Unlike Red Hot Chili Pepper’s ‘Stadium Arcadium’, or Angels & Airwaves ‘I-Empire’, at least this band isn’t delusional enough to see that their album blows hardcore. Stratovarius’ guitarist/producer Timo Tolkki said in an interview in April 2007 that “He didn’t like this album because it wasn’t their style at all, and it was made totally wrong”. That’s probably the album’s biggest merit. Not really being a fan of Stratovarius in the first place (Elements is just corny to me), I was reluctant to listen to Stratovarius self-titled album after a friend recommended it to me.

I start the opening track, ‘Maniac Dance’.

maniacdance.mp3

Huh? Whoops. They must’ve accidentally put the fucking Pacman soundtrack in this album. It sets the whole general vibe of the album: Shit.

‘Hunting High & Low’ is a good example of some crunching powerful keyboards from Stratovarius. The keys in this album are virtually inaudible in the mix, which might actually be a good thing.

The album is much more rock friendly and accessible than other works, particularly with features such as the lack of extended power metal soloing. Whereas Edguy made an awesome hard rock/hair metal influenced album (Rocket Ride) with non-cringing synths and original ideas (talk-box guitar solos), this abomination just misses the mark with wishing-to-be epic and inspirational lyrics like:

Just carry on
Fullfill your dreams
Don’t let them try to pull you down
So carry on
And reach your goal stand proud

Sounds like a typical ‘motivating’ speech your school principal gives you when you leave school. I feel motivated to skip songs.

“The Land of Ice and Snow”. I feared for my life just reading the title track, it just oozes with power-metal cliche. Trys to set a sad/acoustic yet hopeful mood, but the reek of cheese pierces through like a … piece of smelly cheese.

A more appropriate album cover.

Just glancing at the titles you know it’s gonna be a miserable failure. ‘Maniac Dance’? ‘Fight!!!’? ‘Just Carry On’? Incredibly generic. Already not being a fan of Timo K’s voice on ‘classic’ Strat albums, it’s just a notch even lower on their self-titled effort. Gotterdammerung, starts off with a pretty dark groovy intro, verse kicks in, but chorus time-oh jesus:

zenithofpower.mp3

A more appropriate chorus.

A crappy effort from a band I already didn’t expect much of. If you’re interested in a band leaving it’s key roots, Sonata Artica’s ‘Unia’ proves a changing success in my eyes.