Revolution Renaissance
Trinity

Third and final album for the super combo recruited by Timo Tolkki after his decisive departure from Stratovarius: the year of the Lord is 2010, and the personnel is composed of: obviously the Finn Timo Tolkki on guitar, Brazilians Gus Monsanto on vocals and Bruno Agra on drums, the Swedish ex-Hammerfall Magnus Rosén on bass, and the Greek Bob Katsionis from Firewind on keyboards: a very cosmopolitan band, no doubt, but unfortunately, the result does not live up to the names involved...

The album indeed always moves on the usual power metal clichés, starting with the horrible opening track "marching with the fools", passing through very bland pieces like "a lot like me" and "crossing the rubicon". We might have a glimpse of brilliance with "world doesn’t get to me" and the intro of "dreamchild" that leaves hope but loses its way, as they say in these cases. The good Timo in this album is out of shape both at the compositional level and regarding his legendary solos, so much so that often he even stops while playing, not knowing what to do next (at least that’s how it seemed to me, personal opinion). The title track is a long piece of over ten minutes, introduced by a female speech, then continuing with throbbing basslines, redundant keyboards, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and Monsanto’s velvety singing, followed then in a more "powerful" way without ever startling the listener, probably already asleep in their chair or sofa, as they choose, despite the loud music. The final solo and the conclusion are also terrible, paradoxically IDENTICAL to that of "revolution renaissance", in the album new era, always by Tolkki. In short, yet another self-plagiarism... The album closes with the ballad "Frozen winter heard", neither good nor bad.

In conclusion, we fully understand why the Finnish helmsman decided to dissolve the group after this album: ideas had indeed run out long ago, the desire to play together among the various members, too, and the album's sales charts dealt the final blow. It remains as a note "of color" Timo’s strange ability to found and "exhaust" a group in the span of just three albums and two years of work... With the following group, "Symphonia", he will do worse, in terms of longevity, but that’s another story...