Victoria, would you sing at my funeral? (Sometime later on)
Scott Sweet | Colorado Springs, CO | 01/17/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"The soundscape on "Time and the Maiden" is a distillation of Cocteau Twins, The Shroud, Lycia and Skinner Box-era Julianna Towns. The whole thing goes down smoother than 30-year-old brandy. Benjamin Fargen's guitar gently floats in a sea of reverb, while Chris Ross gives us just enough synth drums to keep time. Hazy keyboard melodies hold the middle ground between the other instruments and Victoria Lloyd's voice. No, not voice - Voice. How the hell does she sound so world-weary and so yearning at the same time? Practice, I guess.All the songs are elegant mood pop. Great slow-dance music for ghosts. The trip-hop beats keep "Maiden" from getting too ethereal. Lloyd's lyrics focus on love and what a drag it is to be mortal. Since the songs have a consistent sound, it's hard to list "standouts."The influences behind Claire Voyant's style jump out at you from song to song. This stuff is two parts ethereal, one part alpha state, one part heartache. Very soothing, slightly haunting.A sidenote: if you wanna hear a remix of track five ("Majesty") that's even better than the album version, order "Fairies, Elves & Angels Vol. I" through this site."
A soaring voice
Summer B. Frace | Austin, TX USA | 09/24/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The first thing that strikes you about Claire Voyant's music is Victoria Lloyd's soaring voice. She is incredible. Strong and soaring with an impressive range, Lloyd really makes this CD shine with her emotional delivery. The music is thoughtful and almost ethereal, without being boring. The underlying music features mostly synths and some light guitars (nothing cruncy or heavy here). The drums are epic but not to heavy or loopy or dancy (which I think is a good thing - too many artists these days are getting caught up in making things dancy at the cost of being unoriginal.I have a really hard time trying to pinpoint Claire Voyant's music or fit it within one distinct genre, or even try to compare them to someone else. They are original and creating their own thing. I know this probably won't help you in deciding if you want to give them a try. If you like the Hyperium Heavenly Voices compilations (their prominent placement on Volume IV really helped Claire Voyant gain a number of new fans) then you will likely enjoy this release. Victoria Lloyd definitely has a heavenly voice."
Amazing
Eddie L Sikes Jr | Aurora, Colorado United States | 10/03/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"if you buy soundtracks to get that perfect orchestrated sound with incredible vocals you no longer need to do that. This is one hauntingly beautiful CD that will touch your core. Perfect for the goth enthusiast"
Beautiful music
Alan F. Paredes | vallejo, ca | 03/29/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A subtle and sweet album of soaring vocals and semi-trip hop and gothic flavor, this continues to be my favorite of early 2001. The mid-paced tempo is at times though very pompous, keeping the organic triphop and rock styles from showing itself too much. The focus of 90% of the music however is the clean, breathless voice of Victoria Lloyd's melody lines who, for old timers might recognize a bit of Karen Carpenter. Victoria carries this album almost too much though, prancing, pondering and yearning nonstop; yet songs such as Time and The Maiden, Lolite, and Blinking Tears are so mesmerizingly beautiful I just want to play them over and over again. Focusing, the music does actually come out, complementing everything in lush rhythm. In a way, this is not too ethereal, delicate, and sad, but rather strong and decorative mostly. There are the ethereal songs, the trippy songs, and the gothic songs throughout, but mostly I see this as beautiful music. I liken this as something in between the cold electronic passion of Portishead to the warm-blooded rock exploration of Dutch group The Gathering. For those familiar, Victoria is almost quite the clone of The Gathering's Anneke Van Giersbergen. Love the Giver, Bittersweat are wonderful, sub-woofer booming, trippy remakes - something the new album Time Again should review (average album of Industrial DJ remixes). The last song seems to point to a new direction for the band."