Year : 2013
Style : Symphonic Metal ,Power Metal
Country : Finland
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 177 mb
Bio:
Timo Tolkki was born 3. 3. 66 in Helsinki Finland. He was 5 years old when he first touched a guitar and started playing when he was 7 years old. Tolkki took guitar lessons up until he was 14 and got his first electric guitar when he was 12 years old.His first musical influences were The Beatles, ABBA and The Shadows. When he heard “Smoke on the Water” playing on the radio, it changed the course of his playing and he started buying copies of Rainbow and Deep Purple’s albums. His ever first album bought was “Rainbow: On Stage”. Tolkki also found the myriad of guitar heroes existing in the beginning of the early 80’s including Randy Rhoads, Gary Moore and Yngwie Malmsteen. They all had a profound impact in Tolkki’s own playing style combined with his love for the classical music.After series of local bands he got a phonecall from Tuomo Lassila if he would like to join a band called Stratovarius. To correct a common false information, Stratovarius was actually formed during winter of 1984 and Tolkki joined the band just 2 months after it was formed.A series of shows and demos were made and Tolkki took relatively quickly a complete control of the band’s artistic direction and also the management duties. This lasted up until 1995 and resulted in 4 albums: “Fright Night”, “Twilight Time”, “Dreamspace” and “4th Dimension”. During this time, the band achieved a considerable success in Japan and 4th Dimension is still the most successful Stratovarius album in Japan with the sales figure of 75 000 copies.While the band was already in studio recording the 4th Dimension album, Tolkki decided to quit singing and an unknown singer called Timo Kotipelto was chosen as the new vocalist. In a dramatic move after the tour of 4th Dimension, Tolkki fired Tuomo Lassila and Antti Ikonen citing “lack of interest towards the music and the band” as the main reason and recruited Jens Johansson and Joerg Michael as their replacement.What was to follow was the history in Melodic Power Metal. The band recorded 4 albums between 1996-2000: “Episode”, ”Visions”, “Destiny and “Infinite” and made 4 world tours. Earned 3 consequetive gold discs from the sales of Finland and won a Finnish Grammy. The influence of Stratovarius as the leading force of Melodic Power Metal was justified. During this time Tolkki was still in complete control of the band’s artistic and musical direction and was responsible in writing the biggest hits of Stratovarius ever such as “Black Diamond”, “Hunting High and Low”, “The Kiss of Judas” and “Forever”. He has written over 200 songs for the band and produced all the albums while he was in the band.Elements pt 1 & 2 were an effort to take the sound of the band even further using real Symphonic Orchestra. The band made its biggest world tour with these albums.The readers of the renowned American Guitar World Magazine chose Timo Tolkki to the cathegory of 50 fastest guitar players of all time and position 88 in the cathegory of most influential metal guitar player of all time.The years 2004-2007 were very difficult time for the band due to Tolkki’s illness, but they managed to record a self titled album in 2005 and made a world tour in 2006. After a series of personal, financial and politicial reasons, Tolkki left Stratovarius in October 2007 explaining his views to the band and the management clearly in an email asking for further discussion. His explanations were not understood and the both parties remain in disagreement about what happened until today.After his departure from Stratovarius, he has had 2 bands: Revolution Renaissance and Symfonia and he has made solo albums.Today he is taking things more lightly running a mixing studio called “Studiotolkki” and releasing music when he feels like. May 2013 will see a worldwide release from Frontiers Records of Tolkki’s new Metal Opera called: “The Land of New Hope” which includes musical talents of Michael Kiske, Sharon Den Adel, Elize Ryd, Rob Rock, Russell Allen, Tony Kakko, Jens Johansson, Derek Sherinian and Alex Holzwarth.
Album:
Let’s admit that the idea to create another metal opera project isn’t all too original in times when projects like Avantasia happen to be more successful than ever. The fact that this record only appeared a few weeks after the sixth Avantasia output and that this record even features quite similar guest musicians and singers isn’t a coincidence as well. The European power metal mastermind and signature guitarist Timo Tolkki has though gone through hard times after his chaotic departure from Stratovarius, his short-lived new project Revolution Renaissance and the personal disaster of the Symfonia super-group and it’s great to have him back in form. Initially, Timo Tolkki only wanted to release a new solo record entitled “Classical Variations 2: Credo” that would have followed his first studio record back in 1994 but he canceled his PledgeMusic campaign to work on and eventually put out what we have here. This being said, I still hope for an eventual release of his solo record.“The Land Of New Hope” might not have the most original concept even though the story itself is clearly superior to the latest Avantasia concepts and lyrics in my opinion. The fantasy and science-fiction lyrics fit much more to the musical style than the sometimes too emotionally driven lyrics by Tobias Sammet’s project. On the other side, this new record is clearly Timo Tolkki’s strongest release since the commercially successful power metal hit album “Infinite” he released back in the year 2000 with Stratovarius. This record goes back to the basics and delivers typical European power metal with a few symphonic metal elements. Let’s cite the gripping and powerful opener “Avalanche Anthem”, the emotional, fast and highly melodic “To The Edge Of The World” with its slight Dream Theater touch and “The Magic Of The Night” that reminds me of a track in the key of Stratovarius’ “Hunting High And Low” single thirteen years ago as typical genre highlights that fans are going to adore and haters are going to criticize. The usual symphonic ballad comes along with “I’ll Sing You Home” but it’s not as boring and commercial as the last Avantasia ballads and reminds me rather of the Stratovarius track “Mother Gaia”. The true highlight of this release comes with the closing epic title track “The Land Of New Hope” that has intriguing arrangements reminding me of Helloween’s legendary “Keeper Of The Seven Keys” epic. This song is all European power metal is about and guest singer Michael Kiske definitely delivers an outstanding job on this amazing album closer. Despite its length, this track never gets boring and is easily the best song on here.That being said, the guest musicians are very well chosen for this record. Instead of adding too many cooks that spoil the broth, Timo Tolkki invited only six singers plus a soprano vocalist. These singers really add the cherry on the cake and put the essential enthusiasm, power and spirit into the solid arrangements. Let’s cite the powerful rocking vocals of Rob Rock who is involved in bands such as Impellitteri and who sounds a little bit like Jorn on the Avantasia releases. One must also point out the grounded, powerful and quite variable vocals of Amaranthe singer Elize Ryd. This Swedish powerhouse is one of the best female singers in the metal scene and should become the next big thing as well. I had heard a lot of positive comments on her before but I didn’t expect her to be that enthusiastic and technically skilled as she appears to be on this record. I will surely take a closer look at her career by now. Michael Kiske only appears on the closing title track but he easily delivers his very best vocal duties since the golden age of Helloween back in the late eighties. He doesn’t seem to have lost anything of his impressive vocal range in the last twenty-five years and his vocals still send shivers down my spine. Other singers are Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation, Russell Allen of Symphony X and Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica. They deliver solid jobs but can’t keep up with the other three ones. Let’s not forget about the musicians who are all big names of the power metal scene as well. We get drummer Alex Holzwarth of Rhapsody Of Fire as well as three keyboarders in form of Mikko Härkin of Cain's Offering and who has already been part of bands like Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius keyboarder Jens Johansson and finally Derek Sherinian who is currently involved in the band of Billy Idol and who has already been a member of Dream Theater. As you can see, there was a lot of quality personal involved on this project and there are two more records to come that should complete what is supposed to become a trilogy.In the end, this release doesn’t reinvent the genre and somewhat jumps on the bandwagon but it’s a truly well-crafted European power metal release that reminds you of many classic songs and records that have been written in the last three decades. This release has an interesting background story, a beautiful cover artwork, a very good production, a clear and coherent guiding and a bunch of highly talented guest singers who really make this record stand out. Genre fans should definitely get this release because of its surprisingly great quality. Anybody else can skip it because this release doesn’t offer anything really new.
Line Up:
Sharon Den Adel - Vocal (Within Temptation)
Timo Tolkki - Guitars, Bass (2012-present) - See also: Timo Tolkki, ex-Revolution Renaissance, ex-Symfonia, ex-Stratovarius
Alex Holzwarth - Drums - See also: Dol Ammad, Pergana, Rhapsody of Fire, ex-Sieges Even, ex-Looking-Glass-Self, ex-Val'Paraiso, Brutal Godz, ex-Avantasia, ex-Luca Turilli's Rhapsody, ex-Paradox, ex-Blind Guardian (live)
Mikko Härkin - Keyboards - See also: Cain's Offering, Mehida, Luca Turilli's Rhapsody (live), ex-Symfonia, ex-Essence of Sorrow, ex-Solution .45, ex-Sonata Arctica, ex-Kenziner, ex-Wingdom
Derek Sherinian Keyboards - See also: Derek Sherinian, Jughead, Planet X, Theodore Ziras, ex-Platypus, Billy Idol, Black Country Communion, ex-All Too Human, ex-Dream Theater, ex-Explorers Club, ex-Yngwie J. Malmsteen, ex-Alice Cooper, ex-John Sykes (live), ex-Kiss (live)
Jens Johansson - Keyboards - See also: Mastermind, Stratovarius, Russell Allen's Atomic Soul (live), ex-Johansson, ex-Jens Johansson, ex-The Johansson Brothers, ex-Silver Mountain, ex-Yngwie J. Malmsteen, ex-Kotipelto (live), ex-Dio
Tracklist:
01. Avalanche Anthem 04:52
02. A World Without Us 05:42
03. Enshrined in My Memory 04:05
04. In the Name of the Rose 04:26
05. We Will Find a Way 04:24
06. Shine 03:36
07. The Magic of the Night 04:42
08. To the Edge of the Earth 05:01
09. I'll Sing You Home 05:01
10. The Land of New Hope 08:53
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