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Rating:
After the beautiful album that Bruni released in 2002, the anticipation for a new chapter was high. The acoustic sounds, as low-fi as they were fascinating, and Carla's sexy and enchanting voice captivated half the world, and the album sold incredibly well—not just because she is a knockout or a famous model, she has real talent! If she had released a flop like Naomi Campbell's "Babywoman," I doubt it would have sold the same number of copies... and now, after a handful of intimate yet emotion-rich songs, the beautiful Carla Bruni graced us with "No Promises" in 2006, which is less successful upon first listen, disappointing:
1) Carla Bruni dives into English, abandoning her French language, with which she seduced many, almost resembling a less gritty Jane Birkin. In English, she comes across almost cold, without any emotion whatsoever.
2) The fact that the lyrics are actually already famous poems... writer's block?
3) The songs work until the first minute and a half and then are stretched and pumped to barely reach 3 minutes.
4) The instruments are almost non-existent or imperceptible, as if they were placed there just for the sake of aesthetics, like useless ornaments.
5) Carla Bruni's voice has become an absolute disappointment: if before it was warm, enveloping, distinctive, now it appears quite poor and almost masculine.
6) Absence of personality: in "Quelqu'un m'a dit," there was the influence of the chanson française, revisited in an enjoyable and personal way. Here, Bruni has added a bit of Joni Mitchell here, a bit of Cat Power there, and Ani Di Franco all around, but she cannot find the talent of the three mentioned singer-songwriters.
Only "Those Dancing Days Are Gone" (unsurprisingly, the first and only single) and the short but somewhat intense track "Autumn" are redeeming. The true rating of the album would be 1.5, but I'll give it a 2 for Bruni's beauty (and no one will disagree with me here...) and out of faith, hoping she rediscovers her passion for music and doesn't use it as a mere pretext to churn out more money. Because after all, Carla, I love you...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Promises Like Pie Crust (02:33)
Promise me no promises
So will I not promise you
Keep we both our liberties
Never false and never true
Let us hold the die uncast
Free to come as free to go
For I cannot know your past
And of mine what can you know?
You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass
And the fortune is not told
If you promised, you might grieve
For los liberty again
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain
Let us be the friends we were
Nothing more but nothing less
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess
10 Ballade at Thirty Five (03:03)
This, no song of ingénue
This, no ballad of innocence
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever the natural bents
This, a solo of sapience
This, a chantey of sophistry
This, the sum of experiments, --
I loved them until they loved me
Decked in garments of sable hue
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents
Wearing shower bouquets of rue
Walk I ever in penitence
Oft I roam, as my heart repents
Through God's acre of memory
Marking stones, in my reverence
"I loved them until they loved me."
Pictures pass me in long review, --
Marching columns of dead events
I was tender, and, often, true
Ever a prey to coincidence
Always knew I the consequence
Always saw what the end would be
We're as Nature has made us -- hence
I loved them until they loved me
Princes, never I'd give offense
Won't you think of me tenderly?
Here's my strength and my weakness, gents -
I loved them until they loved me
11 At Last the Secret Is Out (03:09)
At last the secret is out
As it always must come in the end
The delicious story is ripe to tell
To tell to the intimate friend
Over the tea-cups and into the square
The tongues has its desire
Still waters run deep, my dear
There's never smoke without fire
Behind the corpse in the reservoir
Behind the ghost on the links
Behind the lady who dances
And the man who madly drinks
Under the look of fatigue
The attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story
There is more than meets the eye
For the clear voice suddenly singing
High up in the convent wall
The scent of the elder bushes
The sporting prints in the hall
The croquet matches in summer
The handshake, the cough, the kiss
There is always a wicked secret
A private reason for this
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Other reviews
By Adil
In No Promises there's a feeling that the initial recklessness has become nothing but calculation.
Carla has probably taken the notorious 'step longer than the leg,' quite the irony for a model.
By Lesto BANG
Promises, promises... but doesn’t deliver!
An absolutely useless album that will end up in the musical oblivion in less than 1 month.
