Weak!
Freddy B | NJ | 04/08/2005
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Eh. pretty lame. weak vocals for a female vocalist. will never compare to some of the great femail vocalists. Music is very cookie cutter. Can't see much of a following ever being created for Shamra, even though they won some IMA award. oh well ...
Just your typical band ... mediocre talent with a so-so vocalist, trying to make emotionally charged tunes, but it ends up sounding forced."
Um
Lee Armstrong | Winterville, NC United States | 05/29/2005
(2 out of 5 stars)
"This band from New York has an interesting sound that works marginally well. Carrie Bolger's breathy vocals on every track do get to be repetitive by the 4th cut, "Let's Not & Say We Did," I wished that the bad had several other vocalists and rotated them for more variety, particularly as Bolger sings, "Last night our love committed suicide." "State of the Nation" is interesting. It was previously recorded by Industry & Chinese Detectives, but certainly seems timely in the era of the Iraq war, although it's about a fight with the Aryan nation. The most successful track is the opener "Hand Stamp" that is a quirky 2-minute ditty about trying to get into a party. "X's & O's" is a nice acoustic folk track with some irony in the lyrics, "Today I tried to remember all the good things about you, but I haven't made a dent." Some of the tracks are pretty dreadful such as the unmusical "Cruzin" that would be a good soundtrack to a bout of nausea. Other tracks like "Priorities" & "Strange" are just weak and/or odd that weigh down the brighter moments of the set. "Say Um" is a cute track, "A screenwriter ought to take our dialogue & make a movie script loosely based on us. If I say I love you, but you're just having fun, Baby if you want to say um, say um." The set concludes with "Loan Sharks," a tune about having financial troubles. While there are some bright moments on the CD, they are overpowered by the dreadful and near-abominable ones along with Bolger's very repetitive breathy vocals that grate on the ear for an entire CD. Taxi!"
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1
