Album Review: Scarlett Affection - Forever Is A Long Long Time

There is no doubting the fact that the two women behind Scarlett Affection – sisters Melia and Nerida Naughton – complement each other beautifully. Both have powerful voices, the mesmerising kind that allows you to simultaneously feel their heartache, their longing and whatever else it may be that they are singing of.

What sets these sisters apart from other Australian female musicians of the same genre is their ability to work together. At times, they provide gentle vocal harmonies for one another while on other occasions their singing in unison allows the pair to produce stronger melodic lines than each could create on their own.

Their second release, Forever Is A Long Long Time, is a haunting and ethereal group of songs that is a little bit country, a little bit playful and mostly a collection of ballads that sing of pain, lost love and longing. Go Easy is one of the strongest songs on the album and is an example of raw and intimate emotion. The use of the piano in ballad This Time provides variety and is proof of Scarlett Affection's strength in creating quality, driving harmonies.

While it is an enjoyable listen, what this record lacks is variety. On its own, each tune is heartfelt, musically sound and well produced, but as an album, the collection is very similar, mostly in subject matter but also in sound. In this sense, it becomes hard to differentiate between each song and distinguish any real standouts.