Columbia Rec.
The SavageRose : Universal Daughter (DK,2009)****
The Savage Rose has a long history. Anisette has suns already for a very long time (the band’s first release dates from 1968), and must have gone through pretty heavy and powerful singing (the band started as a psych/poprock band somewhat in the vein of a Jefferson Aeroplane, but leaning towards Aretha Franklin as well as J.Joplin’s flavours at times). Having sounded young at that time, convincing in its own way, I was amazed to hear how Annisette’s voice has not lost anything of her inner power. On the contrary, her voice matured even further a rich and colourful, somewhat raspy quality, deepened with emotionality and wide in range with it. Being in the harvest of a supposedly contemplative period of her life she sings totally consciously of every detail, where the most soulful and heavier rock parts with electric guitar solos towards more screaming emotions are still great, but it is with smooth bossa nova rhythms, accordion, organ, piano and some soulful backing vocals where the full range of possibilities, and a vision and depth of expressions has reached it full maturity, something a girlish voice could never do so convincingly. Every detail has the cry of a heavy rock voice, but now it also has the grounding of a contemplative vision, the vision of experience in life. It is like the voice of what once was called a "savage" for the outside world turning out to be a wise person. A highly recommended release. Anisette’s not only powerful with her voice the full band perfectly arranged the songs, and the production is almost perfect. Released in an attractive mini book format with lots of beautiful photographs from often far away countries.
