New Day Has Come

Personnel includes: Celine Dion (vocals); Dorian Cheah (guitar, violin); Michael Thompson, Paul Jackson Jr (guitar); Felipe Elgueta, Simon Franglen, Guy Roche (programming); Chantal Kreviazuk, Richard Page, Sam Watters, Mary Griffin, Sue Ann Carwell, Yvonne Williams, Joey Diggs, John Stoddast (background vocals).
Producers include: Ric Wake, Gerald De Palmas, Robert "Mutt" Lange, Simon Franglen, Anders Bagge.
This album represents Celine Dion's return to recording after a lengthy hiatus (nobody ever believed that "retirement" guff) taken to spend time with her family. As such, the aptly titled A NEW DAY HAS COME finds everybody's favorite French Canadian diva audibly reveling in her return to the vocation for which she was born. The title track finds Dion's elegant voice resplendent amid a pool of twinkling synthesizers, full of energy and joy. "Right in Front of You" opens with some attention-grabbing violin-sawing before giving way to a Euro-synth sound that falls halfway between power ballad and dance tune a la Cher. There's no question about the balladic nature of "Have You Ever Been in Love," it's the kind of heart-on-sleeve tune Dion's big, soaring voice was made for. Elsewhere, Dion stretches out a bit, touching on R&B with "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)" and a poignant version of Eden Ahbez's standard "Nature Boy," but that familiar vocal stamina is consistent throughout A NEW DAY HAS COME.