Stratovarius Community

Is there anyone that have heard something new from timo tolkki
I miss him and the great music that he have done.
without him strato shouldent have become this popular.
Maybe jens have heard something?

Well, in 2014 he pulled out a not so great Avalon II and also a pretty good Allen/Lande album, if you missed those two. He also did not seem to engage in any internet fights, so I suppose that dude is doing fine))

Yes I got avalon albums

is true that its been a while since timo did something to talk about (i mean outside music) so I also guess he is out there doing fine, maybe he did start his pottery store

Avalon seems to be over though. The site has been down for moths now and Frontiers doesn't want to comment on the project.

rikkertje wrote:Avalon seems to be over though. The site has been down for moths now and Frontiers doesn't want to comment on the project.

damn! were the sales of that album that bad? those are bad news as I enjoy a lot metal operas, except for that ayeron stuff that I just dont get.

Wasn't there a forum?... I haven't been there in like ages

adrian9 wrote:

rikkertje wrote:Avalon seems to be over though. The site has been down for moths now and Frontiers doesn't want to comment on the project.

damn! were the sales of that album that bad? those are bad news as I enjoy a lot metal operas, except for that ayeron stuff that I just dont get.

Funny to see how different people think of these metal/rock opera-things. I aboslutely love Ayreon and don't like the Avalon kind of albums.

But yeah, OT, I guess the seond album sold very bad. Can't think of another reason why this project would be cut off early. TT seemed to be doing fine lately.

adrian9 wrote:

rikkertje wrote:Avalon seems to be over though. The site has been down for moths now and Frontiers doesn't want to comment on the project.

damn! were the sales of that album that bad? those are bad news as I enjoy a lot metal operas, except for that ayeron stuff that I just dont get.

The first album was very good but the second was a huge dissapointment!

No news is bad news

that is the common conception, but with TT I think I prefer no news, he needs to rest a while to recharge batteries a to find new ways to present music , if you guys remember when stratovarius and he split up he was the first to present music, in fact he has done more albums than strato guys, the amount of work is crazy.

adrian9 wrote:that is the common conception, but with TT I think I prefer no news, he needs to rest a while to recharge batteries a to find new ways to present music , if you guys remember when stratovarius and he split up he was the first to present music, in fact he has done more albums than strato guys, the amount of work is crazy.

3 RR albums
one "rock" opera (saana)
2 Avalon
Allen/Lande

Stratoviking wrote:No news is bad news

Well, the Allen/Lande-album is pretty new isn't it?

Rage1979 wrote:

adrian9 wrote:that is the common conception, but with TT I think I prefer no news, he needs to rest a while to recharge batteries a to find new ways to present music , if you guys remember when stratovarius and he split up he was the first to present music, in fact he has done more albums than strato guys, the amount of work is crazy.

3 RR albums
one "rock" opera (saana)
2 Avalon
Allen/Lande

You forgot Symfonia.

illusion23 wrote:

Rage1979 wrote:

adrian9 wrote:that is the common conception, but with TT I think I prefer no news, he needs to rest a while to recharge batteries a to find new ways to present music , if you guys remember when stratovarius and he split up he was the first to present music, in fact he has done more albums than strato guys, the amount of work is crazy.

3 RR albums
one "rock" opera (saana)
2 Avalon
Allen/Lande

You forgot Symfonia.

I did! Thanx, well that is a lot

Still no word of what he's been up to?

Avalon II has been growing on me once I took out the Rise of the Fourth Reich from my phone.

SentineLEX wrote:Still no word of what he's been up to?

Avalon II has been growing on me once I took out the Rise of the Fourth Reich from my phone.

And after thet the Allem/Lande-album..

Rage1979 wrote:

SentineLEX wrote:Still no word of what he's been up to?

Avalon II has been growing on me once I took out the Rise of the Fourth Reich from my phone.

And after thet the Allem/Lande-album..

And that one was great as well, although none of the offiial Tolkki pages seem to have been updated ever since April of last year...

Guy deserves a break to gather his thoughts and ideas, but not even a word of "Doing X in city Y with Z amount of booze" or something along those lines...

I heard he is a Buddhist monk now and moved to a cave in the Himalayas.

From what I've gathered from some people on Facebook who know him personally, his wife ditched him and his marriage had been fucked up for around a year now (possibly because of the Doro situation?). And he's fucking broke too (according to these people on Facebook).

So, I'm guessing things are not so hot for him right now.

well...that sucks

Star_Ocean wrote:From what I've gathered from some people on Facebook who know him personally, his wife ditched him and his marriage had been fucked up for around a year now (possibly because of the Doro situation?). And he's fucking broke too (according to these people on Facebook).

So, I'm guessing things are not so hot for him right now.

For some time ago StudioTolkki was on sale. I don't remember the exact price but it wasn't much. If I remember correct it was some few thousand euros.

Guess there won't be any Avalon III then

This is sad, Tolkki is awesome and his music will be missed. I really enjoyed symfonia as I felt it was the perfect return to format for him. It had great catchy power metal songs and evoked a strange feeling similar to that of infinite albeit a bit more melancholy. it was tolkki at his most honest musically. I didn't care as much for the avalon albums, they were kind of boring lyrically and felt contrived. It is my hope that tolkki picks up his guitar and writes some straight up honest music like he used to.

adrian9 wrote:

rikkertje wrote:Avalon seems to be over though. The site has been down for moths now and Frontiers doesn't want to comment on the project.

damn! were the sales of that album that bad? those are bad news as I enjoy a lot metal operas, except for that ayeron stuff that I just dont get.

The first one had some fans, but didn't really make a huge impact. The second one was nearly universally reviled. You know how much of a joke a site like Dangerdog is when an album is so bad it gets the project cancelled, and they post this review: http://www.dangerdog.com/2014-music-rev ... TKAkyHBzGc

Look who's back and honestly i'm glad

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/timo-t ... erina-nix/

Wow, what a huge steaming pile of shit that is.

She's hot. I expect nothing from this album, but deep inside I want it to succeed.

Sexy! Nix looks nice too.

Predictions:
1. I'm Alive - Typical Visions B-side
2. Dangerous Game - More ploddy mid-tempo track
3. One Drop of Blood - Poppy single
4. Seraphim - Ballad. I'm 100% sure of this. Every Tolkki record since Fourth Dimension (except Infinite, Age of Aquarius, Trinity and Angels of the Apocalypse... Episode (Episode) and Requiem (Intermission) aren't but they're relatively slow and calm songs as well) has had a ballad in the #4 slot. 20 years, 12/16 records with a ballad. I'm calling it now.
5. From the Stars - something along the lines of Stargate Atlantis
6. A Little too Late - another mid-tempo poppy song
7. Passionflow - Ballad
8. Dead Memories - The heaviest song on the album
9. Please Don't Tell Me - Ballad, poppier than #7
10. Right Now - ....This is my least sure prediction. The name and positioning don't say much about it. Let's say something poppy.
11. The Point of No Return - the album's epic. I'll call it in at 9 minutes.

I think I've got Tolkki's formula down pat by now, I'd love to see how close I come with this.

EDIT: Actually watched the video! So the first song is actually the single, but my predictions for #2 and #6 seem to be on the mark. 2 for 3 so far

warrencurrymetal wrote:This is sad, Tolkki is awesome and his music will be missed. I really enjoyed symfonia as I felt it was the perfect return to format for him. It had great catchy power metal songs and evoked a strange feeling similar to that of infinite albeit a bit more melancholy. it was tolkki at his most honest musically. I didn't care as much for the avalon albums, they were kind of boring lyrically and felt contrived. It is my hope that tolkki picks up his guitar and writes some straight up honest music like he used to.

I actually felt the same way about Trinity. It's like, Revolution Renaissance was on its way to stepping out of Stratovarius's shadow - they had their own thing going, the other members got some songs in, and Trinity had a lot of songs that would've been really great live! Also the solos on that album were truly kickass.

I'm a big fan of In Paradisum as well, and I'd actually say it forms a trinity (lol) with Trinity and Infinite. IP is the lightest and most hopeful, then it descends to Infinite which is still happy but pessimistic, and then to the darkest of the three, Trinity. The title tracks of the three are also very similar, using the same violin ostinato (you can hear this towards the end of all three songs), and I actually like how the three are related.

But it's kinda sad that both RR and Symfonia got canned. With Avalon, it seemed perfect because Tolkki could swap members in and out, but he's not the greatest storyteller, and with multiple singers the whole thing starts to sound mish-mashy and incoherent. It's like the RR demo vs. New Era - partly because Jens's keys were on point and Timo has a voice that neither Pasi Rantanen nor Tobias Sammet can match, but the Stratovarius RR demo sounds much better as a record than New Era.

The ostinato:
On Infinity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5V8niow0EA&t=8m31s
On Trinity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNVN15STuJg&t=8m50s
On In Paradisum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7PMdVxUirQ&t=8m45s