Mannheim Steamroller

Jo C. Seip

posted on Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:21:16

love Mannheim - but don't buy this

This CD was a disappointment for several reasons:

1) thin sound - most of the songs lacked the rich depth of many Mannheim participants in past albums. I felt like it was mostly syntesizer with a little bit of dressing on the side with thin arrangements of the other instruments, including Chip Davis' percussion.

2) the songs were too short

3) many songs were just thin re-makes of previously recorded songs - the "Traditions of Christmas" arrangement was a "music box" version - played once and that's it.

I did like the "Snowflakes on Your Tongue" and "Above the Northern Lights" songs. The "Masters in the Hall" song was too thin an arrangement and copied themes from "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." The "Christmas Lullaby" song with Olivia Newton-John was just okay, not great.