****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The Wheel of Time is one of the last Sandra albums to which M. Cretu has paid any kind of attention before handing down the artistic direction of Sandra's career to Jens Gad. It's not a bad album (quite the contrary) despite the fact that half of the material on it are covers. Sandra's performance here is nearly as good as it gets - so much so, in fact - that personally I actually prefer her take on those covers rather than the originals (Such a Shame, Free Love, etc.) There is some (digital processing/synthesizer) induced artificiality to the sound (of her voice) in some places but overall I do not find it overly distracting. In terms of visual presentation, the CD is well put together with a composite photo of the singer on the front-cover and several others in the included booklet. There are some liner notes in there as well.On to the technical: The CD reviewed here was recorded at Virgin (rather than in M. Cretu's sound studio) and the inferior technical quality is evident when compared to some of her previous albums (e.g. Paintings in Yellow, Close to Seven) i.e. there is noticeable dynamic range compression, clipping, distortions, etc. The CD sounds okay in speakers but the issues mentioned become evident when auditioning in headphones. Still, overall I think Wheel of Time is a very good effort and a must have even for the less than avid Sandra fan - so five star.
