Sharaya – The Road To… (08/06/2012)
The debut album of 5-piece Melbourne local band Sharaya, titled The Road To…, embraces their high-energy live shows and rock attitude. With influences ranging from Led Zepplin to Evanescence, this album encapsulates such a wide range of rock styles to create an explosive and highly original cd. Spiralled with moments of raw, emotional honesty, seductive vocals and high-octane instrumentals, this album highlights the best that rock music and Sharaya has to offer.
The musical arrangement of the album features a mix of aggressive bass lines, heavy rock drums and driving guitar riffs balanced with sonic and synth textures. The combination of these are worked into creating a mix of styles across the album with some tracks playing as aggressive high-energy rock while others play as moving melodic ballads. Topping off the musical arrangements is the vocal powerhouse that is lead singer Shay Liza. Her voice works through each song, strengthening the tone and style variances while maintaining her soulful and rather hypnotic signature voice.
Lyrically, the album explores stories of Liza’s life, covering a rollercoaster of emotions while creating an intimate feel to each track. Composing the tracks around the highs and lows of her life, Liza generates an opportunity for the audience to connect on a person level with their own experiences. Working with such introspective themes has enabled the tracks to take on a higher level of emotion, and translates perfectly into the musical arrangement and vocals. And singing about her own experiences, Liza matches perfectly with tones created in each track, exemplifying both her vocal strengths and passion about the songs.
The opening track Addiction, starts off on a heavy driving drum beat before dropping into a melodic track with light guitar notes and ethereal synth undertones. Liza’s vocals are hard hitting and emphasise the rock edge of the track when the drums are brought back in. A similar track Never also features the driving drum beat and Liza’s hard hitting vocals. However, this track layers on an aggressive base line and heavy guitars to create an explosive rock sound rather than softening the edge with synth layers.
Recovering opens with quiet piano notes and a rather eerie synth layer that combines beautifully with the soulful stye of Liza’s vocals to create an intimate tone. The restrained use of percussion and guitar throughout the track help to maintain the ballad nature of the song, drawing the audience down into the emotional turmoil of addiction recovery spoken of in the lyrics. Also opening with a piano line, the following track You Don’t Make Me Smile continues the melodic style of Recovering. Featuring almost solely vocals and the piano until the very end of the track, this song is certainly the most intimate on the album and creates a well-planned break in the middle of the album.
As a debut album, Sharaya’sThe Road To… is a well-balanced and cohesive CD, perfect for forging their name with. The lyrics and musical arrangement across the tracks create an emotional oasis, bringing the audience into the intimate stories of Shay Liza’s life and setting a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. Despite the intimate tone of the tracks, this album still contains the high-energy and rock ‘n’ roll attitude the band has presented over their years of touring.
Bethany Williams
The musical arrangement of the album features a mix of aggressive bass lines, heavy rock drums and driving guitar riffs balanced with sonic and synth textures. The combination of these are worked into creating a mix of styles across the album with some tracks playing as aggressive high-energy rock while others play as moving melodic ballads. Topping off the musical arrangements is the vocal powerhouse that is lead singer Shay Liza. Her voice works through each song, strengthening the tone and style variances while maintaining her soulful and rather hypnotic signature voice.
Lyrically, the album explores stories of Liza’s life, covering a rollercoaster of emotions while creating an intimate feel to each track. Composing the tracks around the highs and lows of her life, Liza generates an opportunity for the audience to connect on a person level with their own experiences. Working with such introspective themes has enabled the tracks to take on a higher level of emotion, and translates perfectly into the musical arrangement and vocals. And singing about her own experiences, Liza matches perfectly with tones created in each track, exemplifying both her vocal strengths and passion about the songs.
The opening track Addiction, starts off on a heavy driving drum beat before dropping into a melodic track with light guitar notes and ethereal synth undertones. Liza’s vocals are hard hitting and emphasise the rock edge of the track when the drums are brought back in. A similar track Never also features the driving drum beat and Liza’s hard hitting vocals. However, this track layers on an aggressive base line and heavy guitars to create an explosive rock sound rather than softening the edge with synth layers.
Recovering opens with quiet piano notes and a rather eerie synth layer that combines beautifully with the soulful stye of Liza’s vocals to create an intimate tone. The restrained use of percussion and guitar throughout the track help to maintain the ballad nature of the song, drawing the audience down into the emotional turmoil of addiction recovery spoken of in the lyrics. Also opening with a piano line, the following track You Don’t Make Me Smile continues the melodic style of Recovering. Featuring almost solely vocals and the piano until the very end of the track, this song is certainly the most intimate on the album and creates a well-planned break in the middle of the album.
As a debut album, Sharaya’sThe Road To… is a well-balanced and cohesive CD, perfect for forging their name with. The lyrics and musical arrangement across the tracks create an emotional oasis, bringing the audience into the intimate stories of Shay Liza’s life and setting a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. Despite the intimate tone of the tracks, this album still contains the high-energy and rock ‘n’ roll attitude the band has presented over their years of touring.
Bethany Williams