A Grand Idea
Mr D. | Cave Creek, Az United States | 10/18/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I read a review the other day, on another website, that pretty much trashed this album. Taking exception to much of what this reviewer said, I prioritized the completion of this review. What is better than having a famous female guest singer on your new album? Why having two, of course and what's better than that? You Guessed it, having three lovely talented singers must be musical Shang-ri-la. If you like great female singing, you would have to be crazy not to love this album. Beto Vazquez must be really convincing or have some pull because he managed to get three top European divas to guest on this album - Candice Night (technically she's from Long Island NY) from Blackmore's Night as in Ritchie Blackmore as in Rainbow and Deep Purple along with Sabine Edelsbacher of Edenbridge and last but not least Tarja Turunen, the fabulous lead singer of Nightwish! And that's not all, He also enlisted Fabio Lione from Rhapsody and others and Statovarius's drummer Jorg Michael. What an all star lineup was assembled for this wonderful album that some categorize as Power Metal. To me, it's not even close to Power Metal. It seems to be a little Medieval Folk, a lot of Symphonic Metal but all and all pretty mainstream The music itself is well written and well played and what little male vocals there are are clean. Not surprisingly Tarja's songs remind me of Nightwish and Candice's songs remind me of Blackmore's Night but is that bad? As I said, the music is melodic somewhat symphonic with a hint of mysticism aka middle ages. I don't usually pay that much attention to lyrics but in this case I think they are exceptional Tarja solos on the first and third tracks and joins Sabine on the second and ninth tracks. The fourth through eighth tracks consist of a suite called Voyagers of Time consisting of two instrumentals and three songs that feature my sweetheart, Candice. All three Divas sing in the tenth track and Fabio Lione solos on the last. Conclusion I think this was a very successful project and I'd like to see Beto do it again. I rate this album in the high 4s This really is fairly mellow, something that almost anyone can get a kick out of unless you're exclusively into genres like Thrash, Electronica, Industrial, Hip Hop, extreme Death and Black Metal and Punk. Similar Artists: Blackmores Night?, Nightwish?, Adagio, Kamelot"
Beautiful!
Matt Stoessel | Tolland, CT USA | 05/17/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"A lot of you who have found this album probably know something about it. Its not a super-special album when considering the instrumentalists. But, when you consider that Jorg Michael of Stratovarius is on drums, and the vocalists are Fabio Lione of Rhapsody (1 song), Sabine (what's her face) of Edenbridge (4ish songs), the singer from Richie Blackmore's Rainbow, or something like that, and Tarja Turunen of Nightwish, this is an amazing album. I find this to be a very exciting album. Keyboards fill this album. They (the keyboards) are sort of strange, but powerful. Of all the bands that the people listed above come from, the keyboards sound the most like that of Edenbridge. The quality of Jorg's drums is amazing, but... its so weird to hear him play so slow! He was playing such fast songs with Stratovarius! The order the singers appear in is cool, too. Track 1: Tarja. 2: Sabine. 3: Fabio. 4: Tarja. 5: (instrumental, I think.) 6: Sabine... I think... I'm really not sure past here. Sabine sings the most, and this other American singer isn't that bad and sounds the most like Sabine of the 3 girls. Track 8 is probably the heaviest and is instrumental. The only thing that isn't varied in this album is the speed. Each song is pretty slow. There are flutes and acoustics in this. In fact, if I counted everybody right, 15 people contributed in the playing of this album. That's a lot! This is a very melodic, symphonic, atmospheric, and PEACEFUL album. Don't go off calling this "progressive" - I don't think it is. It doesn't have the dull keyboards to make it prog. The only problem with this album is that I don't think Jorg is the right drummer. His drums seem too clean for this kind of sound. His style belongs with power ballads and fast-paced bass songs, in my opinion. I honestly wouldn't recommend this to anyone. If you love these singers or Jorg Michael, then go ahead. If you love very soft music (of course this is still metal), then this is the album for you. But if you're into power metal like Hammerfall, Dream Evil, or Gamma Ray, this most likely won't please you. When you get the time, please go read some of my other reviews and say if they were helpful to you or not. Thanks."
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1
