Stratovarius
Stratovarius

Oh yes... there's nothing to be done, even the great ones fall. After 12 albums of unquestionable quality, the "Stratovarius," the undisputed masters of symphonic metal made in North Europe, release an album ("Stratovarius") that, to put it kindly, borders on the scandalous. Lacking in ideas, the album presents itself as much heavier than the others, losing much of the elements that over the years have made Mr. Tolkki & co. successful. This wouldn't be a negative thing, if only the loss of good elements coincided with the acquisition of equally positive new ideas.

The album opens with "Maniac Dance" which, after an intro reminiscent of Nintendo, kicks off with guitar riffs trapped between poorly conceived industrial and 80s heavy. The end result is at the very least annoying: 4 minutes and 34 seconds of a song that feels overly familiar and rehashed. "Fight!!!" is probably one of the very few successful tracks of the album, where we find slight hints of the glorious past poorly ruined by very annoying keyboards. A positive point is the very high and engaging vocal lines, in the best tradition of a great singer such as Timo Kotipelto. Track number 3 "Just Carry On," brings us back to the shores of the first song, presenting itself as an at the very least useless and poor song. The structure is also elementary and boring. We then move on to "Back To Madness," a song that could even be nice, if it wasn't ruined by a terrible pseudo-operatic male voice. But aside from this "small" problem and the drum and bass session that could have been better utilized, the song flows decently, characterized by quite decadent atmospheres and with a nice solo in the middle by Tolkki. "Gypsy In Me" begins once again with effects à la Nintendo 64 (the truly scandalous ones from games like Super Mario, to be clear), followed by a riff of predictable, shocking and annoying nature. The only saving grace is the voice of the talented Kotipelto. The next track "Gotterammerung (Zaenith Of Power)" gives us hope in the intro, but then due to a rather terrible chorus, it ruins itself in a scandalous way. "The Land Of Ice And Snow" presents itself as a very dull and ugly ballad, moving entirely on sappy and sad coordinates, which surely will not impress the listener.

The last two tracks are completely opposite; indeed, while track number 8 "Leave The Tribe" can be considered the best track of the bunch because it is well played and elegantly led by Tolkki's guitars, "United" falls once again into the most shocking and annoying anonymity. Ultimately, this represents everything I never wanted to hear from a band like Strato. The production is excellent, but this is not enough to lift the fate of an album that, unfortunately, can only be considered as the lowest point in the discography of Stratovarius. Failed under (almost) every aspect.