Brand New Day - Starting Over 2 CD

Disc One

Starting Over (A Brand New Day) feat. David Penpek
Thinking Of You feat. David Penpek
Tear Down These Walls feat. David Penpek
All I Wanted feat. David Penpek
Style feat. Aidan Casserly of Empire State Human
No Goodbye feat. Miss P. Pyre of Venus Virus
Don't Blame Me For Paradise feat. Miss P. Pyre of Venus Virus
Forgotten Love feat. Breye Kiser of Provision
No Way feat. Troy Silvey of Far Cry
Welcome To The World feat. Lloyd Cooper of Zen Pilot
Touch feat. Lloyd Cooper of Zen Pilot

Disc Two

Tear Down These Walls (Remix by Sequencia)
All I Wanted (Remix by Freddy Hajas)
Tear Down These Walls (Remix by Provision)
Style (Remix by Foretaste)
Thinking Of You (Remix by Foretaste)
Tear Down These Walls (Remix by Foretaste)
King Of The Hill (Instrumental)
Tear Down These Walls (Remix by Apathy In Motion)
Starting Over (A Brand New Day) (Remix by Ataritron)
Galaxy (Instrumental)
Tear Down These Walls (Remix by Horizontal Lied)
All I Wanted (Remix by VZ Chinese Theatre)
Thinking Of You (Remix by Tristraum)
Always Be There (Alt. version of "No Goodbye" feat. Paul Whitmer)

This is the debut release for Brand New Day, originally the side-project of Joe Ramey of EuroVision, but now it is his full-time project since the dissolution of EuroVision. Originally this project was meant as a outlet for the lighter songs of Joe Ramey, but it became a diverse project during the development. The project uses multiple vocalists of varying style, resulting in a diverse but unified sound, similar to the approach of Virtual Server or The Parallel Project. The approach used here was to record the music first, sometimes with lyrics, then send it out to the vocalists to complete and/or tweak as needed. The vocalists selected for this first release included Breye Kiser of Provision, Aidan Casserly of Empire State Human, as well as several other emerging artists.

The album opens with 4 tracks featuring the vocals of David Penpek, a independent artist who used to have a page on the MP3 download portion of Amazon.com, but due to the recent policy change of that site has moved his music to the CNET/Download.com site. His voice has a somewhat pinched quality that took a little getting used to, but once I adjusted to his unusual vocals, I found a rapidly growing appreciation for his approach. While his original work is a cappella (of what I've heard), his style works well when melded with synthpop. The most outstanding and memorable tracks of the four with David are easily "Tear Down These Walls" and "All I Wanted", but the other two are fairly strong on their own right as well.

Aidan of Empire State Human takes over the vocal duties for "Style", and the dark-edged synth work here provides a nice contrast for Aidan's voice. It's a strong track, but seemed a little short to me. The next vocalist, Miss P. Pyre of Venus Virus, I recently had my first listen to before the release of this album on the Venus Virus single "Could You?". To say the least, I was unimpressed with the vocals. To my ear, it sounds as if she tends to go slightly off-key sometimes. These two tracks featuring her vocals do nothing to dispel that impression.

The next contributor is Breye Kiser of Provision, with "Forgotten Love". The guitar sounds in this track are really wonderful, and I had to double-check the credits just to be sure that it wasn't a guitar I was hearing. I really got the sensation from this track it was building up to a really thundering finale, so the fade at the end was a little bit of a letdown, but otherwise this was a very good track. Both Troy Silvey and Lloyd Cooper, the vocalists that close out the first disc, sound like this is their first foray into synth-oriented music. Troy sounds like he's worked primarily with pop rock bands, and Lloyd sounds like he's normally singing with a hard rock band. They stand out from the other vocalist choices mainly for their radically different vocal styles (when compared to the others).

The second disc is comprised of remixes and instrumentals, with one alternate version of "No Goodbye" with vocals by Paul Whitmer. At 14 tracks, the second disc clocks in longer than the first cd, but 5 of the tracks are remixes of "Tear Down These Walls", with "All I Wanted" and "Thinking Of You" both getting 2 remixes apiece. Several of the remixers here also did remixes for the two EuroVision singles, and their work is just as impressive this time out. Of the remixes, I thought that Horizonte Lied and Provision both did particularly excellent work in their remixes, lending their signature sound to the songs while preserving the original feel of the song. Of the three Foretaste remixes, their take on "Thinking Of You" is the most impressive, with the other two remixes just not working as well as "Thinking Of You".

Overall, I found this to be a good album. It's not without a few mis-steps, but most debut albums have a rough spot or two, and I'm sure that Joe will make the second album leap light-years beyond this one. With 2 cds, and 25 tracks, this cd set certainly packs plenty of value, and I'm certain that you're sure to find something to love here. Recommended.


Added: Sunday, April 24, 2005
Reviewer: Jason Baker
Score:
Related web link: Official Site
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Language: eng