Thunderstone - Tools Of Destruction

*=Staff's pick	Tool Of The Devil* Without Wings* Liquid Of The Kings I Will Come Again* Welcome To The Real The Last Song* Another Time Feed The Fire* Weight Of The World* Land Of Innocence

Genre	Power Metal	Pasi Rantanen	Vocals
Tracks	10	Nino Laurenne	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Titus Hjelm	Bass
Release	29 April 2005	Mirka Rantanen	Drums
Country	Finland	Kari Tornack	Keyboards
Similar artists	Masterplan, Evergrey, Stratovarius

In the absence of Stratovarius other Finnish metal acts continue to deliver top class metal and among them Thunderstone definitely have to be accounted for. This highly interesting five-piece recently released their third album, Tools of Destruction, barely a year after their sophomore effort The Burning. Going out strong their label early promised that this was their best release ever that also should be acknowledged as one of the top releases of the year.

I would be hard pressed to say that I fully agree to the second statement but the rumours that this should be Thunderstone's best effort so far actually had quite a few legs to stand on. With the first album the Stratovarius effect was very notable but on The Burning the band began finding their own feet, developing a more personal sound signature and Tools of Destruction takes things a little further still. Instead of a flag waving return and exploration of the first album's ideas The Burning saw the band incorporating a sound mainly described as a marriage between Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica and Masterplan. Tools of Destruction expands that sphere even some more and also invites Evergrey to the family, but without losing the Thunderstone core.

The Burning also introduced Pasi Rantanen in a completely new spotlight compared to the debut and here he continues to impress and shine with his ballsy soulful vocal delivery further enhanced while still remaining mostly comparable to Jonny Gioeli and Jorn Lande. His abilities have truly turned out to be the real band trademark that's for sure and vocal performances like this really lift an already fine album. A nice blend of songs that hover between moderate to fast driven up tempo with the first mentioned type superior in number are being supplied here and the Masterplan and Evergrey resemblances are more and more getting the upper hand compared to the Stratovarius ones.

But while even more Stratovarius' likenesses continue to pale the Sonata Arctica sounding keys remain evident. The keyboard-tinged music in general works very well and even contributes with some neoclassical inputs but it can in actuality be a little too prevailing on some songs. It never completely succumbs and gets totally out of control but at times it gets a little too exaggerated and some instalments could have been replaced by the guitars that are decidedly better sounding.

But this album is virtually equally delicious throughout no matter what pace the cuts are delivered in. From slower almost hard rock instalments like I Will Come Again, to groovy mid tempo heavy metal tracks as Tool of the Devil, Liquid of the Kings and Welcome to the Real and to the charging speedy power metal outings Without Wings, The Last Song and Feed the Fire, Thunderstone governs the whole spectra. The finishing semi-epic Land of Innocence also deserves individual credit and sets a very fine ending to the album. Main song writer Nino Laurenne's got a very sensitive touch to his compositions and a very good feel of what kind of metal Thunderstone should deliver.

The atmosphere provides two almost opposites at the same time, namely an almost happy metal approach to some choruses and on parallel with this a very dark sense raging throughout. The band's just got an inarguable sense for this kind of music and even though I originally thought that they should have continued on the marked out initial Stratovarius up tempo path, the new steps the band has chosen to stroll are truly fitting despite that it took me quite a few listening sessions to realise it.

Once that has been established, the brawny vocals, the strong variety in the song repertoire, the solid instrument efforts on every position, the best production the band's suffered so far and the overall very good compositions all come together to produce Thunderstone's finest hour in their up to now pretty short tenure. It never escalates to the dizziest heights of brilliance and can't be said to expand the genre's quite limited palette but it's still providing healthy doses of well played heavy/power metal. The feeling and the material of this release should just be more than sufficient to feed mainly any Masterplan's and Finnish metaller's habits.

See also review of: Apocalypse Again , Thunderstone , The Burning

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8,5	9	8

Summary
8,5 chalices of 10 - Mat