Allen/Olzon – Worlds Apart

Frontiers Records    Release date: 06.03.2020

Russell Allen, known from Symphony X and three awesome duet records with no-one less than the Norwegian master singer Jorn Lande, presents a new project. This time, the US American thought he would team up with a female singer to offer us a album with awesome duets. His choice was Anette Olzon, the most of you know from her short time with Nightwish, she nowadays is known for her Solo album and The Dark Element. Well, now Mr. Allen is a great singer and – well, how should I say it…. the voice of Mrs. Olzon is a question of taste. Her solo records and those of Dark Elements I really do like and the music fits her voice perfectly. Here it doesn’t fit at times and next to the voice of Mr.Allen, hers seems just to dominating and too high for my taste.

That’s the problem with these kind of projects in which in the end no-one ever heard both the singers performing together and both even usually record their tracks in different studios. At the end it doesn’t really fit and you can’t do anything against it. That’s not the way music works, the chemistry has to be right. Those songs that they sing as a solo, though, are really good, such as “Never Die” by Allen and “I’ll Never leave you” by Olzon. Those songs really fit the voices of the particular singer. What might be another issue, the music is quite bombastic and especially the choruses with both voices seem a bit too much. Otherwise there are good songs on the album, written by Magnus Karlsson. I would have preferred a deeper female voice but that’s always a matter of taste. But we will see whether this project will stretch over three album cooperations or whether Allen gets back together with Mr. Lande.