LANA LANE – Neptune Blue

It has been a few years since Lana Lane’s last solo offering if I remember correctly, and seeing her latest album entitled “Neptune Blue” in the mailbox recently made me quite happy and also a tad surprised as I had no idea that she had been recording new material during the pandemic. With an impressive cast of musicians contributing to the opus and her voice being warm and pleasant to listen to, everything here is executed superbly from a technical point of view, but in terms of quality, it could have been a little more cohesive and solid.

The mixture of AOR, melodic rock, prog rock, bluesy hard rock, and a few folk-like touches works well and makes for an interesting listening experience in the sense that it is not always easy to see where the tunes are heading, and the album is nothing if not varied and colorful in terms of its aura. While songs such as the gentle “Come Lift Me Up”, the bluesy “Bring It on Home”, and the brilliantly evocative “Don’t Disturb the Occupants” are memorable and elegantly written affairs, roughly a handful of other tunes are slightly forgettable and lack strong melodies and hooks, which is a damn shame as the ensemble is an incredibly talented one. Luckily, the majority of compositions manage to captivate the listener and are akin to small journeys of a sort, which is merely another way of stating that the positives most definitely outweigh the negatives here. Another stellar cut that deserves mention is the wistful “Someone Like You” where guitarist Jeff Kollman (who does a magnificent job on the record) really gets to shine. The gentlemen from Dukes of the Orient, namely Erik Norlander and John Payne, provide excellent keyboard textures and harmony vocals, and Mr. Greg Ellis chimes in with some creative drumming.

“Neptune Blue” is a good albeit uneven record and Lana’s voice carries with it a sense of emotional substance and authenticity that is both enticing and strangely soothing. Although it may not be one for the history books, there is a lot of great stuff to be found here.