ANA RITA JOANA IRACEMA E CAROLINA

When Ana Carolina appeared, people talked about how she sounded like a mix of Cássia Eller with Zélia Duncan. Still, she managed to make an impression. Now, Ana sounds more aggressive. On her second CD, Ana Rita Joana Iracema e Carolina, the singer attempts to make things more artistic, using the feminine soul as her main theme. She just gets halfway there, though. In fact, she talks about love affairs more than anything else. Still, this album is better than the previous one, for she sounds convincing on a greater number of tracks. Ana is not keen on her music being tagged as romantic/pop - she prefers pop MPB. But on many of the tracks, she is totally drowned into the international romantic/pop standards. Confesso, Quem de Nós Dois, Pra Terminar, Que Se Danem os Nós and Me Sento na Rua could be recorded anywhere in this world, with any vocalist, but that doesn’t qualify for a drawback. The songs are merely according to the current radio standards, both music and lyrics-wise.

Tracks like Ela É Bamba, Implicante, Joana, O Rio and especially Violão e Voz (a type of samba-funk, an inspired duet with Alcione) dare a bit more. Ana has still got to perfect her interpretation skills in order to sound as cynical as necessary on songs like Eu Nunca Te Amei, Idiota (Alvin L.) or as poignant as necessary on Dalva de Oliveira’s big hit, Que Será.

(Rodrigo Faour)