Scarlet Dorn
Queen of Broken Dreams

Third album for Scarlet Dorn and her band, the question is if it is an album that is a broken dream or something more exciting. The cover isn’t particularly exciting, but I read about a band that was formed in 2016, the debut album was released in 2018 and they have been touring quite a bit. I also read about a band that combine an incredible elegance of darkness with a particularly memorable catchiness, that must be exciting, mustn’t it? Moreover, I read about the singer Scarlet Dorn exuding a variety of emotions ranging from gentle and tender to menacing, kind of like most female rock vocalists then? Free of boundaries is another thing that looks interesting and is interesting if it holds true. Problem is though that most promotors hail their bands as the next big thing, as original and exciting, but it is very rarely true.

I don’t think Scarlet Dorn is one of those original and interesting, rather quite derivative. Everything they do feels like it has been borrowed from someone else, some songs have a nice club feel that has been done so much better by the likes of Jess and the Ancient Ones, then more straightforward metal and hardrock stuff has been done in more interesting ways by so many that I cannot even count them, the fact is that every avenue they travel, they walk in the footsteps of others without the courage to make some of their own marks. Almost like they want to be part of the scene but without being noticed, their album shows a fairly usual variety, the production is good, and according to standard. Scarlet Dorn’s vocals are like many female vocalists, less expressive than the best, but generally more interesting than most male voices, which doesn’t say much really – she is an average female vocalist.

Playing time of this album is relatively sensible, it doesn’t go to excessive lengths, but it doesn’t feel short enough either. It is like that with the album in general, the songs are good, but never great. Whenever they make something that is better it is hard to think away the feeling of having heard it before, the sense of listening to something extremely derivative is very hard to shake. That, however, does not mean that the album is poor or bad, it just means that while it is good it is difficult to be really excited about it. There are simply too many albums that has been done better already, and Scarlet Dorn doesn’t offer anything fresh or original, just another one of those albums that copies what others have done before without anything really personal.

Could be worth checking out if you like the female fronted stuff, you might find it rather exciting if your experience with that kind of music is more limited than mine. I don’t find Scarlet Dorn particularly exciting, but on the other hand it would be lying to say that they have made a bad album just because they fail to make something fresh or original – Queen of Broken dreams is a well-made effort.

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