Annie Haslam - Annie Haslam (1989)

What with such heavy-hitters as Larry Fast, the Moody Blues' Justin Hayward, and ex-King Crimson reedman Mel Collins aboard, Annie Haslam seemed intent with this 1989 album on establishing an identity separate from her long-time association with Renaissance. And with a Hayward original ("The Angels Cry") on the song list, one would have thought that Moody Blues completists would swarm all over this record, yet somehow they didn't, perhaps because even a lot of them were burned out at the time on progressive rock, which was the strongest component of the album. Haslam's powerful voice gets a workout across this record that straddles art and pop; in the crisp yet eerily cold electronic settings provided by Larry Fast's synthesizers, Haslam's range and intonation seem all the more striking along with her expressiveness. And the result is hauntingly moody, often brooding (and sometimes soaring) pieces built around lush melodies and enveloping arrangements; the effect isn't all that different at times from Jon Anderson's early solo effort Olias of Sunhillow, but more accessible. The warmth of her singing, amid synthesized drums and other distinctly artificial accompaniments, creates a strange dual-layered effect on the listener. At her best throughout most of this album, Haslam's expressiveness dominates the work, and the result is songs that seem to cast rich, primary colors in the listening; admittedly, colors also distilled and cast with a computer's electronic precision. Luckily, Haslam's voice is strong enough to carry its end of the process -- she's at her best on the mysticism-laced originals at the center of the album, but her haunting rendition of Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow" also makes one forget Maggie Reilly's performance on the original; and when the vocals start to mass and soar on numbers like "When a Heart Finds Another," she can do no wrong. Mel Collins' sax break on "Let It Be Me" also helps the latter song immeasurably, adding another layer of warmth to Haslam's best pop performance on the album.