Honeyman

Unprofessionally misspelling her name throughout, the press release for Beverly Hills-based chanteuse Lady Saundra's only album to date states that she has a background in musical theatre and this naturally flavours the 11 tracks on this 2016 album, making it rather a hit and miss affair. Saundra certainly can sing but occasionally the over-emoting can get a bit much - especially in the overegged telling of Jesus' feet being anointed by the sinful women "Alabastor Box" (sic) - whilst a tendency for vocals to be double-tracked can sometimes knock things out of kilter tonally. Despite the best efforts of producer Barry Faseman (Andy Williams, the Eagles), there is a very dated feel to proceedings with cheesy synth sounds quite often replacing real instruments to detrimental effect. Tracks like the opener "He Rules" sound bizarrely underdeveloped and, whilst Faseman and Saundra attempt to cover a lot of ground stylistically with forays into power ballads, musical-like numbers, disco and MOR soul adding variety, the end product feels a tad hash bash. However, there's no doubting Saundra's commitment to singing about her Lord and her addition to the vast canon of cover versions of the quasi-religious chestnut "I Believe" (Frankie Laine, Robson & Jerome, Elvis etc) will please fans of this kind of easy listening music.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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