sly

I also listened to the grand echoes of "Lift Your Skinny Fists," an album that leads us to an otherworldly dimension where it's difficult to perform an 'autopsy and impossible to grasp an absolute meaning. Always filled with sidereal trips, old recordings, vitalistic explosions, strings and tribalism, children's laughter, astonishing hyperspaces. A music so deep and universal that it leaves us bewildered in its ability to immerse into an otherworldly dimension.
A bridge between the absolute and the infinite.

I adore them to madness, but this is their least successful work 3.5.

When Tristania and Theatre Of Tragedy, at the beginning of the century, along with their derivatives, began to abandon the romantic serenades that suited them so well, an exhausting hunt opened up for the possibility of finding their replacements. Even Napalm, the leader in the field, engaged in this search, and in 2003 published "Where Lovers Mourn" by the Swedes Draconian, a secret link between slowness and memory that on paper has all the requirements to satisfy all lovers of the genre. To be more precise, the angle from which to frame this calvarian music is closer to the canonical Doom Metal of Estatic Fear’s "Somnium Obmutum," even though they are not immune to external influences such as Gothic, where works like "Velvet Darkness They Fear" and even the distant tones of "Widow’s Weed" emerge strongly. Music for beautiful souls, enriched by the violin, which, however, is far from the visceral prominence of that played by The Sins Of Thy Beloved and the imposing and decadent style used by the early Tristania, but carries a touch of placid melancholy. This is complemented by choirs of rare angelic quality and the dual vocals, the female voice being clear and the male voice deep, singing verses of love poetry. Far from representing boredom and depression, it leans more towards a slight sadness, immersing us in the green of a forest and marble waterfalls, where lovers are born: In a rainbow of swaying trees and night sensations, small, trembling, staggering yet grand creatures fall hopelessly in love with each other. However, the platter presents a few minor flaws: Firstly, their proposal is only partly personal because at certain moments I thought more than once, "Wow, this track is just like one of Theatre Of Tragedy’s!" Additionally, by the end, a certain underlying repetitiveness makes an appearance, even though tracks like "The Cry Of Silence" or "The Silence" are stunning in their ability to convey autumnal feelings. They are certainly not just a mere carbon copy of the acts listed above and manage to touch excellent levels, even if the levels of excellence are still very far away.

Yes!! I finally listened to the new work of Sonata Arctica and I was sure I was facing a gift that couldn't betray me. In fact, I don’t understand the accusations of excessive difficulty in listening, since despite a certain elaboration I found it to be linear, and by the second day I had learned all the compositions (well, I have my own idea of what complicated means XD). Moreover, I found it to be an excellent work, more successful than “Unia,” which I ended up listening to only a little over time. Completely abandoning the epic visions typically associated with power metal (excluding the fourth track, which feels like an outtake from “Winterheart’s Guild”), we are presented with an almost theatrical and baroque opera that indulges more in Symphonic / Melodic Metal. Fantastic, dreamlike, and fairytale atmospheres peek through, accompanied by enchanted melodies skillfully created with their canonical trademarks, fairytale arrangements, and Kakko’s voice. Often to my ears, I seem to hear distant echoes of crystalline sensations akin to "Oceanborn." Our musicians put their heart and soul into the juicy title track, the touching “Dead Skin,” the folk dances of “Deathsura,” and the natural sounds of “Juliet.” Of course, the levels of “Silence” are far away, but not unreachable.