Detailed Reviews [Cinnamonia - 2003 - "The Scarlet Sea"]

Prolusion. "The Scarlet Sea" is the debut album by the German project Cinnamonia.

Synopsis. The music on all of the tracks on "The Scarlet Sea", without exception, is almost exclusively slow, peaceful, and placatory - just like the waters of a swan lake. No less than one third of the songs on the album where there are no instrumental pieces, represent just a pure Pop music, which is not without beauty, but is too monotonous and repetitious, which, though, is typical for the most widespread musical phenomenon (indeed, a real phenomenon) of our planet. Here, the nice vocals of Sandra Werner (and they are always of the same calm character as the music on the album) are usually accompanied only by plain melodic passages of a couple of synthesizers and the sounds of light electronic percussion. The other two thirds of the songs, including all the tracks featuring guitarist Gerd Weyhing, being enriched not only by fluid solos of electric guitars, but also passages of piano and, sometimes, those of a string ensemble, are a bit more vivid and diverse and are about somewhat of an Ambient Pop.

Conclusion. Surely, Cinnamonia's "Scarlet Sea" is completely out of interest to Prog-lovers - unless they're about to dance with girls at a party. Since this album is of a different nature than progressive music, I just can't rate it, of course. I have nothing against a sound pop music, but I wonder what pop music as such has to do with a Prog label. I hope that unlike some others, the people at Quixote Music won't stop collaborating with me after reading a negative review.

VM: October 22, 2003