Stratovarius - Eternal

Published September 15 2015

*=Staff's pick	My Eternal Dream* Shine In The Dark Rise Above It Lost Without A Trace Feeding The Fire* In My Line Of Work Man In The Mirror* Few Are Those Fire In Your Eyes Lost Saga*

Genre	Power Metal	Timo Kotipelto	Vocals
Tracks	10	Matias Kupiainen	Guitar
Running time	55 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	earMUSIC	Lauri Porra	Bass
Release	September 11, 2015	Rolf Pilve	Drums
Country	Finland	Jens Johansson	Keyboard
Producer	Matias Kupiainen
Similar artists	---

The Finnish metallers Stratovarius stay true to their game with speedy and light power metal and I must say that I truly recognize a lot of things from the few latest releases. The band's music holds an overall bombastic atmosphere with both symphonic and progressive elements and when you purchase a CD recorded by this outfit, you certainly know what type of music that will be featured on the disc.

I remember finding some satisfaction in Eternal's predecessor Nemesis, but since I really didn't enjoy the two previous albums before that at all, Polaris and Elysium, I admit that I looked upon this new record with some hesitation at first. I did certainly not take things for granted, but my attitude changed for the better pretty quickly after listening to this one a couple of times and it without a doubt gets my stamp of approval big-time and some of the songs are really awesome.

Even though it's nothing really new with it, it's definitely a more catchy and effective release than what they have been able to produce since their former captain of the ship Timo Tolkki parted ways with the band in an all but friendly manner some 7 years ago. Timo Kotipelto continues to come out strong with his performance and his voice is still a considerable attribute to the band's records. His voice is indeed highly suitable for this melodic music and I see no end to his essential input.

I think that this effort proves that Stratovarius is back on track again and I believe that fans to this band might now see the light at the end of the tunnel, because Eternal absolutely shows a long-awaited improvement with greater songs in comparison to what has been presented in the last decade.

Admittedly, I don't know how popular this type of music is among all the competition there is out there today, but one thing is for certain, there is a large number of very good songs offered on this release.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	6	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tobbe