Stratovarius - Nemesis

Published February 22 2013

*=Staff's pick	Abandon Unbreakable* Stand My Ground* Halcyon Days* Fantasy Out Of The Fog Castles In The Air Dragons One Must Fall* Fireborn Hunter If The Story Is Over Nemesis

Genre	Neoclassic/Power Metal	Timo Kotipelto	Vocals
Tracks	13	Matias Kupiainen	Guitar
Running time	66 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	earMusic	Lauri Porra	Bass
Release	22 February 2013	Rolf Pilve	Drums
Country	Finland	Jens Johansson	Keyboard
Producer	Matias Kupiainen
Similar artists	---

Deluxe edition digipak tracklist. Fireborn and Hunter are bonus tracks and not included in the standard jewel case edition.

My expectations were high after listening to the Unbreakable EP earlier this year. When speaking about the songs' quality, Nemesis is one huge step forward from their latest releases, although most of it pretty much sounds the same. All through, the best Stratovarius album since Timo Tolkki's departure, but still not quite as good as I hoped for.

Stratovarius new main man Matias Kupiainen is by far the most frequent songwriter on this release and then it's about evenly spread between Timo Kotipelto, Jens Johansson, Lauri Porra and also former Sonata Arctica guitarist Jani Liimatainen, who besides additional songwriting also plays acoustic guitar on If The Story Is Over and released an album with Kotipelto last fall. These facts are naturally reflected in the music, when Kupiainen also produced all their last albums as well. I don't know if the band's veterans Johansson and Kotipelto just continue for the sake of it and to still earn some bucks, since the interest in songwriting should weigh heavier on their shoulders than on the newer guys. Perhaps that flaming fire is gone and other things in life are more important to them.

It still sounds like Stratovarius with loud keyboards and a howling and brilliant vocalist. However, the songs aren't that great and they don't reach the same level as we all were spoiled with on for instance Visions and Destiny. It also should be added that is was well over a decade ago this band released a totally awesome record. We'll probably have to get used to albums in this league, from a now only fairly good band, with a couple of good and great songs peaking on each album. Stand My Ground and One Must Fall have epic choruses where the tempo slows down a bit and those rhythms are to my liking. I still dig Unbreakable and also catchy Halcyon Days and the title track.

6 chalices to a fully acceptable album, not bad in any way, and a shake-up from their two latest releases, Elysium and Polaris. I can't say that I'm particularly dissatisfied with the outcome, even if a good share of negativity is present in this review, but after listening to the EP's title track, my expectations were a bit higher than what we now get.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	5	7	8	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe