Scarlet Aura – Memories

Label: Outlanders Production  Playing Time: 49 Min  Release: 29th September 2017

Scarlet Aura are a Bucarest based band, quite exotic if you want so. Nevertheless they already have a name in the scene. They have already played a support tour for Tarja Turunen for example. The band always included cover songs into their live set. So the idea was born to record a cover album to worship their heroes.

First of all I would like to discuss the song selection. The band has chosen a quite safe way and picked basically classics of the Rock and Metal history. ‘Breaking The Law’ (Judas Priest), ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ (Twisted Sister), ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ (Survivor) and ‘The Final Countdown’ (Europe) are such classics. But there is also some proof for their taste and knowledge of the Metal scene: ‘Don’t Talk To Strangers’ (Dio), ‘Wasting Love’ (Iron Maiden) and ‘A Past And Future Secret’ by Blind Guardian.

The performance of the band is – like the setlist – quite safe. Mostly they stick quite close to the original. Quite close in terms of arrangement and instrumentation, but also in terms of used sounds. So all in all, the instrument tracks have much in common with the originals. The only main difference is a keyboard adding a layer in most songs. In some cases it enriches the song (like on Doro’s ‘All We Are’), but sometimes it is just too much (‘A Past And Future Secret’). All in all I would have appreciated more courage to interpret the songs in a unique way. Like they sound now, they could have been played by any cover band on the planet.

There is no doubt that the biggest impact comes from vocalist Aura Danciulescu. First of all I have to say that she has a great rough rock voice. A perfect mixture of power and melody, like a mixture of Doro and Liv Jagrell (Sister Sin). The absolute majority of the songs is enriched by her power voice. ‘Don’t Talk To Strangers’ and ‘All We Are’ for example are getting a nice new vibe. But there are also a few songs that do not work. The phrasing of ‘We’re Not Gone Take It’ does not fit and the chorus of ‘The Final Countdown’ sounds a bit out of tune due to the long syllables.

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