I've got You there, come oooon, You totally didn't expect me to review it after the last terrible album that I didn't even bother touching here!
I didn't plan this, but I've got a request. And since the album is on Spotify I guess I can give it a try. Will it piss me off beyond the horizon or worse- I will like it? Let's have a look
Closer To An Animal - outro is a piece of shit, the song lacks power and is probably one of the worst openers for power metal albums. Then again, I didn't care enough to check if the band still thinks they play Power metal.
Life- again, silent vocals and loud background, bad rhyming, when the guitars enter with shallow riffing vocals are close to impossible to hear, in chorus it gets better but for a few seconds we can't hear shit. Most important part is that vocals appear to be trying a bit during the chorus.
Guitars in Sonata Arctica are terrible, for once I can understand stupid comments like "Jani come back", because he wouldn't allow anyone to write that crap for guitars. Solos are decent, but pushed behind way too far. Excuse me, do you know what solo means?
Tony: oi, Pasi, the solos are coming! You know what to do, right?
Pasi: sure thing boss! *puts orchestrations even louder*
If the symphonic elements were on levels from Days of Grays I would look the other way, but the background is also fucking poor.
The worst part is that the song is rather catchy, build is interesting and the cheesy and dumb lyrics are fitting the rest. So much wasted potential in 5 minutes.
Life is better alive
Actually, with music like that I prefer to be dead. Or better- undead, braindead but still moving. Kinda like Sonata Arctica.
Fairytale is something new, and start's ok with a lot of symphonic elements before, whoa, being somehow "heavy". But don't worry- my hopes for Sonata Arctica being good&heavy died years ago, I know how to hold my excitement.
There again, the track isn't bad, a bit confusing and unpredictable on the first listen, lack of power in vocals is also hearable. But the song has an oldschool ring to it. Solos are also here and guitars don't sound bad. Keys have an interesting part after the solo. Chorus is sadly weird in a bad way.
Outro is also weird, but works.
We Are What We Are starts slow, is a ballad with my style shitty rhyming, but overall it's sounds very good, I didn't see that one coming. Both background and the front is kept interesting, even with the slow tempo. Vocals are good here, I also can't say anything bad about the mix.
Till Death's Done Us Apart is another Zeros, it's weird, kinda fast paced but the best are the vocals, that show that Tony can still give a good performance. It only confuses me more why he sung so many tracks like shit before it. Guitars are ok, mixing actually is ok too. Oh wait, no, it isn't, the last 30-40 seconds are a mess.
See, this is my problem with the band- it was always inconsistent as fuck when it comes to style, but at least mixing was almost flawless. Now it's just as shaky as the quality of vocals.
Among The Shooting Stars is a slightly faster ballad than We Are What We Are, again it's pretty good, Tony is doing his best, the mixing isn't terrible too. It's 2 minutes shorter than the last track, but it's much easier to listen to, so it feels like it's 3 times shorter.
Rise A Night starts fast and powerful, but the keys are quite annoyingly high, and vocal tempo almost immediately ruin all the power in the track, the "find the light" is sung without any power whatsoever. Solos are ok, but the parts after are confusing, as the tempo slows down, killing all the catchy vibe I had when the song started.
Fly, Navigate, Communicate starts slowly with "sad" Tony's vocals, the rest is kind weird and surprising. The build is interesting and it's hard for me to decide if I like the track or not- I will give it another try later. The most important is that vocals and mixing are good. Definitely the most interesting and experimental track Sonata Arctica released since Days of Grays material, made me buy this album during the review. Yes, I said many times that I won't buy it, but so far I'm enjoying it more than I hate it, and I really didn't expect that.
Candle Lawns starts strong, with good guitars (what the fuck?), before it goes into another ballad. 3 on the same album? Actually I don't mind, since they are all very well made, Tony is singing nicely and mixing isn't an issue here. Also after terrible, awful, disgusting "Love" on Pariah Child it's a really nice thing. Like, trust me, I thing it's the most appreciated thing on this album for me.
Time for a big one, over 10 minute long monster White Pearl, Black Oceans, Pt. II -"by the Grace of the Ocean". Normally I would make fun of a long title like that, but I know by heart Part I of this song, I can sing it 100% correctly even though last time I saw the lyrics was in like 2008.
It's a game changer- if they do it right I might still be a fan, if not then they stay dead to me.
First 90 seconds are a very good intro, then the vocals come in. First thing I notice that everything is much softer and fairytale-like compared to the epic original. But in 2:51 vocals finally strike with good power, and add some of the longed epicness before it goes soft again. Tiny bit heavier guitars enter in 4:19, bad mixing appears with vocals being pushed slightly behind the guitars, but still maintains enough power to breakthrough. Still a minus though, it could be made so much better with a little work. Guitar solo is good, the best on the album, keys also don't disappoint BUT they aren't loud enough. After the solos the track doesn't disappoint, but also doesn't leave You breathless like both Wildfire II and III. Outro is good though, less epic, but soft and calm like the majority of this track.
On The Faultline (Closure To An Animal) closes the album, and is a continuation of the opening track, but softer and slower. Basically a fourth ballad on this album. Lyrics are top here, and it all fits as an outro of the album after White Pearl.
Run To You is a bonus track, I don't count it in a review. It's mediocre anyway, nothing interesting.
This album is far from perfect, it has issues with vocals and mixing there and there. There are no faster, catchy and simple tracks, the ones we loved on almost every album to this point. Guitars also have a various quality. Song placement on the album could be a lot better, but with that outro song I kinda understand why they open the album like that.
But it pains me to say that the album is good. It's flawed, but I found a long lost enjoyment while listening to it. Ballads are strong, White Pearl, Black Oceans didn't disappoint my extremely high expectations. I didn't have lyrics in front of me but by ear they sound very good, even if silly at times. Much less stupid and crazy ideas from Pariah Child here, and the ones that are here mostly work.
Closer To An Animal, Life, Rise A Night are all bad tracks, potential there is wasted. But 3 out of 11 isn't that bad in an album as a whole.
If I was obsessed with symbolism I would say that the band went to shit just when my life went bad as well, and since now I'm doing much better than in 2014 Sonata Arctica is as well. It's a funny thing, and only makes it all much more personal.
I still think that the band could do so much better, if someone had a control over Tony's acting, his vocals are also unstable and he forgot or can't sing with power, as he did in the past. But I see a spark of hope in this band, enough for me to buy an album and hope that the next one in a few years will be better.
Returning to this band is like returning to an ex girlfriend for me. You're reminded of all the good times you had together, everything you loved in her. But also it reminds you why it didn't work out, why it ended. And it all hurts, you are unable to give your trust again to that person, the past is sometimes too heavy to forget about it all and start again.
This is a perfect summary of my relation to that band. I probably won't see it live again, but who knows. I won't trust them to deliver good music as well. But for now I smile, the music is better than it was, and who knows? It might be a new start.
Summary:
Vocals: 5/10
Guitars: 8-/10
Keys: 9/10
Bass: 10=/10
Drums: 10/10
Additional score:
++ major improvement since the last album
++ strong lyrics
+ good cover art
+ good ballads
+ White Pearl, Black Oceans have a good continuation
= = mixing ruins a lot of stuff, could be easily avoided
= vocals disappoint too many times with the lack of power
- some ideas didn't work out
Total score: 82,5% , should be lower in a classic 100% scale, but my scores don't matter anyway
I won't post any links here because the content on Youtube sucks balls, check out Spotify instead
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