SONATA ARCTICA — Ecliptica (review)

Album · 1999 · Power Metal

4/5 · 2012-01-13
UMUR

"Ecliptica" is the debut full-length studio album by Finnish power metal act Sonata Arctica. The album was released in September 1999 by Spinefarm Records in Europe and Century Media Records in the United States. "Ecliptica" was released right in the late 90s/early 00s power metal revival and gave Sonata Arctica a name from the get go. Timing is everything in music and while few would dispute the quality of the music on "Ecliptica", the fact that the album was released when it was, certainly didn´t hurt it´s case.

Sonata Arctica has always more or less been the brainchild of lead vocalist/keyboard player Tony Kakko. With a few exceptions he has written all music and lyrics for the album in addition to his role as the lead vocalist/keyboard player of the band. Taking into consideration that "Ecliptica" is a debut album and that the band were probably very young when they wrote and recorded the album the quality of the material is amazingly high and as the main composer Tony Kakko should receive a lot of praise for his contributions.

The music on the album is traditional Euro power metal with double pedal drumming, neo-classical keyboard and guitar themes, high pitched singing and anthemic sounding choruses. "Ecliptica" features both fast paced tracks like the opening track "Black File", "Kingdom for a Heart" and "8th Commandment", power ballads like "Replica" and "Letter to Dana" and a closing semi-progressive track in "Destruction Preventer", so there´s actually good variation on the album, which is great for the listening experience. The album starts out really strong with no less than six consecutive great tracks. Unfortunately the quality drops quite a bit with the cringe worthy "Letter to Dana". Badly written lyrics and Tony Kakko´s accent shining through a bit too much has always ruined this track for me. The next two tracks are also slightly inferior to the first six tracks (they are still pretty enjoyable though) and it´s only with the fabulous closing track "Destruction Preventer" that things seriously pick up again. And I mean with a vengeance! "Destruction Preventer" is an absolute power metal classic in my book and one of the highlights of the album.

The sound production is clear and powerful, suiting the music perfectly.

Overall "Ecliptica" is a very professional, powerful and well performed power metal album and as a debut album it´s honestly quite fantastic. While Tony Kakko is quite a mature songwriter for his age, there are some imature moments on the album too. Some of those moments are actually quite charming while others count as issues in my book. At the end of the day Sonata Arctica don´t do much on this album that hadn´t already been done by other power metal acts at that point, but they deliver their music with great conviction and they generally write some damn catchy and powerful songs. a 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is more than deserved.

more than 2 years ago
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Time Signature wrote:

more than 2 years ago

@adg211288: Thanks for the tip :-)

@UMUR: Yes, some cheese is okay - but too much is, well, not as good as too much cheese on a pizza.

adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Ever tried out Rebellion? They're a German power metal band with some trad qualities that are fast and guitar driven and their vocalist can deliver some pretty aggressive vocals for the genre. He sounds quite similar to Iced Earth's Matt Barlow actually.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Cheese is not always bad, but I agree with you that in general it´s not the most appealing element in euro power metal.

Time Signature wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yup maximum speed, minimum cheese.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I want speed, speed and more speed when I listen to euro power metal...:-)

Time Signature wrote:

more than 2 years ago

You're right about the two last albums. And I like the idea of a darker Sonata Arctica, but, to be honest, while they're good albums, I also find them a bit on the dull side.

Diogenes wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Their last two albums are way darker than anything else they've done, but they're also a lot different in terms of composition and playing. For me, the youthful nature of this album makes it that much better.

Time Signature wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, this one is quite good. Probably their best release and probably their one of their least cheesy releases.