STYLE: Pop RATING OUR PRODUCT CODE: 12383-1468 LABEL: Independent FORMAT: CD Album ITEMS: 1
Reviewed by Tony Cummings
Fiona Jane Fraser from Cornerstone Church, Kilwinning, Scotland, began 2004 by playing her first live performance and finished it by releasing this, her debut CD. Fiona's voice is an appealing merge of pop, folk and country influences. Unfortunately, though her album is below par suffering from the classic problem besetting so many new artists taking their first step on the independent release ladder - lack of A&R. In the world of record companies artists often submit a batch of voice and guitar (or keys) demos and a hard nose A&R man or producer assesses the quality of each song. Many are thrown back and new ones requested. In the world of independents new artists take most of their first batch of songs written into the studio. I don't know how many years Fiona Jane has been composing songs but many of them here aren't strong enough to warrant putting onto a CD. Producers Scott Nichol and William Mealyea do a competent job with the budget line production (except for some hugely cheesy synth strings on some tracks), the sleeve design is excellent and throughout Fiona's voice is pretty good. But with such dull material with obvious and repetitive melodies and lyrics which never stray far from "open wide your heart" and "I kneel before your throne" stock phrases, this isn't an album which will travel much beyond Kilwinning.
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