All-new line-up stick to the familiar.
It’s been eight years since Karnataka’s last studio album and the core of the band seems to have been whittled down to founding bassist Ian Jones and mononymous new vocalist Sertari. Requiem For A Dream picks up the baton from 2015’s Secrets Of Angels and keeps running in the same direction. The album goes big on symphonic rock with grand, sweeping arrangements married to a melodic sensibility that draws on musical theatre dramatics and AOR. However, anything approaching musical surprises are scarcer.
It feels like Karnataka are playing it too safe. Sertari possesses a comparable range to her predecessor Hayley Griffiths, but brings her own personality to her performance. Where Griffiths’ classical training lent an operatic quality to her tone, Sertari’s style is perhaps…
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 142