Let's admit it. Nobody else's voice sounds like Karen Matheson's does. Mesmerizing, that's the word. Saying that Capercaillie are Karen Matheson would be too much, ok, but what would they be without her? Nothing, more or less, just like the Sundays without Harriet Wheeler, the Cranberries withouth Dolores O'Riordan or, say, Texas without Sharleen Spiteri. "Beautiful Wasteland" (album number eight, if you consider Karen Matheson's "The Dreaming Sea") confirms all this. It's a collection of poor songs, which would easily fall into oblivion's darklands, were not there Karen to give them a touch of magic. Mixing the Celtic and the Mediterranean cultures - maybe staring at Hale-Bopp - in one album was not a bad idea, and the band have already proved to be good at it, but "Beautiful Wasteland" turns out to be just a makeshift work, falsely evocative and poorly arranged. Capercaillie failed to turn into melody the poetry of the nature they plunged themselves into (Andalucia, Spain) and neither the touch of Calum Midas Malcolm's mixing hands, nor Karen's silvery voice can save "Beautiful Wasteland" from being a pale shadow of what it should've been: a soundtrack for our dreams. The chance was beautiful, but it's been absent-mindedly wasted. Maybe this is what the title refers to. What a shame.