Lana Lane - El Dorado Hotel 2012

Here is a completely fresh album,  different from any others by Lana Lane. Lana Lane is a diva in rock, spouse of composer Erik Norlander. They are in one roof so it is logic to see something come out from their kitchen. She is a veteran in providing voice for rock and metal, mostly in difficult composition of jazz or in progressive rock band Ayreon. In this solo album, El Dorado Hotel the music span wide, from progressive rock, AOR, jazz to operatic. The duo support by John Payne, Guthrie Govan, Jay Schellen and Bruce Bouillet all from prog band Asia team. Then several interesting names as you can check in the album information below.

A Dream Full of Fire is the first song. In this eight minutes progressive rock song, Lana Lane tackle the music  well, dictate them by her falsetto yet powerful voice. The instrumentation also notable with solos by chamber string, mandolin and shred guitar. This is jazzy and prog feel opener with AOR chorus, interesting. A second song, with synth intro to Maybe We'll Met Again put this song into thick keyboard driven prog. Next, El Dorado song turn into percussion and jazz rhythm feel. Darkness Fall is even difficult to categorized, here exist intense rock, but overall a light rock close to jazz and pop. Hotel is a sweet light acoustic song, Lana Lane sings with clean voice, as soft as a silk here. Believe is AOR feel, and Lana Lane sing supported with a voice effect. Finally Life of the Party is a straight rock song. This followed by another rock song in galloping chops, Gone Are The Days. Last two, Moon God is another progressive rock composition with song writing that showcase Lana voice successfully. Last epic, In Exile is a sums up of the whole album with mellow and operatic singing in fully intrigue progressive rock composition.

This is a completely refreshing menu. The songs are well interesting to distribute easily into the memory. Composition wise this is well written song by the team. Guitarists in charge accept the challenge of mostly non standard chord progression and nailed them beautifully. Fantastic album.

Metalharem class: ******** nine stars out of ten

Lana Lane - El Dorado Hotel 2012
buy it here

Tracks:
1. A Dream Full of Fire
2. Maybe We’ll Meet Again
3. El Dorado
4. Darkness Falls
5. Hotels
6. Believe
7. Life Of The Party
8. Gone Are The Days
9. Moon God
10. In Exile

Musicians:
Lana Lane: vocals
Erik Norlander: keyboards/synths, additional guitars, bass
John Payne: harmony and choral vocals, mandolin
Mark McCrite: guitars, bass, choral vocals, programming
Bruce Bouillet: guitars
Neil Citron: guitars
Freddy DeMarco: guitars
Guthrie Govan: guitars
Don Schiff: NS/Stick
Mark Matthews: bass
Jay Schellen: drums

Landscape photography artwork for the cover album: