As a self appointed historian on the career of one Tobias Sammet, I can honestly say that the cumulative reaction to Avantasia’s tenth(!) studio album, Here Be Dragons, matches the divisiveness that was achieved by 2006’s The Scarecrow (aka the rebirth of the project from a studio only situation to an ongoing touring concern). Honestly, in some ways it surpasses the furor around that album if only because the bulk of the tumult around it’s release was largely negative towards the single “Lost In Space”, while the reaction towards the rest of The Scarecrow and it’s companion EPs was fairly enthusiastic, glowing even (the title track and cuts such as “Promised Land” and “The Story Ain’t Over” are rightfully considered classics today). Conversely, the discussion around the new album centers entirely upon the album as a whole, with wildly differing opinions, and an array of talking points both positive and negative. This has all been further inflamed not only by Sammet on social media defending lead single “Creepshow”, the most decidedly Edguy sounding song ever to grace an Avantasia tracklist — but by his retaliatory lyrics towards vocal fans of his older power metal style on “Return to the Opera”, a bonus track that is ironically enough being lauded by nearly everyone everywhere as the best song on the album. Oi vey, lets unpack all this.
First off, my thoughts on the album itself are confusing even for me, because on one hand, I really do love a lot of these songs, and yet, I find myself frustrated with their lack of explosiveness in the guitar department and in the overwhelming presence of layered keyboard orchestrations. Lets start with the title track, because despite being the second track on the album, it does admittedly feel like the first actual Avantasia tune on the album (we’ll talk about “Creepshow” in a bit) with a guest vocalist duetting alongside Sammet (Geoff Tate in this case). The chorus here is magnificent, one of the best on the album, arguably one of the strongest in the band’s discography as a whole, but I find myself only perking up when I feel it about to strike again. With the exception of a singular riff progression that serves as a far ahead of time prechorus, the rest of the verses are weighed down with a string of lone chords that fill in the space behind Tate or Sammet in uninspiring fashion. Things pick up in the bridge midway through, with a brisk tempo and a combining of voices on a uplifting melody, but at the 5:56 mark we’re deposited once again into this meandering nothingness. Its just so damn frustrating to not give this awesome chorus a long runway to soar off from… it reminds me of the atmospheric nonsense that sat in the middle of “The Scarecrow” when there should’ve been a ripping, Europower guitar solo in it’s place. Despite it’s faults however, “Here Be Dragons” is quintessential Avantasia, a song I keep coming back to for its regality and dramatic pomp and splendor.
While the aforementioned title track might claim the album’s best chorus, the best guest vocalist pairing surprisingly winds up being Tommy Karevik on “The Witch”. Its not even that Sammet wrote a very Kamelot-ian or Seventh Wonder-ish tune here like he did for Roy Khan back in the day on “Twisted Mind”, its more that Karevik is a bit of a chameleon as a singer, finding a way to fit into any style or song structure and maximize his moment. Honestly, he probably doesn’t get enough credit for this, because I can’t recall ever hearing a bad guest spot from him ever (even on some of the Ayreon stuff where I didn’t particularly enjoy the songwriting). This is a crisp, confident, and incredibly addictive tune wisely chosen as a single that echoes shades of “Dying For An Angel”, and it was a shrewd decision to allow Karevik to handle the first verse on his own, thereby giving the song a very different feel from the rest of the album where Sammet is usually taking the lead on things. Similarly on “Bring on the Night”, ole’ Bob Catley kicks off this power ballad (what else with Catley?) with an immediate vocal melody lead-in on the intro, and while there’s a deliberately overproduced 80’s version of this tune as a bonus track, this original version has washes of mid-80s Magnum in spades, which is rather fitting in a way given that band’s ultimate curtain call earlier last year. Its one of the better Catley centric songs Tobias has penned, easily my favorite since the 2016 Song of the Year “Restless Heart and Obsidian Skies” off Ghostlights
Slightly less in my esteem but certainly strong songs in their own right are “The Moorlands at Twilight” with Michael Kiske (Ernie for you old school fans) making his triumphant return to the project, as well as “Phantasmagoria” with the warrior himself Ronnie Atkins. I enjoy both songs a great deal, particularly the latter where Atkins’ rough, jagged vocals are right in their element on a song that sits in that Hellfire Club-ish power metal meets hard rock pocket. Kiske’s song is a companion piece to “Wastelands” off The Wicked Symphony, with some uptempo Euro-power at work, except this time spliced in with some latter day Avantasia eccentricities to prevent it from being straight ahead power metal. And finally Adrienne Cowan gets a turn on an album after doing some stints as Avantasia’s backing vocalist on tour, and she sounds fantastic on “Avalon”, which thankfully deviates from Sammet’s propensity to relegate women guest vocalists in the past to power ballads. Cowan gets to utilize her throaty belting voice here, the kind she wielded so effortlessly on spectacular Seven Spires tunes such as “Succumb” and “In Sickness, In Health” (maybe Sammet got inspired after duetting with her on “Reach Out For the Light” in place of Kiske on tour). I think that “Against the Wind” is a decent song in it’s entirety (though H.E.A.T.’s Kenny Leckremo is lost as a guest vocal here), but it has the honor of having one of the best moments on the album, with Sammet addressing his critics for the first time on an Avantasia album directly, “If you don’t like what I do / then it’s not made for you”. Finally the Freddy Mercury/Queen tinged “Everybody’s Here Until the End” is a fine album closer, a semi power ballad with a deft chorus, although relegating Roy Khan to a mere spoken/sung passage in the middle seems like a waste of talent.
That leaves us album opener “Creepshow” and the decidedly metallic “Unleash the Kraken” as the final songs here to discuss, and they’re of particular interest in the sense that there are no guest vocalists on both tracks, just Sammet himself. So lets talk about the latter first, because I actually think its an awesome tune and reminds me a ton of something like “Under the Moon” from Hellfire Club, or given the balls to the wall nature of the chorus, “Nailed to the Wheel” from Mandrake, both songs from Edguy albums by the way if you didn’t catch that. I genuinely feel in listening to this tune that it could have fit into the tracklist of either of those albums, and that’s ironic given Sammet’s own insistence on not returning to his power metal roots. Then there’s the flashpoint song in all discussions about this album, “Creepshow”, which sounds like it could have been an Edguy b-side from the Space Police era. It is easily the most middling of all the songs on an otherwise strong Avantasia album. Repetitive, simplistic, and intended as such according to Sammet in its aim, as he explained: “It’s short and catchy, and it emphasizes a facet of my work that has taken a backseat in my music in recent years. It’s light-hearted and the opposite of melancholic. And it’s fresh, boisterous and unabashed – a straightforward kick-ass anthem.” He even admits to it sounding like something from the past, stating “…even though it may seem like a reminiscence of my earlier writing, I think we managed to turn the whole thing into a trademark Avantasia tune…“. Hmmm, I’m not sure how it sounds characteristically like Avantasia, given the lack of other voices — after all, even “Lost in Space” for all its simplified pop-rock sonics had Amanda Somerville adding her vocals into the mix.
So I get where fans are a little confused by this album and Sammet’s mixed messaging both from his running social media soapbox on Facebook and Instagram where he is often vocal about his chosen musical path and sticking to his guns (and real talk, I respect him for his stance at least, though I question his need to declare it all the time), and also from within the context of the album itself. Its not just those two songs sounding like old Edguy that are prompting this confusion either, its the reality that the intentional Metal Opera era throwback bonus track “Return to the Opera” is being declared by many fans as the album’s best song. I disagree… only slightly however, because this is a banger of an old school power metal cut, built on the same DNA that informed all those classic late 90s/early 2000s Edguy and Avantasia records that we all look back so fondly upon. The lyrics of this song are self-explanatory, a mea culpa to fans clamoring for the past and also a plea for them to shut up finally… and I’d be on Sammet’s side 100% if he weren’t so goddamned great at writing stuff like this. Seriously, I have replayed this bonus track over and over again just for the sheer joy it brings me, even though I realize its a bit a joke track. He has said in interviews recently (and even alludes to this within the lyrics of the song) that he enjoyed writing it, but if he had to write an entire album’s worth of songs just like it, it would be disheartening (or drive him to alcoholism given the “Betty Ford” references in the lyrics). I get that sentiment, but I’ll argue that the success in the ears of fans of “Return to the Opera” might work against his intentions in releasing it in the first place.
Thinking it all over, I find myself simultaneously thrilled by this album and frustrated with it. I love most of these songs for their melodies and some truly awesome guest vocal moments (Karevik is the MVP in this category), yet I wish it didn’t sound so pillowy soft in it’s production, and I wish some guests were utilized better such as Roy Khan. I think the heavily layered keyboards that adorn so much of this album end up stifling certain tunes that need a bit more space to breath and let the guitars or singular piano melodies rip (“Everybody’s Here Until the End” needs a bit more Meatloaf/Steinman sharpness and vigor for a start). I think the pendulum has swung too far into the direction of prog at times production wise, and there needs to be a little more Gamma Ray and a touch less Magnum in the overall approach during the mixing phase. And I’ll admit that Sammet’s dip back into older, both Metal Opera-ian and Edguy-ish styles on respective tracks has made me a little nostalgic. I long for more stuff like “Unleash the Kraken”, and really what that means is that I long for Edguy, something that’s not drenched in symphonics or theatrical drama like the past few Avantasia albums. It was a breath of fresh air, and I think many fans of both bands found themselves gratefully gulping it in and eagerly looking around for the next one. That its so brief is frustrating to some and bewildering to many. What exactly is Avantasia supposed to be… a Tobias Sammet solo vehicle, or a group project with a rotating cast of singers? He did well bringing in fresh voices to the mix this time in a substantive way, but maybe now its time to fully reimagine the sound of modern Avantasia into something else instead of repeating the formula of the past few albums.
It would be so easy to come at this project with an ample amount of cynicism and derision… expected even. A label/producer concocted “band” (the quotation marks for that piercing barb!) with four strikingly gorgeous female vocalists from the Euro/power metal scene, coming at you like the corset wearing version of 
The music itself is well executed, with just enough of a balance between heavy, crunching metallic rock riffs (think Within Temptation) and computer/keyboard generated symphonic elements, but that’s to be expected given the caliber of the pros behind the scenes. And these are covers in the most strict, traditional sense —- there’s no changing up the melodies, no musical deconstructions, no slowing down tempos, its really just these songs as you’ve heard them in their original states but painted with symphonic metal colored paint. Some might find that annoying, but these songs relied primarily on the vocal melody in their original state, and unless you have a skilled composer reworking entire song structures (ala Sonata Arctica’s Tony Kakko or Therion’s Christofer Johnnson, both accomplished at reworking cover versions), then its best that Exit Eden played it this way. I guess the real question here is do all the song choices lend themselves to this approach? The answer is unsurprisingly no, because there’s a few that fall flat, one being Adele’s “Skyfall” which for some reason features a guest drop-in by Simone Simons of Epica. I’m not sure why, but “Skyfall” loses some of its sly charm in Exit Eden’s version, though I’ll venture that its because their more straight ahead approach diminishes the dreamy, 2am blurred vision feel of the original. You could practically see Adele in a smoky-hazed bar, hunched over the mic in the corner, crooning away —- Exit Eden’s feels practically clinical in comparison. And I thought the bizarre song selection of Visage’s “Fade to Black”, which is just… well for lack of a better term, bizarre! Never was fond of the original myself, and I hoped this version would change my mind but sadly it has not.
The most daring experiment here (besides that Visage cover) is the opening cut, a challenging take on Depeche Mode’s dark, storming “Question of Time”. Now, I love Depeche Mode, and completely love that metal bands feel the same way and have responded throughout the years with some really 
Tony Kakko was a vocal magician that night, and a performer unlike any I had ever witnessed. He leapt and bounded across the stage with relentless energy, and threw himself into the lyrics with physical movements that mirrored or reacted to the words he was singing. His voice was accordingly sonorous, full, soaring, and capable of an impressive dexterity in adapting harmony laden lines to a solo vocal approach. When he needed us to help out on the choruses he directed our voices himself, and classics as such “Full Moon” and “Replica” felt like celebrations of power metal’s proclivity in creating joyful euphoria. Newer songs from albums that I had been critical of on this blog such as “Losing My Insanity” and “Blood” actually sounded better live, brimming with a vitality that I now associate with their studio versions. Even the dreaded “X Marks the Spot” was actually fun because Kakko simply sold it so well, his skill as a front man keeping me rapt with attention as he seemed to act out the lyrics. I was caught off guard in realizing that the song actually has a rather good chorus that I had seemingly blocked out before (my feelings on the studio version’s horrible dialogue still stand). I was even stunned that Kakko had the guts to perform such a naked ballad such as “Love” from the recent Pariah’s Child, but he somehow managed to convince a room full of some pretty convincing looking metal fans that it was okay to sway back and forth to a delicate, gorgeous, emotionally soaked song. I lingered long after the show, fan babbled to the Xandria guys a bit, and found myself not wanting to leave. As it always seems, magical nights like that are rare, and over far too quickly.
All these years later, its understandably difficult to remember just how strikingly different and fresh Ecliptica and its 2001 follow-up Silence sounded amidst that newly forming power metal resurgence. Sure the band were noticeably influenced by Stratovarius, but where their countrymen played it straight and safe with their take on European power metal, Sonata Arctica displayed a tendency to wildly lean in odd, unexpected directions —- both musically and lyrically. There was something quite charmingly naive and innocent about their approach, as if they were so enamored with their ability to create songs worthy of a record deal that they didn’t bother to pay attention towards sticking to standard genre rules. This was a very young band for starters (scarcely out of their teens), consisting of musicians all to eager to lean on speed and flashy solos, and they had the talent to pull it off, particularly long-departed guitarist Jani Liimatainen. Yet Sonata’s sound all started with the songwriting genius of Kakko himself, who throughout his career has displayed his knack for crafting indelible melodies with sharp hooks, and incredibly focused songwriting that flirted with a variety of tempos. He was a keyboardist, and his songs were built with that instrument serving as the framework for his songwriting, which also meant that melodies had to come first before riffs (often a hallmark of the most melodic of power metal bands). He’s of the same caliber of talent as his good friend Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish; or Tobias Sammett of Edguy/Avantasia; or Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian: All power metal songwriters who are masters of their craft to such an extent that they simultaneously define and defy the genre. In that regard, Kakko was both a trail blazer and someone who was practically impossible to copy.
As it turns out, Kakko was a lyricist of the Joe Elliot mold, he being the famed lead singer of Def Leppard. When I was a budding rock fan in the early nineties, I read an interview with Elliot where he admitted that his lyrics were pure fiction, despite his narrative perspective almost always being in the first person with seemingly autobiographical overtones. I know its not a revolutionary concept, and that many other bands have utilized such a lyrical strategy to ratchet up the tension and passion in their music (Journey comes to mind immediately), but Elliot was the first famous musician that I had ever read such an admission from. Reading it then was a bit of a revelation for me, and made me pay attention to lyric writing in rock music with greater attention, to not be so gullible, and to think about things like narration and perspective and diction in a new light. It made me pay greater attention to Metallica’s Load for example, while many upon its release were writing it off as a sell-out move towards alternative rock, I found myself thinking that it featured James Hetfield’s most thoughtful and resonant lyric writing. So it was with great surprise that I found myself hoodwinked by Kakko, who in the very first interview I had ever read with him revealed that his lyrics were purely fictionalized. Doh! This has of course carried on throughout his career, as he recently pointed out in a late September interview on the 
With all that in consideration, I think its okay for any of us to ask why the band is re-recording Ecliptica at all. Well, the short answer is that the aptly dubbed Ecliptica Revisited was done at the request of the band’s longtime Japanese record label, a request the band agreed to as a gesture of goodwill towards a company that had stuck by them since the beginning. Kakko has even commented publicly that the contract they signed for the release stipulated that the re-recording had to be 94% identical to the original release, essentially meaning that they couldn’t re-work the songs into transformed versions or acoustic strip downs. For Kakko, this stipulation not only made it easier for the re-recording to be completed, but helped him to contextualize this release as a simple tribute to the original, as well as a more accurate representation of how these songs are performed live today. Typically within the metal community regardless of subgenre, a re-recording is frowned upon, not only for the often cloudy nature of the reason for it’s existence but more for the larger threat it presents to the legacy of the original. Most of the opinions I’ve seen regarding Ecliptica Revisited seem to align with that way of thinking, and I certainly understand some fans’ puzzlement and frustration (although I think its a waste of energy to get up in arms over a release that clearly will not be replacing the original recording).
Fortunately the tempo downshift doesn’t hurt all the songs, in fact helping some songs to breathe easier and feel better paced. Cry heresy if you must but I actually find the vocal take on the re-recording of that eternal classic “My Land” far better than the original: Kakko’s enunciation and pacing is better, and the lyrics are more discernible as a result; I also love the alteration he made at 2:30 on the lyric “You can’t keep me away forever”, on the original that line only appears at the end and he doesn’t satisfyingly lean on the “forever” like he does here. I also really love what they’ve added to “Full Moon”, the intro is still as delicate and beautiful as it originally was, but the band gets heavier in the buildup to the galloping verses, giving the song a darker, stormier vibe. The chorus is as bright as ever though, and what I find so incredibly wonderful about Kakko’s vocal approach on it is that he seems to be reveling in its history as a fan favorite. I know its a subtle thing I’m trying to relay, but I hear it in the way he delivers that classic chorus with all its inherent poppiness in such a celebratory manner. Not surprisingly, its the balladry of “Letter to Dana” that benefits the most from the re-recording, with guitars multi-tracked in choice spots, better vocal phrasing, and a greater emphasis on making those lead guitars really capture the epic sweep in a Slash-esque way. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a misstep and a shame that they didn’t turn up the harpsichord effects at 4:25 —- that was such an epic moment in the original and although you can still faintly hear them underneath, they’re not nearly as goose bump inducing here. I also think “Destruction Preventer” comes off a little better here, as they sanded off all the rough edges (Kakko’s wildly high pitched yelps) and added layers of extra guitars and harmony vocals.