Thunderstone - Thunderstone

*=Staff's pick	Let The Demons Free* Virus* World's Cry Me, My Enemy* Will To Power* Weak Eyes Of A Stranger* Like Father, Like Son Voice In A Dream Spread My Wings Wasted Years (Bonus)

Genre	Power Metal	Pasi Rantanen	Vocals
Tracks	11	Nino Laurenne	Guitar
Runningtime	50 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Titus Hjelm	Bass
Release	01 Jul. 2002	Mirka"Leka"Rantanen	Drums
Country	Finland	Kari Tornack	Keyboards
Similar artists	Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius

Once again we are facing a power metal band from Finland that play uptempo songs with keyboardbased music consisting of strong choruses and melodies, and strong guitarplaying. Not surprisingly this sounds familiar - we have heard it before, as band from Finland in this genre tend to have a similar sound nowadays. But is this a boring, uninteresting bagatelle? The answer is no.

This is - according to me - how Stratovarius should sound, and not like on their latest releases, and than in particular on their latest effort Elements Pt.1 which if you ask me is one of the most boring albums of the last decade. As usual in cases like this, when a band has gathered influences from an, old established band that once made way for a new type of music, you hear voices that say "Ahhhh...it´s all crap - there is only one original and that rest are bad copies." Sure - but the others are doing it way more better nowadays! Thunderstone is a good example of that, along with Sonata Arctica.

Here we get to hear those classic, fastdriven power metaltunes accompanied by Pasi Rantanens for this music very suitable voice, and good teamplay between guitar/keyboard and of course singalong choruses as they are supposed to sound when it comes to this kind of music. Eyes Of A Stranger, Me, My Enemy, Like Father, Like Son and the opener Let The Demons Free are double bassdrum metalpearls with good riffing, bridges and refrains that sticks, and the midtempo songs are also all very well played and manage to keep up the interest throughout the whole album. The guitarsound is very good, and lies like cotton around an old metalfans sensitive ears.

What reduces the grade this time - like so many, many times before - are the ballads. That kind of abominations don´t belong on a metalalbum. Exceptionally few bands can pull off something like that. Be sure to check this album out if you are a sucker for finnishmetal a´la Sonata Arctica and/or Stratovarius. This is a good album, but these guys might need another album in their back to really hit off with that killer album that I am sure is lying latent underneath this.

What I would like to hear next time if I may cast a wish, is just a tiny bit faster songs, less semiballads/ballads, and more solos. Then we are looking at a really, really good metalalbum, people.

See also review of: Apocalypse Again , Tools Of Destruction , The Burning

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tommy