Lane, Lana - Queen Of The Ocean


Year of Release: 1999
Label: Limb Music Products
Catalog Number: LMP 31502
Format: CD
Total Time: 68:29:00

For some, Lana Lane may be a new acquaintance, but Queen Of The Ocean is in fact her fourth studio album. Some might know her as the wife of Erik Norlander who also produced this CD. A bunch of professional musicians has teamed up for this release and the result is as expected.

While it's hard to categorise this, Queen Of The Ocean offers something close to symphonic progressive hard rock and AOR. The music itself is huge, with great orchestration and arrangements, superb guitar and bass-work, a crystal clear production and on top of that, Lana's soaring vocals. And Lana is indeed a talented vocalist as she has a great clear voice, full of variation. It's powerful and expressive, as well as sad, dramatic and angelic. Besides Lana's excellent vocals I have to praise the orchestration and arrangements. The symphonic touch gives this album the extra little something that makes this album a winner. And of course it doesn't hurt to have Tony Franklin on bass. While not all songs are of the same quality, most songs are really good. Filled with great hooks and melody lines, and good harmonies and choruses.

While the music is not very progressive, I think that fans of melodic heavy and AOR will enjoy this CD a lot, as this is pure melodic heaven. I highly recommend to check out this CD, you might be impressed, as I was!

Reissued in 2005 by Think Tank Media (TTMD-1048)

[This review originally appeared November 2002 at the ProgPower Online review site -ed.]


Tracklisting:
In The Hall Of The Ocean Queen (1:42) / Night Falls (7:14) / Queen Of The Ocean (9:52) / Let Heaven In (6:43) / Frankenstein Unbound (5:26) / Souls Of The Mermaids (5:40) / Rainbow's End (6:07) / Without You (8:07) / Bonus Tracks: Through The Rain (5:59) / Escher's Staircase - Live In Japan (6:24) / Symphony Of Angels - Live In Japan (7:15)

Musicians:
Lana Lane - vocals
Neil Citron - guitars
Mark Mccrite - acoustic guitars, electric rhythm guitars, background vocals
Tommy Amato - drums, percussion
Tony Franklin - fretless bass
Erik Norlander - Mellotron, Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes piano, Minimoog, Yamaha & Alesis synthesizers, vocoder & background vocals

Discography:
Love Is An Illusion (1995)
Curious Goods (1996/2002)
Garden Of The Moon (1998/2002)
Echoes From The Garden (1998)
Live In Japan (1998)
Love Is An Illusion 1998 Version (1998)
Ballad Collection (1998)
Acoustic Live in Tokyo (1999) (promotional release only)
Queen Of The Ocean (1999/2005)
Echoes From The Ocean (1999)
Secrets Of Astrology (2000)
Ballad Collection (2000)
Project Shangra-La (2002)
Covers Collection (2002/2003)
Lana Lane and Erik Norlander - European Tour 2003 Souvenir CD (2003)
Winter Sessions (2003)
Return To Japan (2004)
Lady Macbeth (2005)
Gemini (2006)
Red Planet Boulevard (2007)
The Best Of Lana Lane 2000-2008 (2008)

Storybook - Tales From Europe And Japan (2004) (DVD)

Genre: Progressive Rock

Origin US

Added: May 7th 2005
Reviewer: Bjørnar Bevolden
Score:
Artist website: www.lanalane.com
Hits: 2251
Language: english

  

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