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Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:01 pm
by Cristiane
I was reading some topics with people discussing about the changes they noticed on the new Strato album and I though it’d be interesting if we could post some magazines reviews here. It’s always good to read what specialized magazines has to say about band releases and I thought it’d be cool to share this review with you.
This is an authorized translation, since the magazine allowed me to translate and post it here.
If any other of you has another reviews to share it’d be cool too :-)


Stratovarius – idem – 9,0 from 10,0

Maybe the Stratovarius members should have passed through all the tribulations that have hit them on the last year to get back to work. Maybe Timo Tolkki had really to get near madness in order to make his band sound undoubtedly relevant once again. Although they weren’t bad, Infinite and both Elements denounced a band dangerously close to exhaustion, which was recording the very same album for the 4th or 5th time. They were competent jobs, no doubt about that, and very interesting in many aspects, but that repeated till exhaustion the cliches and solutions created by the band long time ago. In another words, Stratovarius was repeating itself – openly, by the way. And, as Jörg Michael himself admits on an interview in this same magazine, the band couldn’t keep the rest of its career re-recording Visions. Ok, they did it 3 or 4 times, but finally changed their path and saved their names reputation. Undoubtedly, Stratovarius is the most attractive album from this Finnish group in many, many years. The old cliche “it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good” here’s very well put. Because the band was almost done, but got recovered on time and came back to life with a heavy album, well done, different, no queerness and absolutely exciting.
Even though, don’t be deceived because this album has the Stratovarius mark, so it means the band got renewed but hasn’t lost its characteristics. What happens is that Stratovarius came back to be one of the most important and prominent bands in the super crowed power melodic metal scenery, position which might have been lost if the band kept on recording predictable albums, with never ending screams, neoclassical harmonies, tons of double bass, etc, etc, etc... but the band has changed. And for much, much better. Right on time!

Taken from Rock Brigade Magazine # 228

Rock Brigade (Português): http://www.rockbrigade.com.br
Rock Brigade (Castellano): http://www.rockbrigade.com.br/espanol
Rock Brigade (English): http://www.rockbrigade.com.br/english

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 6:24 pm
by Stratofanius
Quite funny, because when I was opening "stratovarius talk in english" I was wondering that should I start new topic about strato's new albums reviews. And when I saw this, I done like this: :shock:

http://www.pyromusic.net/index.php?p=re ... iew&id=477
Not very positive review... :?

This is not review, but Kotipelto defends their new direction:
http://www.metal-temple.com/news.asp?id=3145

Koti says there:
if he would have suggested in December doing songs that were the same shit like on ’’Elements Part 1’’ and ’’Elements Part 2’’ I would have told him ‘Fuck you, I don’t need this.’ I wanted to do something different.”
:P :wink:

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:15 pm
by IceBreaker
Heh, have you Fanius anything other to do than searching Strato-news nd reviews everywhere? :P :wink:

Anyway, I think that both of those reviews are good but someway not so positive. And the Kotipelto´s statement really was grinny, but also very understandable.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:15 pm
by stratoplayer
The simple answer is 'no'. The elaborate answer is 'while it doesn't reach the same highs a some of the better tracks on previous releases did, it does maintain a consistent level of quite acceptable quality from start to finish'. 'Stratovarius''s material is on-par with the non-standout tracks from the last few albums, but there is no 'Black Diamond', no 'Infinity', no 'Eagleheart', and no 'Stratofortress' to be found. No signature track that really makes a lasting impression.
that is not fair, what did he expect! i fell in love instantly with fight, maniac dance i have not heard nor any of the others. but this is strato a true blue metal band, not a commercial wimpy band! of course, they are not like black diamond, or eagleheart, they wanted to change and evolve, if this was the same as visions, i would agree completely!

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 12:19 am
by Elazul
I have to say that I would be delighted by a Visions II
or something like that :wink: because I love that music Style played by Strato.
I think there are enough good Heavy Metal Bands around.

I agree with the reviewers opinion that "a lot of the magic of old has long since drifted away in the wind"

Ok but first I´m waiting for the new album to make myself an image of the new Strato.

Cheers :D

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:15 am
by CottonCandy
The pyromusic.net review was not optimistic, but he admitted that he is hard to please. I do not pay any serious attention to reviews, good or bad. I just put faith in my own listening, and my opinion of what sounds good to me! :)

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:07 am
by stratoplayer
CottonCandy wrote:The pyromusic.net review was not optimistic, but he admitted that he is hard to please. I do not pay any serious attention to reviews, good or bad. I just put faith in my own listening, and my opinion of what sounds good to me! :)
very smart of you, i never go on a single (or several) reviews to tell me how to think and what to buy, what i got mad about is how he just states his opinion as being law and how he is telling you "there wont be any memorable classics, so dont get your hopes up" :x

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:56 am
by Pyro
I'm glad to see most of you taking my review with a grain of salt. As I said, I'm a tough guy to please (just for your info, as I write, my average review score, with well over 200 reviews written is 6.67) and at the end of the day this is a good album but it's far from great and Stratovarius are well past their glory days, and again, as my review states, if you're a big Strato fan you'll really enjoy this...and considering you're all members of the forum I can assume you're all big fans.

stratoplayer, to respond to your comments directly, I don't claim my opinion to be law, it's my opinion, simple as that. I'm a reviewer. That's what we do; share our opinions. If we have no right to state our opinions in reviews you could read 50 different reviews for the same album and they'd be identical and there's no fun in that.

If anyone has more direct questions drop me an email, I'm happy to answer them.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:34 pm
by Stratofanius
IceBreaker wrote:Heh, have you Fanius anything other to do than searching Strato-news nd reviews everywhere? :P :wink:
I really want to know what they like of new album. And yes, I have many other things to do but that is what I want to do :roll: I like reading reviews.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:36 pm
by Cristiane
CottonCandy wrote:The pyromusic.net review was not optimistic, but he admitted that he is hard to please. I do not pay any serious attention to reviews, good or bad. I just put faith in my own listening, and my opinion of what sounds good to me! :)
I know what you mean... but I think those reviews are not meant to tell if we should buy the album or not. Personally, I'd buy the album even if all reviews I read said the album is a total crap... even though I think it's useful to read such things since some of the reviewers are musicians as well and show us a professional view of what they're listening.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:44 pm
by stratoplayer
Pyro wrote:stratoplayer, to respond to your comments directly, I don't claim my opinion to be law, it's my opinion, simple as that. I'm a reviewer. That's what we do; share our opinions. If we have no right to state our opinions in reviews you could read 50 different reviews for the same album and they'd be identical and there's no fun in that.
its not so much what you said but how you said that really set me off, and i meant no offense whatsoever.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 6:43 pm
by CottonCandy
Stratofanius wrote:
IceBreaker wrote:Heh, have you Fanius anything other to do than searching Strato-news nd reviews everywhere? :P :wink:
I really want to know what they like of new album. And yes, I have many other things to do but that is what I want to do :roll: I like reading reviews.
Yes, so do I&they are actually just a person's opinion. We all could write a review of this album and I bet every single one would be different. DUH! :) Some would like MD, others not: some would like Fight,others Not: and so on!
So, we should not worry so much about reviews--these people have a right to an opinion, too whether we like it or not.
The important thing is how WE like it, right?

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:26 pm
by Reroute2Remain
Pyro wrote:I'm glad to see most of you taking my review with a grain of salt. As I said, I'm a tough guy to please (just for your info, as I write, my average review score, with well over 200 reviews written is 6.67) and at the end of the day this is a good album but it's far from great and Stratovarius are well past their glory days, and again, as my review states, if you're a big Strato fan you'll really enjoy this...and considering you're all members of the forum I can assume you're all big fans.
I think most people in general don't pay so much attention to reviews, its not just diehard fans of a band. So often I've read good reviews for shit that I thought sucked. And vice versa.

People who write the reviews often think theyre more important than they are :lol:

Of course if 10 out of 10 reviewers think something is just horrible, then thats probably a sign that something is very wrong :lol:

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:25 am
by pherai
I've actually heard the new album and although most of you are saying you don't pay much attention to reviews, I think its really good. It's obviously a step in a new direction for Stratovarius, but its the same band going this new direction. I think most of you will enjoy this new album, you just need to approach it with an open mind.

Re: Stratovarius reviews

Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2005 8:59 pm
by Patricia
Cristiane wrote:
CottonCandy wrote:The pyromusic.net review was not optimistic, but he admitted that he is hard to please. I do not pay any serious attention to reviews, good or bad. I just put faith in my own listening, and my opinion of what sounds good to me! :)
I know what you mean... but I think those reviews are not meant to tell if we should buy the album or not. Personally, I'd buy the album even if all reviews I read said the album is a total crap... even though I think it's useful to read such things since some of the reviewers are musicians as well and show us a professional view of what they're listening.
I second that.

And i think music is done for two things:
-To be played
-To be listened