The biggest problem throughout this disk is simply the quality of the recording. Most of the full choral numbers have a boomy and overly reverbed aesthetic to them that makes it hard to make out specific lyrics and sometimes even specific melodic lines. Such a sound is a typical direction for a choral recording, but it’s just too much here. Listening in my car at a decent volume, the first thing I noticed was that I couldn’t discern any of the words for the first two or three songs. Things get a little better when there is a soloist or an instrument standing out above the mix, but the rest of it is tough to enjoy.
The good news is that, provided you can listen to this CD in a favorable environment, there are actually a fair handful of things to enjoy. The aforementioned soloists are actually quite good, as is a great deal of the blending between vocal backgrounds and instrumental accompaniment (for example the intro to track two, A Thousand Years). I’m also a big fan of well done choral arrangements of pop tunes and there are one or two cool ones here to study. The arrangements that are done in a more contemporary style are decent, but overall less successful than the choral ones.
In the same vein, I also found the tuning and blend to be much better on the pieces that were more choral. Every Breath You Take, for example, suffers from a bass line that sounds strained and drags flat. It’s almost hard to believe that these are the same basses who sound so sweet and controlled on track 1, The Secret Marriage. Lest I just pick on the basses I’ll just say that they were not the only section that had me scratching my head at their inconsistencies.
Listening to this CD as a piece of contemporary a cappella, it doesn’t measure up to the rest of what’s out there. However, looking past its faults as a stand alone album and viewing it in the context of a musical production recording, I have hope that this could actually be a good live show. This group has some talent, even though the quality of the audio doesn’t represent it well, and there are a few moments of genuine musical beauty to be had. Di Vers, I can hear passion in the music you’re making, and I think that on stage, away from the studio, your audience will hear it too. Break a leg!
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