Tobias Sammet is one of those people in metal music that never fail to piss me off. After releasing four albums with his band Edguy in which each album is better than the previous he goes out on a side project and writes a metal opera, which in my opinion eclipses even his brilliant work with his full time band. So why does he piss me off? Well to put it mildly I am slightly jealous. It seems unfair to have this much songwriting talent at his young age while others (mainly me) have trouble writing one decent f**king song.
Avantasia is an album that has been out for quite awhile in Europe and is being released here in the US on July 10. I am sure many of you have already heard about all the guest musicians on this album and the fact that it is basically a who's who of the power metal genre (names like Kiske, Hansen, DeFeis, Matos, Tolkki among others) is very impressive in itself. It just goes to show the amount of respect that Tobias has in the music scene if he can get all these people together and help him out with this recording.
This is a concept album in which Tobias has done something a little differently than most when having guest vocalists. In most cases certain songs are written for certain vocalists but in this case he has written actual characters for them and when that character has a part that vocalist will sing no matter what song it is in (just like a real opera…imagine that…heh). This adds a lot to the flow of the album keeping the feel of it as one piece rather than a bunch of disjointed songs put together.
The music is just what you would expect, power metal done at a very high level with above average musicianship, very catchy songs with high flying choruses, a lot of variation in the song structures and incredible vocals. I could find absolutely nothing bad to say about this album and it has quickly become one of my favorite releases of this year.
Any fan of power metal will absolutely love this album considering that for the genre it really doesn't get any better than this. Highly Recommended.
Track by track
Prelude (Intro)-N/R
Reach out for the Light-9.5
Serpents in Paradise-9
Malleus Maleficarum (interlude)-N/R
Breaking Away-9
Farewell-10
The Glory of Rome-8.5
In Nomine Patris (interlude)-N/R
Avantasia-9
A New Dimension (interlude)-N/R
Inside-8
Sign of the Cross-9.5
The Tower-9
