Christina Maria Booth, born in 1965, is a Welsh progressive rock vocalist and singer-songwriter who worked with Rob Reed on a couple of albums of his project Cyan. Currently she's the lead singer of Magenta which is the brainchild of Rob Reed either. With his help on piano and guitars and with Chris Fry (Magenta, classical, acoustic guitar), Troy Donockly (ex-Iona, Uillean pipes), Ryan Ashton (drums) and Andy Coughlan (fretless bass), she recorded her first solo album Broken Lives & Bleeding Hearts. In general, the musical style on this album is definitely not progressive rock. The ten songs are a melting pot of pop, jazz, gospel, singer-songwriter, easy listening and a bit of rock. In other words: the music of Christina is just mainstream music for the lazy Sunday morning, but did I like it? Well, I have to confess: that depends on how I feel. I'm not always pleased by the lyrics. I simply don't like these many repetitions of the same words all over again. For example: singing 'save me, save me', again and again as in Hanging By A Thread gives me negative vibrations. Besides I missed a few rock songs. In my opinion the best songs can be found on the second half of the album. Tales Of Broken Hearts is a nice love song; Helen's Song features the very talented Rob Reed and Chris Fry in the background. Real Life is a good song either with some nice close harmony vocals and the final song Immortality is a pearl of this modern love song album. **+ Cor Smeets (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
