MUSIC REVIEW: Enigma:-Seven Lives Many Faces

An Enigma album is always eagerly anticipated, with music lovers longing to be sucked into the slow whirlpool of sounds Michael Cretu & Co aesthetically create. With massive hits like Sadeness, Mea Culpa and Return To Innocence, Enigma has built up a solid fanbase. Sadeness remains the song Enigma is best known for, and the beat gives even a first time listener a sense of déjà vu. Here's what their latest, Seven Lives Many Faces, sounds like…

Encounters is an intro that fools you into think you're in for a magical ride. Ten seconds into Seven Lives and the hip-hop beats come in. Hip-hop beats? You stare disbelievingly at the CD case. The music isn't bad, but a lot more is expected of Enigma.

Touchness goes back to the Enigma sound we know, with a good beat and female vocals whispering lyrics we shouldn't pay attention to. I usually have a problem with long songs, but not in Enigma’s case! Touchness is under four minutes, and I really wouldn’t mind this going on for a good six or seven minutes.

The Same Parents has a part that sounds very similar to something by a great band called Tiamat. I wonder if Cretu has heard of Johan Edlund and his genius. The non-Tiamat sounding parts are good, but the peace-hunger-war lyrics seem meaningless here. Michael Jackson did that years ago, and everybody’s had enough of musicians pondering over why there is hate between races and religions. The song is slow and good, and you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t understand English.

I mentioned Michael Jackson just a few seconds ago, and here we are again. Fata Morgana employs the famous Dangerous beat.

Hell’s Heaven, besides being ridiculously named, is a song that just refuses to take off. Cretu is getting too experimental for his own good. It saddens you to hear shades of typical Enigma diluted by unrequired other sounds and a directionless approach.

La Peurto del Cielo is pure Enigma! Everything you expect from Enigma is on this song, the beat, the feel, the ambience, the vocal melody, the rhythm. What, only 3:28? Why can great songs like these not go on for a lot longer?

What the hell is Distorted Love? Enigma has run out of ideas… Why such a powerful band would sing such crap lyrics and lower their standards is hard to understand. If only they’d sung the same thing in a language I didn’t know, I’d find this very relaxing.

e T’Aime Till My Dying Day has those female vocals from Sadeness! Not in the pure form, but adulterated with other voices, but anyone who’s heard Sadeness can never forget that woman’s voice.

Déjà Vu is so nice, why can’t these guys make an album with a bunch of these kind of songs? Who needs fancy beats and modern sounds when there is such aural beauty to treat your senses to? Before you can take it in, the song is over…

Between Generations and The Language Of Sound are also more on the Enigma side of things. While they’re nothing great, they’re at least nothing like the hip-hop tripe you hear a lot on this album.

It’s a shame a fabulous musical act like Enigma feels the need to modernise its sound, when all they need to do here is keep the enigmatic vocals and get rid of the wannabe R & B kind of singing. It wouldn’t hurt a bit if most of these songs were instrumental, and that, in fact, would add to the Enigma charm. If they can’t write better lyrics, the songs should be sung in another language.

Seven Lives Many Faces, though not bad music, is a complete let-down. Gone are the sexual overtones of Sadeness, the listenability of Return To Innocence and Eyes Of Truth. The Shakuhachi flutes that made Sadeness (Principles Of Lust, Part 1) so magnificent are not there! And there isn't a single song here that makes an electric current run through you the way TNT For The Brain did.

Three-four decent songs out of twelve (got the CD without the bonus tracks) is really not happening. What a lot of musicians don’t realize is everything that works for them might be around them, and that they need not go too far. Come on, Mr Cretu!

RATING: 2/5