BRAND NEW REVIEW: by Paul POP! First Coast News Rooted in ambient sounds, lush instrumentation, and a bit of trip hop, the band Alpha has pushed on through trends and fads and managed to carve out a niche for itself. Over the last decade or so Alpha has quietly been amassing a nice little discography for itself and their latest album, The Sky Is Mine seeks to build upon that foundation. Originally part of the mass hysteria that was trip hop, Alpha found itself signed to Massive Attack\'s label Melankolic. They laid the ground work of what would be their trademark sound with their debut album, Come from Heaven. Ten years on, Alpha has honed that sound into something approaching a dark easy listening torch song writing machine. Sounding something like Shirley Bassey mixed with Massive Attack, and then played by Frank Sinatra\'s orchestra Alpha have a lush, orchestrated and theatrical sound that is deeply moving and strikes a chord whenever vocalist Wendy Stubbs croons her way across a song. The sounds and songs that Alpha have come up with on The Sky Is Mine sound like they\'re from another era and another place. It\'s a modern album but it\'s rooted in the past and as the pianos and strings chime in and out you can sense the drama and tension between singer and instrumentalists as if this were the most important thing in their lives. The Sky Is Mine is amazing and as if to prove a point the title track is so epic in scope, lavish, and so gripping that it might just make you sweat. There aren\'t many records that can do that but The Sky Is Mine does it repeatedly. The Sky Is Mine is a simply stunning record that has more drama and emotion in it than an episode of Law and Order. This is an album waiting for a movie to be written around it. The Sky Is Mine is a John Barry soundtrack on over drive; it has all the excitation, all the action, and all the richness that a brilliant drama needs. It is fantastically moody stuff that sounds like all the best 60\'s soundtracks reinterpreted for the 21st century. Created: 1/3/2008 5:36:13 PM Updated: 1/16/2008 12:16:12 AM © 2008