I first became aware of Lana Lane when she provided vocals on the Ayreon album Into the Electric Castle in 1998. This wasn’t too many years after her debut as a recording artist, her first album Love Is An Illusion having been released in 1995. For a while she was quite active, building up a sizeable back catalogue.
After releasing her tenth studio album El Dorado Hotel in 2012 she took an extended break from music as a main career, instead focusing on her other passion as she opened Lana Lane Gourmet Goods – a specialty food shop offering unique jams, jellies, tapenades, various spiced snacks, and several other home made treats and condiments.
Being married to her musician/producer husband (Erik Norlander), as well as having his associated musicians as ready-to-go band members, meant the option to dive back into music was always there if she wanted to. This is exactly what happened – the urge reappeared, and Lane signed a multi-album deal with Frontiers Records in 2021. Her eleventh album Neptune Blue appeared on 22 January 2022, ten years after her previous studio album.
In spite of the long time gap, the album does not really ring in any massive changes. Lane has more or less picked up where she left off. By and large she is presenting the same type of symphonic rock as always – rich in scope and full of vocal melodies.
Lane has never been a one-trick pony and the album contains several styles. Some tunes have progressive elements, others veer towards melodic rock, while others are harder-edged rock. Still, the expansive wide-open approach is never far away no matter the style of the song. They all feel like they come from the same source, even if they have been filtered differently stylistically and with different approaches in their arrangements.
Remember Me is the opener, featuring an ominous church organ intro which leads into a chugging rock accompaniment.
Lane’s voice is always a delight. As it comes in, it’s almost as if time has stood still. She sounds exactly the same.
She can belt it out like the best of them, but on this album especially there is a lot more nuance in her performances. I’ve got a particular fondness for her tendency to hold on to the words, leaving them to hang over the music.
Do you remember?
Once upon a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime
We walked the golden saaaaaaaands
See? Magnifique.
Under the Big Sky is a good example of Lane’s melodic rock side. Rather than opting for a straightforward AOR pop-infused rock song, she builds layers in her music driven by keyboard and guitar into something that is much more her style, yet retains a straightforward and strong melodic focus. While I may prefer her more progressive or heavier moments, there’s still something about these kind of songs (and especially how she sings them) that never fails to fascinate me.
Musically, the album is varied in approach but still with a symphonic rock approach, leading to some interesting arrangements. The song Really Actually is a good example. The song in general is very 80s with a strong AOR flair, while the choruses contain a heavy down-and-dirty riff which you’d normally expect a guitar to play. On this song, deep low-end classical string instruments are doing the riffing. It suits Lane very well, retaining the heaviness of those sections while also underpinning the symphonic and unique approach she is known for. It ends up being very catchy and very cool.
A Lana Lane album is always a stylistically varied album. Come Lift Me Up is a more organic tune, thanks to its stripped back acoustic guitar approach for the first verse. This quality is retained even when other instrumentation is added, the song eventually building into an emotional and very lovely ballad.
Bring It On Home is a slinky song, with a groovy guitar lick and a dirtier feel. The song is still carefully built up with several layers, and I’m thinking it couldn’t have hurt to have put that guitar riff a bit more on the centre stage and allowed the song to let its hair hang down a bit more, it’s still a very cool moment. Lana Lane is not an out-and-out rock artist – it’s part of her DNA, but has never been the main ingredient or sole focus. This is probably as close as it comes.
The album continues to diversify. Don’t Disturb the Occupants feels like a throwback to keyboard-driven 1980s pop-rock, albeit more atmospherically so, in its tale about the weird neighbours who seem to be up to mysterious doings. Lady Mondegreen also feels more retro, but with a guitar riff taking the centre stage and the guitar and keyboard playing several cool dual lead parts along the way.
Miss California is an atmospheric hard rock tune with some drive yet a melancholic twist. The title could imply that it is about a woman, but it’s actually about missing home. The blue tinge of this song combined with its melodic hooks work extremely well, making it one of the most memorable tracks.
Someone Like You takes the album into its home stretch. A hard rock ballad of exceptional quality, showcasing Lane’s ability to tackle sensitive songs while also retaining some pathos especially in the choruses where the band also join in adding some ‘oomph’ to the arrangement. There is a definite vintage flair to this arrangement which suits it well.
Far From Home is the third single from the album. On the faster side of mid-tempo, it chugs along quite nicely. While the performances and melodies are solid the song itself is as straightforward as they come on this album – solidly verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus. At least to this listener the song would have benefitted from a more adventurous arrangement, but the keyboard theme that shows up throughout the song does give it a nice flair.
All good things must end, and the title track, Neptune Blue, is set to be the epic album closer at eight and a half minutes. I fully took this as a sign that we were going to get a gigantic song with an epic build into the end section, containing everything and the kitchen sink. What it actually is, is one of the most carefully put together and most genuinely touching love songs – or, really, songs about longing – that Lane has ever sung. It is extremely well put together, starting out as a symphonic, piano-driven ballad, carefully building into a bigger arrangement as the story is progressing.
This is one of my favourite songs of 2022. There is something so touching about the story as well as the performance. It just gets to me.
Lane’s vocals are particularly exquisite in the first part of this song, as she sings about the two space travelling lovers who are separated, and going on interplanetary crossings in an attempt to catch up with each other. They never seem to quite manage to make the connection, barely missing each other, retracing their steps and moving on to the next location, but never giving up. The song is mostly about the anticipation – while there is a melancholy about being apart and that they keep missing each other, they know they are going to meet in the end. They look forward to it while making their ways to different meeting points.
There is something so touching about the way it is sung, as the emotions behind the story are fully part of the performance. It is hard to describe, but some things do not need dissection. They should just be.
Riding on a moonbeam on his way to Mars
He knows he’ll find her waiting there among the million stars
Her eyes shine like a beacon as they’re guiding him along
On pathways made of diamonds, he knows where he belongs
Promised to find her beyond the Neptune blue
He’s waited a lifetime for a ticket to the moon
Take me high above the clouds
Take me higher and roll me in the sound
Take me high on wings above
Take me higher and be my only love
I love the unconventional space setting of that story, which is very “prog” in itself. The growing ambience and feeling of vastness as we get into the song definitely also suits that setting well.
The song has a nice build towards the end as it goes into an instrumental play-out section, opting for a more constant feel and atmosphere rather than building it into an all-out epic over-the-top climax. I love an epic crescendo as much as the next man, but the chosen approach honestly suits the song (and its story) better.
How to sum it all up?
Lane has created a somewhat unique and very interesting musical space for herself between genres less unique, if that makes sense. I enjoy her dipping in and out of the surrounding genres, but she is at her best when she manages to move in that unique space between those genres which define her special blend of music. This album has many of those moments, which is when she truly lives up to her moniker “Queen of symphonic rock.”
The bottom line is that I am very excited to have Lana Lane back as an active recording artist again. I cannot wait to hear her next efforts.
Facebook Comments