Susan Frances
09/26/08, 09:00 AM
The Champagne Charade – Glitter City
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Modern rock with a fierce bite is precisely what The Champagne Charade deliver on their latest release Glitter City. If you are a fan of ‘80s pop metal, ‘90s nu metal, or 2000’s prog rock, you are bound to love this album. Fronted by female singer Saetia LaReoux whose command over her vocal range is nothing short of the power and feistiness that Pink executes, is thickly horned by taut guitars, steamrolling drum kicks and bronco thrusting bass pulls. The band shows that they know their stuff and work with all cylinders on full-throttle moving at a track runner’s rate. The phat crunchy chord rinds of guitarists Bobbie Venom and Kaedon Grey are worthy of Cold, and the mallet-packed whacks of drummer Chris Crypts and bassist Nicky Charade sharply intensify the music’s decibels to Evanescence’s magnitude. Ready or not, The Champagne Charade stoke the flames of hard rock to majestic heights and bear steal-plated armor in their melodic tooling.
The Champagne Charade’s 8-track record Glitter City give audiences a clear cut impression of these Northern New Jersey-ites class of rock. LaReoux flips sides between being a tough chick and a vulnerable romantic reminiscent of Vivacity’s Maria Battinelli, while the band moves from gravelly pathways to smooth melodically fused chord patterns. The band creates excellent transitions from the cornrows of scorching cyclones to the slow cruising lows. The profusion of pop metal sabers furling, twisting and careening into the vocals keep the songs momentum in high gear. The series of breaks and accelerations traveling through the melodies load the passages with skyscraping torches, howling chords and octane-fueled mettle. The flammable guitar solos tear through the melodic turf like tiers of lighter fluid being ignited. The band switches off between episodes of whiplashing spins and throbbing beats to patches of lows with smooth ambient tones and slow chugging knolls. The Champagne Charade offer a rocky ride with moments that even out and deflate the intensity and give LaReoux’s vocals the bulk of the spotlight.
The lyrical content is personable and relationship-oriented so every emotional scar and feeling of triumph has a song named after it. The track “The Offering” set the tone with, “You see me / See me fade and fall away / A crumbled heart with collapsing veins / I swore, I’d swore I’d stay, but no way / You made your choice, we’re dying today / all that’s left are heart and hands / It’s your turn baby, be a man.” Other songs are reflections about seeing the wrongs in life prevail like in “Sickness and Sorrow” when LaReoux rails out, “Constantly failing / Why repeat on the regress of this forgiveness of those undeserving? / Let’s end this game / The sickness and sorrow leaves me empty / The sting of their hatred tears through my dreams.”
The Champagne Charade’s new recording Glitter City offer music fans the motivation to break out of their shells and develop the muscle to carry them through any obstacles that exist ahead. If The Champagne Charade never make another album again, they have one which they should be extremely proud of and ecstatic that people will correlate them with some of pop metal’s biggest artists. Their class of rock has immediate commercial appeal and substance to back it up.
Cold, Evanescence, Vivacity, Paramore
www.myspace.com/thechampagnecharade (http://www.myspace.com/thechampagnecharade)
Record Label: Unsigned
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Modern rock with a fierce bite is precisely what The Champagne Charade deliver on their latest release Glitter City. If you are a fan of ‘80s pop metal, ‘90s nu metal, or 2000’s prog rock, you are bound to love this album. Fronted by female singer Saetia LaReoux whose command over her vocal range is nothing short of the power and feistiness that Pink executes, is thickly horned by taut guitars, steamrolling drum kicks and bronco thrusting bass pulls. The band shows that they know their stuff and work with all cylinders on full-throttle moving at a track runner’s rate. The phat crunchy chord rinds of guitarists Bobbie Venom and Kaedon Grey are worthy of Cold, and the mallet-packed whacks of drummer Chris Crypts and bassist Nicky Charade sharply intensify the music’s decibels to Evanescence’s magnitude. Ready or not, The Champagne Charade stoke the flames of hard rock to majestic heights and bear steal-plated armor in their melodic tooling.
The Champagne Charade’s 8-track record Glitter City give audiences a clear cut impression of these Northern New Jersey-ites class of rock. LaReoux flips sides between being a tough chick and a vulnerable romantic reminiscent of Vivacity’s Maria Battinelli, while the band moves from gravelly pathways to smooth melodically fused chord patterns. The band creates excellent transitions from the cornrows of scorching cyclones to the slow cruising lows. The profusion of pop metal sabers furling, twisting and careening into the vocals keep the songs momentum in high gear. The series of breaks and accelerations traveling through the melodies load the passages with skyscraping torches, howling chords and octane-fueled mettle. The flammable guitar solos tear through the melodic turf like tiers of lighter fluid being ignited. The band switches off between episodes of whiplashing spins and throbbing beats to patches of lows with smooth ambient tones and slow chugging knolls. The Champagne Charade offer a rocky ride with moments that even out and deflate the intensity and give LaReoux’s vocals the bulk of the spotlight.
The lyrical content is personable and relationship-oriented so every emotional scar and feeling of triumph has a song named after it. The track “The Offering” set the tone with, “You see me / See me fade and fall away / A crumbled heart with collapsing veins / I swore, I’d swore I’d stay, but no way / You made your choice, we’re dying today / all that’s left are heart and hands / It’s your turn baby, be a man.” Other songs are reflections about seeing the wrongs in life prevail like in “Sickness and Sorrow” when LaReoux rails out, “Constantly failing / Why repeat on the regress of this forgiveness of those undeserving? / Let’s end this game / The sickness and sorrow leaves me empty / The sting of their hatred tears through my dreams.”
The Champagne Charade’s new recording Glitter City offer music fans the motivation to break out of their shells and develop the muscle to carry them through any obstacles that exist ahead. If The Champagne Charade never make another album again, they have one which they should be extremely proud of and ecstatic that people will correlate them with some of pop metal’s biggest artists. Their class of rock has immediate commercial appeal and substance to back it up.
Cold, Evanescence, Vivacity, Paramore
www.myspace.com/thechampagnecharade (http://www.myspace.com/thechampagnecharade)